Christmas eve in Pakistan…

LAHORE: Thousands of people rallied in major Pakistani cities on Friday threatening further protests and anarchy if the government moves to amend a controversial blasphemy law.

A ruling Pakistan Peoples Party lawmaker sparked outcry last month by seeking to end the death penalty for blasphemy, after a Christian mother of five was sentenced to hang for defaming the Prophet Mohammed.

Demonstrators marched in the eastern city of Lahore, the port city of Karachi and the central city of Multan, after influential religious parties called for protests to defend the law.

A crowd of nearly 1,500 people gathered in Lahore, calling for “Jihad” and pledging to sacrifice their lives to protect the honour of Prophet Mohammad. They also warned that attempts to soften the law would trigger nationwide protests.

“Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and we will not tolerate any attempt to amend the law,” a leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), Maulana Ahmad Khan told the participants.

In the port city of Karachi, more than 2,000 people rallied against Rehman’s proposed draft bill and demanded the government give Bibi a severe punishment for insulting Prophet Mohammad.

Bibi was arrested in June 2009 after Muslim women labourers refused to drink from a bowl of water she was asked to fetch while out working in the fields.

Days later, the women complained that she made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed. Bibi was set upon by a mob, arrested by police and sentenced on November 8.

Leaders of JUI and radical Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party warned that the government would “face a strong reaction if Bibi was pardoned.”