11 year old Down’s syndrome child faces death penalty over burned Islamic texts
When I received an e-mail that a little girl with Down’s syndrome was arrested and jailed in Pakistan, my stomach felt like it had been kicked. Rimsha is from the Christian village of Maherabad in Islamabad. She was severely beaten by local Muslims before being arrested. She is reported to be in very bad shape and has bruises on her face and hands. Other Christians and their homes were attacked and an ultimatum issued by the Mullahs for Christians to leave the area. More than 600 Christians have now fled. BBC report here.
Rimsha was allegedly throwing away rubbish that included burned Islamic religious texts. Whether this is true or not is beside the point. The question is how could the local Imam incite his Muslims followers to beat up a special-needs child and threaten to set her on fire? How could the Pakistani police have torn this traumatised child away from her family and thrown her into a rat-infested adult prison? Why are none of the world’s ambassadors demanding her instant release? Where are the cardinals and the archbishops? Is blasphemy in Sharia law really too hot for anybody to handle?
We see a lot of angry Muslims on the streets of our cities. When are we going to see them march and say “not in our name” to these atrocities?
Since I heard this news I have had nightmares visualising this innocent little girl separated from her family. I have a child with Down’s syndrome and know how special and sensitive our children are. Not an ounce of malice in them. When you have a child with a disability, you become part of the worldwide family of parents whose child has that condition. I can be visiting another country, and if I see a child with Down’s syndrome at another table I am compelled to go and talk to their parents. Even if I don’t speak the language. Likewise, people from abroad approach me and my beautiful daughter on the streets of London to tell me they have a special Down’s child in their family. So now Rimsha is part of my family. I cannot begin to imagine what her parents must be going through.
Wednesday night, along with the British Pakistani Christian association, I went to a demonstration outside the Pakistani High Commission in Knightsbridge, London. From the microphone I appealed for this child to be released back to the bosom of her family. My daughter and her friends with special needs came along too. They wrote cards and brought their own toys for this little girl – to comfort her in her dark moments in the prison. We left them on the steps of the building.
The cruelty to Rimsha continues with the prison inspectors refusing to meet with her lawyers. Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, one of Rimsha’s lawyers, said “I myself contacted the inspector general (of prisons) by phone and he told me that he will call me back, but I am still waiting to speak to him.” Christian activist Xavier William, who had visited Rimsha at the police station where she was first detained, said she was “frightened and traumatised.” More here.
I represent Harif, an organising representing Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. We know the meaning of bigotry and ethnic cleansing. We Jews were among its first victims in the Arab and Muslim world. We were branded criminals, just because we were Jews. Now it’s the turn of the Christians. When the Christian Copts were being killed this year on the streets of Cairo, Levana Zamir, a Jew born in Cairo, told me “that’s what they did to us when we lived there. Thank G-d there was a State of Israel in 1950 where we could flee to”.
Sharia law is criminalising Christians just for being Christians. If you are mentally handicapped or not, it makes no difference. The law makes no allowances. It simply will not tolerate the Other.
Please write to the Pakistani authorities and your politicians and demand her immediate release. Please pray for Rimsha.
Updates are on the British Pakistani Christian Association website.
Michelle Huberman is the Creative Director of Harif, an Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, always keeping an eye on these regions, whether political or cultural. Michelle currently lives in London.
@ Laura:
Unfortunately there are too few words to adequately describe a man who would deliberately bait and kill a young girl, let alone a young girl suffering from Down’s Syndrome.
Bill Levinson possibly comes closest with the word “Untermenschen”. But that word is not nearly visceral enough…
And to those who are possibly considering assigning the problem “culture,” the idea of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is in my opinion the perfect measuring rod. There isn’t a single being in this world, including these savages/untermenschen who would remain unmoved if someone close to him were to be targeted for abuse or death. Unless of course that savage is a psychopath. The fact that the savages have no problem meting it out to anyone outside of their circle under any pretext, says more about the savages than anything else. It also says a great deal about the media and “intellectuals” who continue to justify this affront to humanity under a variety of psychobabble pretexts.
Yet we are not supposed to call them savages.
@ keelie:
Because she isn’t a Palestinian or a declared victim of the Jews in Israel.
They support the radical Muslims and are pro-Palestinians and anti-Israel. Muslims, Arabs and even ethnics killing other ethnics is OK.
Yes, “they are concerned only with themselves and the cosy little worlds they inhabit.”
And the Jews for some unfathomable reasons.
What happened to this unfortunate little girl happens all over the so called 3rd world and even 1st world countries, daily in the hundreds if not thousands. Let a Jewish soldier provoked and under stress rifle butt a declared provocateur the world goes nuts.
Christians don’t care about ill treated other Christians as Christians their concerns are for their souls not their physical security.
They want to kill the little girl, irrespective of her “guilt”. Why? Because it’s what they do. They are ‘way beyond barbaric.
As for:
Because they are concerned only with themselves and the cosy little worlds they inhabit.
And of course, we haven’t seen any student marches or riots on behalf of the little girl.