Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Lawyering, Politics, Religion

The Murder Of Rashid Rehman

rashid-rehmanThe legal profession this week lost one of our best and bravest. Pretending to be potential clients in a matrimonial case, two people entered the law firm of Rashid Rehman Khan and shot him to death. Rashid Rehman, a coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), had faced death threats for years after he courageously represented a university professor accused of blasphemy. Unable to kill the accused, Islamic extremists appear to have now killed the lawyer. Rehman never flinched in his commitment to the rule of law and to this country.

Pakistan’s continued prosecution of people for expressing their views of faith remains one of the great outrages of our generation. Pakistan is one of our allies that has worked with the Obama Administration to create a new international blasphemy standard. The continued crackdown of anti-religious speech is part of its long-standing blasphemy abuses. For many years, I have been writing about the threat of an international blasphemy standard and the continuing rollback on free speech in the West. For recent columns, click here and here and here.

We have been following the rise of anti-blasphemy laws around the world, including the increase in prosecutions in the West and the support of the Obama Administration for the prosecution of some anti-religious speech under the controversial Brandenburg standard.

The case involving Rehman is typical and disgraceful. Junaid Hafeez, a lecturer at Multan’s Bahauddin Zakariya University was accused of defaming the prophet Mohammed on social media last year. No one would represent the professor until Rehman stepped forward. He was greeted at court with threats against his life. Three lawyers representing the complainant confronted him and reportedly one told him “You will not come to court next time because you will not exist anymore.” Notably, these threats were reportedly made in front of a judge who took no action against those making the threats — an outrageous violation of every principle under the rule of law.

Pakistan (one of our largest recipients of aid) continues to jail people who simply express their faith or views on religion.

There are at least 16 people in Pakistan are on death row for blasphemy and in 2012 the Center for Research and Security Studies found that more than 50 people accused of blasphemy have been lynched since 1990.

This brave lawyer is now dead and the judge who took no action on the threats continues to sit on cases and those lawyers who allegedly threatened him continue to practice law. Putting aside our earlier work on an international blasphemy standard, the question is why we continue to send billions to countries that aggressively fight the core civil liberties that defines not just this country but the rule of law. The death of this extraordinary man is a disgrace not just to Pakistan but those who dismiss blasphemy prosecutions as simply some local or domestic concern. It is not just the denial of due process but the denial of free speech and free exercise — rights that should be guaranteed to all as a basic matter of human rights.

Source: ABA Journal

186 thoughts on “The Murder Of Rashid Rehman”

  1. But wait there’s more: Sunni-Shiite violence soars in Pakistan

    Tit-for-tat target killings between Sunnis and Shiites have escalated this past year, with Taliban forces repeatedly targeting Shiite processions and places of worship and Iran-backed Shiite groups retaliating.

    “With nuclear sanctions likely to be eased in Iran, and NATO forces withdrawing from Afghanistan, both Iran and Saudi Arabia will use their proxies to wrestle for influence over Pakistan,” said Habib Ahmad, who teaches economics in Multan. He was referring to the interim deal struck between Iran and six global powers, under which Tehran agreed to scale back uranium enrichment in return for sanctions relief.

  2. SS,

    Neither? THREE HUNDRED LITTLE GIRLS?

    Holy geez! I thought I was callous.

    The perp said they were for sale. Go buy ’em.

  4. Schulte, it’s really hard to take you seriously when you conveniently ignore my comments that prove that you’re wrong. In this case, in regards to racism, you are aware that Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, who will be on the BENGHAZI! (TM, GOP) committee, called Obama “uppity”?

    1. Supak – could you send us a link on that uppity thingie? And what does that have to do with Benghazi anyway?

  5. feynman wins the award for understatment today in regards to the arms given to the mullahs by Reagan:

    “Trouble ensued.”

    Glad I could help, po.

    “SS,

    Option 1 – Dollars

    Option 2 – Bullets”

    Option 3: neither.

    Pressuring the Nigerian government to do the right thing has, so far, resulted in more than I thought I would hear from them.

    I don’t care for war. But I do care for going after terrorists. I don’t always agree with how we do that, and I think the blowback we’ve gotten throughout history has proven that it’s a tough thing to do right, but in cases like this, I fully support sending in military people to work with the Nigerian government to try to bring these criminals to justice.

  6. Annie

    Schulte, you callin’ the Pope a commie? Them’s fightin’ words for Catholics. Uh oh. o_O
    ================
    The PS is not being Popelly Correct.

  7. Paul Schulte

    Dredd – you are aware that playing the race card only works with the home team. The away team is really not concerned because they know it is a lie.
    =======================
    PC is Pope Capitalism, a better form.

    Free of libertarian racism too.

  8. SS,

    Option 1 – Dollars

    Option 2 – Bullets

    It’s like Viet Nam. We should have shot dollar bills at the Viet Cong not bullets.

    1. We should have support Ho Chi Minh at the end of WWII instead of the French.

  9. Scott,

    Sometimes an administration is willing to ransom hostages. Reagan traded guns to Iran in hopes that some hostages would be released. Trouble ensued.

    1. Sure, that happens all the time, but as a matter of policy, they would not acknowledge it. It happened recently in Africa, in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Sudan and Somalia, where countries, European and Asian, and perhaps even American ransomed hostages, but all, obviously denied it or refused to comment.
      Also, the US have swooped down to help, which gives us increased presence in the area that Africom and the affiliated covert agencies hadn’t, justifies it, and allows us the leisure of doing what we do best, show force and might and kill first, negotiate later.

  10. You said it all, Scott. Saves me quite a bit of ranting, and the attached increased stress level.

  11. John
    SS,

    “Just buy the girls back and we can debate whether it was right or wrong later. Just buy them back. Just get them back. The end justifies the means, in this case.”

    I disagree. Again. Payment would encourage further kidnappings.

  12. Schulte: “The away team is really not concerned because they know it is a lie.”

    What’s a lie? That racism exists? That it is demonstrated when people claim Obama didn’t write his book (just as they claimed Frederick Douglas didn’t write his)? When they claim Obama isn’t a Christian? When they claim he isn’t an American? When they hang nooses from trees? When they burn crosses on lawns? When they execute black men for crimes they didn’t commit? When they stop and search minorities more than they do whites?

    How about this guy, who called Obama “uppity”? Are you aware of the history of that word?

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/georgia-gop-congressman-calls.html

    “Social justice is justice for socialists.”

    No, it’s for society. All of us. To deny that racism exists today is so far from the truth that I’m surprised it isn’t considered uncivil under the terms of this blog.

  13. Schulte, you callin’ the Pope a commie? Them’s fightin’ words for Catholics. Uh oh. o_O

  15. Dredd – you are aware that playing the race card only works with the home team. The away team is really not concerned because they know it is a lie.

  16. Annie

    Ohhhh boy, Dredd, that’s not going to go over well with the wrong wing. :/
    ==========================
    Blasphemy is using the race card and being PC to some of those proclaiming themselves to be libertarian, yet:

    Racism is actually quite compatible with libertarian economics.

    Libertarian economics stresses individualism, even though these guys know that their moms changed their diapers and they had to get help all along the way growing up. Individualism is great, but I remember going to class reunions and seeing that once you got to the 20th reunion, there was a lot less individualism and a lot more humility. We all need people. We are not islands.

    Yet there is a theme historically that comes from Mises. For Mises, as I quoted in Ludwig Von Mises Implies Being a Savage Animal Is Ok!, the newborn child is born a savage. This is why libertarians only accept the legitimacy of voluntary relationships. This plays into the desire to repeal the civil rights act, so that you can kick out ethnic minorities from your restaurant without serving them.

    This plays into the desire of Rothbard to voluntarily separate from blacks in a nation and in public activity. You can see how this insidious morality breaks down society and good will.

    One can deduce that if the foundation of libertarianism is rotten, so is the elitist financial decay that seeks limited government to the extreme. It is a decay because it is based upon the desire to ignore the needs of the greater society.

    (Exposing the Racist History Of Libertarianism And Murray Rothbard). Hunker down Mr. Pope, you are not being civil.

  17. If god were real wouldn’t she have made sure that all those who practice religion would practice the correct religion?

  18. SS,

    Just buy the girls back and we can debate whether it was right or wrong later. Just buy them back. Just get them back. The end justifies the means, in this case.

  19. Ohhhh boy, Dredd, that’s not going to go over well with the wrong wing. :/

  20. One nation the wrong-wing of America has not gotten to is the Vatican State.

    The Pope spoke a blasphemy that if the wrong-wing had its way, would be prosecuted for blasphemy:

    Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the “economy of exclusion” that is taking hold today.

    Francis made the appeal during a speech to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of major U.N. agencies who are meeting in Rome this week.

    Latin America’s first pope has frequently lashed out at the injustices of capitalism and the global economic system that excludes so much of humanity.

    On Friday, Francis called for the United Nations to promote a “worldwide ethical mobilization” of solidarity with the poor in a new spirit of generosity.

    He said a more equal form of economic progress can be had through “the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society.”

    (HP). I expect this view will be called a libertarian, socialist, blasphemous, or liberal viewpoint depending on the politics of the exclaimer.

    The Pope needs a lawyer now.

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