Thousands mourn Pakistani student

The full text can be found here.

Amer Cheema, 28, died in custody 10 days ago after being arrested in March on charges of attempting to kill the editor of Die Welt for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad first published in Denmark last year.


My thoughts: Pakistan mourns the death of an individual who hanged himself...yes, this is pretty sad, except that he hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial for attempted murder. It's pretty easy to determine that the entire Western world would say a collective, "good riddens." And it's also pretty easy to determine that the cosmic justice flies in the face of those in the Muslim world who would love nothing more than the killing of those who "defamed" the prophet. It's pretty simple to see that Muslims generally think it OK to murder whenever they feel it's right. Well, by that measure, I personally find it right that Amer sent his own sorry ass to the grave.

Islamist parties opposed to Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, have sought to make political capital from the death of Cheema, depicting him as a martyr for defending Muslim honour.


My thoughts: Defending honour by attempting to murder is hardly honourable. Martyrdome in the Christian faith is facing persecution and threat of death while still holding true to ideals. In that respect, the Danish cartoonists are the true martyrs in this scenario.

German justice officials said last week the student had hung himself using his clothes. But Farid Piracha, a lawmaker from the Jamaat-i-Islami party who first raised the issue in the National Assembly over a week ago, said at the funeral that Cheema had been killed. "The killing of Cheema was a barbaric act. He was killed by torture," Piracha said.

My thoughts: Pakistani Muslims, like many Muslims, refuse to believe that anything bad could be done by Muslims, nor that anything good can be done by anyone other than Muslims. I'm surprised that Farid didn't blame the Jews for Cheema's death. Why not? Everything else is blamed on the Jews or the West (well, they did work in some blame for the West). Pathetic...