AGENCE FRANCE PRESS
About 40,000 people rallied in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Sunday in the latest protest against proposed reforms of a controversial blasphemy law, police said.
Religious groups have held protests in several Pakistani cities since former Punjab governor Salman Taseer vowed to amend the law, that was recently used to sentence a Christian woman to death
Taseer’s stance enraged the country’s increasingly conservative religious base and he was assassinated on January 4 by his own security guard, who has said he killed the governor over his support for reform.
Under intense pressure from religious parties, Pakistan’s government has since said it had no intentions to amend the law.
Demonstrators from religious parties Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Jamaat-ud-Dawa held banners in support of Mumtaz Qadri – the police commando who shot dead Taseer.
Participants chanted slogans including “Free Mumtaz Qadri”, “We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the honour of Prophet Mohammad” and “Changes in blasphemy law not accepted.”
An AFP reporter saw activists carrying effigies of Pope Benedict XVI and Pakistani minorities affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti shouting slogans “Allah-o-Akbar.”
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