End in Sight for This Tyranny?
By Farooq S. Khan
Houston, Texas

Zilla Huma Usman, a Punjab Government minister and community activist, was shot dead last Tuesday by an extremist for refusing to wear the veil.
Who is the culprit behind this crime?
Those who have been telling innocent people to go out and find a person who disagrees:
1. Be the judge yourself.
2. Run the trial yourself.
3. Decide the punishment yourself.
4. Execute anyone who disagrees with you.
All those who sermonize what is right and what is wrong must tell the people that a person must be tried by a court of law to be punished not for disagreeing with you. We are witnessing this disconcerting attitude everyday: an innocent person ties a bomb and dies thinking he is punishing the infidels!
Please call your representative of the National Assembly in Pakistan especially and in the Muslim world generally to make a law that if an Imam or a mullah or Ayetullah does not agree with that fact that only court of law can judge and punish a person then he should not be allowed to speak to the public. Free speech does not allow to preach against the law.
If we fail to do this then our own children will be murdered for wearing pants and shirts or for not wearing a veil or just because one happens to disagree with them.
Clerics are preaching that non-Islamic dress is haram. Now we should wait for the news that a man wearing pants has been shot dead.
In Bajure Agency, barbers have stopped shaving beard because religious zealots have threatened to kill the barbers if they shaved the beard of their customers.
All of them are required to tell the people that killing is murder and punishment can only come from a court.
Is there an end in sight for this tyranny?

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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