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Dr. Kaya appointed NCIC vice-chair At its January Board meeting, NCIC appointed Dr. H. Koya editor/publisher of FIJI SUN and THE MUSLIMS NEWS as the vice chair.

Former law enforcement officer with criminal investigation and an instructor at the Royal Fiji Academy, Koya brings with a wide range of experiences and leadership skills in operating and managing both business and non-profit organizations.

Koya is also the founder-chair of INTERFAITH AMERICA in the Bay Area and works for the Superior Court of California, Alameda county.

He is the current chair of NCIC’s Education and Science Committee and welcomes all board members to be part of his team.

(Above with NCIC chair Imam Bilal) OPEN HOUSE ON ISLAM AT WEEKES LIBRARY, HAYWARD Koya is hosting first Open House On Islam: Saturda Feb 5, 2011 Weekes Library, Patrick Ave X Tennyson Rd, Hayward 1 PM TO 4PM. Al welcome. Snacks and tea will be provided.

AGENDA: (1) Tabligh/Dawah (2) Muslim Multi-Media (3) Islamic Sc. Symposium (4) Muslim Leadership Workshop.

Editorial: Painful demise!

It is with enormous pain and deep disdain we note the brutal killing last week of the governor of Punjab in Pakistan as the notion embroils itself in deepening conflict against the removal of the draconian blasphemy law.

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer assassinated in Islamabad

Salman Taseer was repeatedly shot at close range with a sub-machine gun Continue reading the main story

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The influential governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, has died after being shot by one of his bodyguards in the capital, Islamabad.

Mr Taseer, a senior member of the Pakistan People's Party, was shot when getting into his car at a market.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the guard had told police that he killed Mr Taseer because of the governor's opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy law.

Many were angered by his defence of a Christian woman sentenced to death.

Continue reading the main story

He was a very good friend, a politician and a businessman. He was a national hero” Rehman MalikPakistani Interior Minister

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared three days of national mourning and ordered flags lowered to half-mast. He also ordered an immediate inquiry into Mr Taseer's killing and appealed for calm.

PPP supporters wept and shouted in anger as the governor's coffin was put into an ambulance and driven away from a hospital in Islamabad.

Dozens took to the streets in Punjab's capital, Lahore, burning tyres and blocking traffic.

There were also protests in the central city of Multan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the assassination, saying Mr Taseer's death was "a great loss".

"I had the opportunity to meet Governor Taseer in Pakistan and I admired his work to promote tolerance and the education of Pakistan's future generations," she said.

"The United States remains committed to helping the government and people of Pakistan as they persevere in their campaign to bring peace and stability to their country."

It is the most high profile assassination in Pakistan since the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the PPP's leader, in 2007.

'Voice of courage' Mr Taseer, 66, was shot repeatedly at close range by his Elite Force guard as he got into his car at the Kohsar Market, a shopping centre in Islamabad popular with Westerners and wealthy Pakistanis, Mr Malik said.

Mr Taseer told the BBC in November 2010: "I feel the Pakistan we want is a progressive and liberal Pakistan"

"The governor fell down and the man who fired at him threw down his gun and raised both hands," Ali Imran, a witness, told Reuters news agency.

One doctor told the Associated Press that Mr Taseer was shot 26 times. The suspect was carrying a sub-machine gun.

Unconfirmed reports say up to five other people were also wounded when Mr Taseer's other bodyguards opened fire following the attack.

It is believed Mr Taseer had been returning to his car after meeting a friend for lunch at a nearby restaurant. He had previously been to the presidential palace, the Senate and the interior ministry.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis M Ilyas KhanBBC News, Islamabad The assassination of Salman Taseer once again highlights Pakistan's unending troubles. His death has left the country in shock at a time when it faces an imminent political crisis.

On the face of it, the assassination appears to be an individual act of a police guard in Mr Taseer's security detail.

But the timing holds deeper implications for the government, which is struggling to shore up political support to maintain a majority in parliament. Whether it gets this support will be decided by one of two major political forces of Punjab - the opposition PML-N and the PML-Q parties. The assassination has the potential to upset these negotiations.

At a news conference, Mr Malik said: "The police guard who killed him says he did this because Mr Taseer recently defended the proposed amendments to the blasphemy law.

"This is what he told the police after surrendering himself.

"But we are investigating to find out whether it was his individual act or whether someone else was also behind it," he added.

Mr Taseer made headlines recently by appealing for the pardon of a Christian woman,Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Friends of the governor say he knew he was risking his life by speaking out.

He wrote on Twitter on 31 December: "I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightist pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing."

Asked earlier that month by the BBC Urdu Service about fatwas, or religious decrees, issued against him in Pakistan, he criticised the "illiterate" clerics responsible.

"They issued fatwas against Benazir [Bhutto] and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [her father, an executed former president], and even the founder of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. I do not care about them," he added.

A man identified as the suspected assassin was photographed being driven from the scene

The interior minister later identified the murder suspect as Malik Mumtaz Hussein Qadri, who he said had escorted the governor from the city of Rawalpindi on Tuesday as he had done on five or six previous occasions.

Mr Qadri was 26 years old and from Barakhao, a town on the outskirts of Islamabad, he added. He was recruited as a police constable, and transferred to the Elite Force after commando training in 2008.

"Salman Taseer is a blasphemer and this is the punishment for a blasphemer," Mr Qadri said in comments broadcast on Dunya television.

Mr Malik said Mr Taseer's Elite Force security detail was provided by the Punjab government, and that its members had been thoroughly screened. However, they have all now been detained and are being questioned.

Continue reading the main story

Pakistan assassinations and attempts January 2011 - The governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, is shot dead by one of his bodyguards in Islamabad February 2010 - Gunmen shoot at Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, leader of the Awami Muslim League (AML), in Rawalpindi September 2009 - Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi is wounded and his driver killed in a gun attack in Islamabad September 2008 – Shots are fired at the motorcade of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as it travels to Islamabad’s airport December 2007 - Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is killed in a suicide attack when leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi

"He was a very good friend, a politician and a businessman. He was a national hero," Rehman Malik added.

Human rights workers said Pakistan had been robbed of a rare voice of courage, who championed women's rights and supported minorities.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says Mr Taseer, a close associate of President Asif Ali Zardari, was one of Pakistan's most important political figures and his death will further add to instability in the country.

The PPP-led government is facing a crisis that erupted after its junior coalition partner, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), quit on Sunday. Mr Taseer had said it would survive.

"Prezdnt Zardaris total support of PM has once again silenced rumours of split in PPP top leadership. Govt is here till 2013," was the last tweet he wrote on Tuesday.

Shortly before Mr Taseer's death, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had announced that it would not demand a vote of no confidence in Mr Gilani because to do so would exacerbate instability.

Blasphemy law likely to rip Pakistan apart Governor of Punjab was last week gunned down by cold-blooded -killer There’s no punishment for “blasphemy” in the Holy Quran (Editor) Over the past 30 years, under Pakistan’s laws criminalizing blasphemy against Islam, hundreds of Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus, Sikhs, and unorthodox and reformist Muslims have been tried and imprisoned by the state or killed by extremists. But even against this brutal background, the blasphemy-triggered January 4 assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer by one of his elite security detail may prove a defining moment.

Newscom Taseer was head of Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous state and a close friend of

President Zardari. Most pertinent, he was a voice of Muslim moderation, arguably the most powerful one in the nation, who worked for a free society and defended the rights of non-Muslims and dissident Muslims. He had recently publicly supported a pardon for Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five sentenced to death for blasphemy, and the repeal of the blasphemy laws themselves. In the closed circle of radical discourse, because he criticized those laws, he was himself labeled a blasphemer and killed.

The laws were introduced by General Zia ul-Haq after he took power in a coup in 1977, as an attempt to gain legitimacy by posing as a defender of Islam. Vaguely aimed at those who would insult Islam, the laws have led to horrific communal violence and have been applied against an ever expanding range of victims. This is why Taseer repeatedly called blasphemy legislation a “black law” and believed it was pivotal in determining the country’s future.

Victims of blasphemy in Pakistan are Muslims, non-Muslim religious minorities suffer disproportionately: Though 5 percent of the population, they are half of those accused, and the testimony of one Muslim is sufficient to convict a non-Muslim. They also suffer increasing attacks by extremists. On August 1, 2009, after a Christian was accused of burning a Koran, a mob connected to the Taliban-linked Sipah-e-Sahaba attacked Christians in Korian and Gojra: They indiscriminately killed seven Christians, six of whom (including two children) were burned alive. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that police knew of

the intended attack but did nothing to prevent it. And while the government has so far not executed those convicted of blasphemy, dozens of accused people have been assassinated by fanatics, even when their cases ended in acquittal.

Two of the five blasphemy laws are specifically aimed at the 3-million-member Ahmadi community, founded in 1889 by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian, now in India. Most Muslims reject Ghulam Ahmad’s teachings and believe that, contrary to Islam, he claimed to be a prophet. Although Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, they may be imprisoned for three years if they call themselves Muslims or their meeting places mosques. They are singled out for special vilification in Pakistan’s constitution and, to receive a Pakistani passport, a Muslim must declare “I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Quadiani to be an imposter Nabi [prophet] and also consider his followers whether belonging to the Lahori or Quadiani group, to be NON-MUSLIMS.” On May 28, 2010, gunmen attacked two Ahmadi houses of worship and killed 93 people attending Friday prayers.

The atmosphere stoked by the laws also contributes to violence between Sunni and Shia, as extremists castigate the others as blasphemers. There are also attacks on Sufi shrines. On July 1, three bombers killed 45 people and left 175 wounded at the Data Darbar shrine commemorating the 10th-century Sufi Data Ganj Baksh. On October 25, bombs at a shrine in Pakpattan killed six people and left 15 injured. There is also now pressure for Ismaili Muslims, followers of the Aga Khan, to be declared non-Muslim, like the Ahmadis.

Muslim reformers are also targeted. After medical professor Mohammad Younas Shaikh, a member of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, raised questions about Pakistan’s policies in Kashmir, he was charged with having blasphemed in one of his classes. In 2001, he was sentenced to death. After two years in prison he was acquitted on retrial but had to flee the country to save his life. In 2007, Karachi’s Anti-Terrorism Court sentenced author Younus Sheikh to life imprisonment. The judge ruled that one of Sheikh’s books had denied the validity of Rajam, an Islamic punishment of stoning for adultery.

Now charges of blasphemy are increasingly used to attack reforming politicians. Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minorities, and a Christian, has been accused of blasphemy and receives regular death threats for criticizing the laws, as does Sherry Rehman, a liberal legislator, for moving a bill to amend them.