LFP Calls for a 24-Hour Complete Media Shutdown to Protest Shahzad's Murder

LFP has condemned the sad and brutal murder of Syed Saleem Shahzad, the humble and soft spoken Pakistan bureau chief of Asian Times Online and correspondent of Adnkronos International, the Italian news agency, who had recently authored a book entitled “Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11”.

The fact that one accused was given life imprisonment, while his accomplices were acquitted, proves beyond any doubt that Mukhtaran Mai was raped. She was not raped by one person but was gang raped on the orders of a village council in 2002 as a punishment because her brother, who was 12 at the time, was judged to have offended the honor of a powerful clan by having an affair with one of its women.

LFP has deplored the assassination of Mr Shahbaz Bhatti, the Federal Minister for Religious Minorities. Mr Bhatti, the only christian minister in the Cabinet, was shot to death while traveling in his official car on March 2 in Islamabad exactly two months after the murder of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab. The linking cause behind these two high profile assassinations was their support of the proposed amendments to the blasphemy laws.

LFP has condemned the murder of Governor of the Punjab, Mr Salman Taseer. The sad part is that Mr Taseer was killed by a person who was entrusted with the duty to protect him. And more alarming is the fact that a section of our population is making him a hero by praising him, justifying the murder and opening groups on social networking sites like Facebook.

Liberal Forum Pakistan (LFP) is deeply saddened by the murder of two brothers from a Christian family, victims of a hate campaign launched by banned Muslim extremist groups on July 19.