ISTANBUL, Pakistan, JAN. 18 (Zenit.org).-
A Karachi court has granted bail to a Catholic priest and three other religious rights activists detained since Jan. 10 for participating in a public protest against Pakistan´s stringent blasphemy law, the Compass Direct news service reported.
Father Arnold Heredia, a prominent rights activist, was released late Tuesday afternoon from Karachi´s Landhi Jail along with two other Christians and S.M. Haider, leader of the Fikra-e-Jasria sect of Shiite Islam. Each of the four was charged $485 in rupees for bail security.
Charges filed against the blasphemy law protesters ranged from unlawful assembly and obstructing public officials to armed rioting and attempted murder. Although a police officer present at their release claimed all the charges were being dropped and the case was being withdrawn within five days, Father Heredia said he didn´t believe «a word of what they said.»
«They are telling lies just because of the pressure on them,» the 60-year-old priest told Compass by telephone from Karachi.
A separate bail application to release 13 other demonstrators, all Muslims, is reportedly still pending before Karachi´s District South Sessions Court.
The three Christian and 14 Muslim protestors were detained after local police resorted to batons and tear gas to break up a multifaith procession at Karachi´s Empress Market in Saddar on the afternoon of Jan. 10. Police officials declared the protest an «unlawful assembly.»
The Karachi authorities´ handling of the protest was criticized by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan chairman, Afrasiab Khattak, who said the police´s heavy-handed actions were «excessive» and needless. The participants were peaceful, he said, constituting «no threat to peace and order, and there was no need for police to resort to a fierce baton-charge and fire tear-gas shells against the demonstrators.»
