On a Pakistan government website, it says: “2007 has been declared the ‘Year of Tourism’ by the Pakistan Government.” We wonder if Pakistan’s Minister of Tourism, Nilofar Bakhtiar, included the historically elite Red Mosque in the nation’s capital of Islamabad as a featured attraction — now that its clerics have issued a fatwa against her. We have mentioned the Red Mosque, that delightful and no doubt holy establishment, previously. Here’s the latest, via AP:

Pakistan’s tourism minister says she fears for her life after clerics at a radical mosque issued an edict accusing her of sinning by hugging her French parachute jumping instructor, the state news agency reported. Minister of Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar told a parliamentary committee of her fear on Saturday following the Taliban-style edict against her by Islamic clerics at Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.The clerics said the hug was “an illegitimate and forbidden act” and “without any doubt, she has committed a great sin.”

A “great sin” being committed by Nilofar Bakhtiar — video here

Two clerics at the mosque issued the edict against Bakhtiar last Sunday, demanding that she be sacked, her family punish her and she be made to ask for forgiveness after pictures in the Pakistani media showed Bakhtiar hugging her parachute jumping instructor at a fundraising jump in France…

The mosque’s chief cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, has threatened to stage suicide attacks if authorities try to raid the mosque. Bakhtiar rejected the edict last week, saying she had only received a pat from her instructor for her jump in France last month to raise money for victims of a devastating earthquake in Pakistan in 2005.

Of course how one reacts to all this is a matter of perspective. No doubt there are those in the West who might be a tad put off by an armed bunch of imams in Pakistan’s capital threatening the life and well-being of the nation’s tourism director (of all people). On the other hand, we have come to learn in the last five years or so that there is a substantial constituency who might want more eagerly to go to Islamabad precisely to see the sinful lady flogged or beheaded.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 4:14 pm and is filed under General, Religion, War, idiots!, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.