Doctors must now prescribe drugs using their chemical name, not brand names. That’s good news for patients

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Matthew Grant, Monash University

From today (February 1), when you receive a prescription in Australia, it will list the name of the medication’s active ingredient rather than the brand name. So, for example, instead of receiving a prescription for Ventolin, your script will say “salbutamol”.

This national legislation change, called active ingredient prescribing, is long overdue for Australian health care.

Using the name of the drug — instead of the brand name, of which there are often many — will simplify how we talk about and use medications.

This could have a range of benefits, including fewer medication errors by both doctors and patients.

What is an active ingredient?

The active ingredient describes the main chemical compound in the medicine that affects your body. It’s the ingredient that helps control your asthma or headache, for example.

Drugs are tested to ensure they contain exactly the same active ingredients regardless of which brand you buy.

There’s only one active ingredient name for each type of medical compound, although they may come in different strengths. Some types of medications may contain multiple active ingredients, such as Panadeine Forte, which contains both paracetamol and codeine.

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Read more:
Prescribing generic drugs will reduce patient confusion and medication errors

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There can be several brand names

Until now, doctors and other prescribers have used a mixture of brand and active ingredient names when prescribing medicines. An Australian study found doctors used brand names for 80.5% of prescriptions.

Different brands are available for most medications — up to 12 for some. Combined with active ingredient names, this equates to thousands of different names — too many for any patient, doctor, nurse or pharmacist to remember.

Older people are at higher risk of making medication errors, as they tend to take more medications.
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Here’s an example of the problem.

I ask John, a patient whom I’ve just met, whether he takes cholesterol medications, commonly called statins. The active ingredient names for this group of medications all end in “statin” (for example, pravastatin, simvastatin).

“Ummm, I’m not sure, is it a blue pill?” John asks.

“It could come in many colours. It might be called atorvastatin, or Lipitor,” I reply. “Perhaps rosuvastatin, or Crestor, or Zocor?”

“Ah yes, Crestor, I am taking that,” John exclaims, after deliberating for some time.

This is a common and important conversation, but could be simpler for both of us if John was familiar with the active ingredient name.

And while we did eventually come to the answer, this medication could have easily been overlooked, by both John and myself. This may have significant implications and interact with other medicines I might prescribe.

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I’ve heard COVID is leading to medicine shortages. What can I do if my medicine is out of stock?

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Cause for confusion

The main problem with using brand names for medications is the potential for confusion, as we see with John.

A prescription written using a brand name doesn’t mean you can’t buy other brands. And your pharmacist may offer to substitute the brand specified for an equivalent generic drug. So, people often leave the pharmacy with a medication name or package that bears no resemblance to the prescription.

When the terms we use to describe medicines in conversation, on prescriptions and what’s written on the medication packet can all be different, patients might not understand which medications they’re taking, or why.

This often leads to doubling up (taking two brands of the same medication), or forgetting to take a certain medication because the name on the package doesn’t match what’s written on your medication list or prescription.

Confusion resulting from using brand names has been associated with serious medication errors, including overdoses. Elderly people are the most susceptible, as they’re most likely to take multiple medications.

Even when the confusion doesn’t cause harm, it can be problematic in other ways. If patients don’t understand their medicines, they may be less likely to be proactive in making decisions with their doctor or pharmacist about their health care.

Health professionals can also get confused, potentially leading to prescribing errors.

What are the benefits of active ingredient prescribing?

The main benefit of the switch is to simplify the language around medications.

Once we become accustomed to using one standardised name for each medicine, it will be easier to talk about medicines, whether with a family member, pharmacist or doctor.

The better we understand the medications we’re using, the fewer errors we make, and the more control we can take over our medication use and decisions.

A pharmacist can let you know which brands of your medication are are available.
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This change will also serve to promote choice.

When you’re prescribed a medicine with a certain name, you’re more likely to buy that brand. In some cases there may be generic medicines that are cheaper and just as effective. Or there may be other forms of the medication that better suit your needs, such as a capsule only available in another brand.

Not too much will change

This new rule is not expected to lead to extra work for doctors, pharmacists or other health professionals who prescribe medicines, as most clinical software will make the transition automatically.

Doctors can elect to still include the brand name on the prescription, if they feel it’s important for the patient. But aside from some limited exceptions, the active ingredient name will need to be listed, and will be listed first.

Some active ingredient names may be a bit longer and more complex than certain brand names, so there might be a period of adjustment for consumers.

But in the long term, this change will streamline terminology around medicines and make things easier, and hopefully safer, for everyone.

Next time you receive your prescription, have a look at the name of the active ingredient. Remember it, and use that name when you talk to your family, doctor and pharmacist.

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Boomers have a drug problem, but not the kind you might think

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Matthew Grant, Palliative Medicine Physician, Research Fellow, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What’s in a name? Well, quite a bit if your name is Karen (or Jack, John, Jeff, Dolly, Biddy, Meg …)

Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

Howard Manns, Monash University and Kate Burridge, Monash University

Things are really jeffed up for Karens right now. The Miley (“coronavirus”) did a Melba (“made yet another a comeback”), and Joe and Jane Bloggs are being drongos.

In the process, “Karen” has become the Bradman of ways for calling out selfish entitlement, racism and inequality.

Names are much more than just a tag or a label — they have a special force. This is why they often enter general vocabulary, not only in direct reference to the original celebrated name-bearer, as in the case of doing a Bradman or a Melba, or as common nouns like pavlova, lamington, granny smith, but also as shorthand for a certain “type”. Ask any Tom, Dick or Karen.

English speakers use proper names to mean all sorts of things – and we’re not always nice about it.

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‘Iso’, ‘boomer remover’ and ‘quarantini’: how coronavirus is changing our language

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Karen: more Miss Ann than Biddy or Meg

Throughout history, many women’s names have been swept into English in unkind ways. Witness the deterioration of pet names such as “Dolly”, “Kitty”, “Biddy”, “Jill”, “Polly”, “Meg”, “Judy” or “Jude” — all have been contemptuous labels at one time or other, either for “drab and unattractive” women or the “promiscuous and attractive” ones.

But today’s “Karen” isn’t Dolly, Biddy or Meg. Attempts to frame Karen’s overall use as “sexist” miss the point. The term Karen has recently been used to call out white women whose behaviour is considered entitled, unreasonable and obnoxious. It has rightfully spawned a series of male equivalents, including “male-Karen”, “Kyle”, “Ken”, “Kevin” or “Steve”.

Importantly, the sort of entitled (and often racist) behaviour “Karen” is being used to call out existed long before the term. Many Black Americans have framed this behaviour in terms of a “Miss Ann” social type, historically linked to the white women of slave plantations. Some Black writers noted a surge in Miss Ann-like behaviour around the time of Donald Trump’s election.

Of course, these issues have long existed in Australia, too. Famously, last year an actual person named “Karen” did a Karen by trying to take down a neighbour’s Indigenous flag. A viral video led to the spread of the catch-phrase: “It’s too strong for you, Karen.”

Karen then joins a series of labels like “Miss Ann”, “Mr Charlie” and “Becky” to call out obnoxious behaviour and privilege. And, to loosely paraphrase the Claytons faux whisky ad, Karen debates are the debates you’re having when you should be debating privilege.

Awash with joshing Johnnies and Joes

That said, it’s worth sympathising with people named Karen, who have entered a sometimes less-than-illustrious club of people hard done by in the English language, unkindly “joed” and “joshed”, often for centuries.

Whether, when and how people (or animals!) enter this club depends on a range of factors. Media, politics and celebrity are obviously important (“Melba”, “Bradman” and poor old “drongo”). And often there’s verbal play involved, as in the end-clipped rhyming slang “Miley (Cyrus)” for “coronavirus” or “jeffed” and “jeffing” (famously from “Jeff Kennett”, but echoing many an effective cussword).

And then there’s frequency. Karen joins those whose names have been swept into society due to sheer number. Karen appeared on the most common names lists in the late 1960s but is no competition for “John”, which has been among the English-speaking world’s most common names since the 13th century.

And “John” and “Johnny” have been pressed into service for a range of meanings in English, including “the client of a prostitute”, “someone easily duped”, “a sailor”, “an immigrant”, “a vacuous aristocrat”, “penis”, “hospital gown” and “an onion seller from Brittany”.

Indeed, the sheer number of Johns in English history means this name’s most prominent purpose is to “erase” or “anonymise” — in other words, to reduce its referent to an “everyman”, as in “John Q. Public” (for everyday citizen), “Johnnie Raw” (for a new military recruit), or “John-of-all-trades”, among many, many others.

But we’re likely more familiar with a “Jack-of-all-trades”, which points to another common phenomenon: a proliferation of naming alliteration around “j” names. “Jack” is a familiar alternative for John, so it’s probably not surprising to see it being used (since the late middle ages) in a similar everyman (“manual labourer”, “lumberjack”) or derogative sense (“jackanapes” for a “person displaying ape-like qualities”).

In fact, extended uses of Jack have produced well over a hundred different words and phrases, ranging from the slightly disparaging to the wildly offensive (we’re hard-pressed to think of a tabooed bodily function and secretion that doesn’t have an expression featuring “jack)”). So offensive was “Jack”, in fact, that those in polite 18th-century society euphemised “jackass” to “Johnny-Bum”.

And, just as “John Doe” has his “Jane”, so too does “Jack” have his “Jill”, as in “Jack and Jill” — a couple whose common names made them useful to a famous story about a drink-run gone bad. But the “jackanape” also has his “Jane-of-apes” equivalent (which for the record, preceded “Tarzan” by a few hundred years).

The tomfoolery of names: Karen in the dunce’s corner

Karen joins the likes of Scottish theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus, who was an influential thinker in the 13th century. It was the perceived stubbornness of his 16th-century followers, known as dunsmen or dunses, that led to our current sense of “dunce”.

The club of dim-witted dunces has acquired many members over the years. The original Tom Fool has been around since at least the early 1300s; he joins other ninnies like Tom Doodle (the blockhead) Tom Farthing (the simpleton), Tom Towly (another simpleton), Tom Tug (rhyming slang for “mug”), not to mention “Errant Tony” and “Simple Simon”. These are the predecessors of the modern-day “charlie” or “wally” (from Walter but with happy reinforcement that comes from cucumbers pickled in brine — the “dill”).

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Oi! We’re not lazy yarners, so let’s kill the cringe and love our Aussie accent(s)

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Notably, Karen also joins the many people whose names through historical happenstance come to index “ignorance”, “backwardness” or “lack of sophistication”. “Hick” — an earlier, shortened form of Richard — has certainly developed this meaning. In the 16th century, Hick, Hob (shortened Robert or Robin) and Hans (a general term for a German or Dutchman) seem to be the Tom, Dick and Harry of no manners or consequence.

And we Aussies have our own bevvy of underdogs and uncultured types. “Ocker” was originally a pet form of “Oscar”. Its links to “boorishness” and “exaggerated nationalism” can be traced to Ron Frazer’s “Oscar” character on The Mavis Bramston Show. In the 1970s, he teamed up with “Norm” — the supreme couch potato.

Tom, Dick and Karen

As Oscar Wilde once put it, “Names are everything.” They’re the verbal expression for our personality, for those qualities and attributes that define us as individuals. More than that, names are a proper part of us.

It’s no surprise then people named Karen are upset. However, like inequality, this isn’t something you can just Houdini away.

Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University and Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The pro-coal ‘Monash Forum’ may do little but blacken the name of a revered Australian

Marc Hudson, University of Manchester

The coal industry has a new voice in parliament, in the form of the so-called Monash Forum – an informal government faction featuring former prime minister Tony Abbott and backbench energy committee chair Craig Kelly.

The group, which also reportedly contains former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce alongside as many as 11 of his Nationals colleagues, is agitating for the government to go beyond its current energy policy and build a taxpayer-funded coal power station.

As several commentators have pointed out, the move is a calculated push by the usual backbench suspects to put pressure on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, two weeks ahead of crucial talks with state and territory leaders over the design of the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).

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Perversely, the Monash Forum’s members want the NEG to prove its “technology neutral” credentials by including coal as well as renewables. And let’s not forget that the NEG policy was cooked up when it became clear that Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s Clean Energy Target was unpalatable to Coalition MPs (but not economists).

What’s in a name?

In choosing to form a group like this, opponents of action on climate change are trying to give themselves gravitas, in three possible ways.

First and foremost, they are aiming for the “halo effect” of taking a known public figure and claiming some of his (and it’s usually a he) intellectual cachet. First and foremost here are groups named after scientific figures.

In 2000, a group of climate deniers, including the late Ray Evans and former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh, set up the grandly named Lavoisier Group to undermine progress towards Australian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and a domestic emissions trading scheme. Economist John Quiggin probably said it best when he wrote that the group was “devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics discovered by, among others, the famous French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry”.

Then in 2011, opponents of Julia Gillard’s carbon pricing scheme created the Galileo Movement – casting themselves, like their Renaissance namesake, as heroic dissidents to an unthinking orthodoxy.

The second aim is to create a name that implies a stolid, no-nonsense approach to policy. One example is the now defunct Tasman Institute, which was an influential voice against climate action and in favour of electricity privatisation in the 1990s.

The third tactic takes this approach a step further, by creating a name that sounds impartial or even pro-environmental, thus obfuscating the group’s true intent, which is to stymie climate policy. Previous examples include the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, the Global Climate Coalition, the Australian Climate Science Coalition, and the Australian Environment Foundation, launched in 2005 to the chagrin of the existing Australian Conservation Foundation.

The Monash Forum – with its implied connotations of nation-building and high-minded political debate – is perhaps trying to achieve all three of these goals, this time from within parliament itself rather than the surrounding policy development bubble.

Monash on the march

For the younger readers among us, John Monash was arguably Australia’s most revered soldier, described by British war historian AJP Taylor as “the only general of creative originality produced by the First World War”.

The Monash Forum’s founders also hark back to his role in helping kick-start the exploitation of Victoria’s enormous brown coal reserves in the 1920s.

But the Returned and Services League is not impressed that this former serviceman has been pressed into political service, declaring that “Monash’s name is sacrosanct and should be above this form of political posturing”.

What’s more, the name is bound to create confusion over whether it is affiliated in some way with Monash University (it isn’t), and there will doubtless be some unhappy faces at the Economic Society of Australia’s ESA Monash Forum (which is).

Will coal really make a comeback?

In seeking to deliver new coal-fired power stations, the new Monash Forum is attempting to mine a seam that has already been extensively excavated.

The Minerals Council of Australia, which [merged with the Australian Coal Association in 2013], has been trying for years to kickstart public support for coal. Who could forget the “Australians for Coal” and “Little Black Rock” campaigns, or last year’s “Coal: Making the future possible”?

But the council’s latest energy and climate policy statement refers to coal only once, prompting headlines that it has gone cold on coal. BHP has considered quitting the council over its pugnacious stance, while Rio Tinto is selling off Australian coal assets. The mining lobby may soon have to recalibrate its priorities – lithium, anyone?

The problem for coal’s proponents is that most Australians are keen to see the back of it. The promised global wave of “High Efficiency, Low Emission” coal plants has failed to materialise. And stunts such as Treasurer Scott Morrison waving a lump of coal in parliament are derided by a public who are far more energised by the prospect of renewables.

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When he was prime minister, Abbott tried to sabotage investment in large-scale renewables so as to keep the way clear for fossil fuels. But tellingly, he left subsidies for rooftop solar panels largely untouched, presumably realising that voters saw renewable energy as sensible and viable, on a small scale at least.

The problem for advocates of renewables, and climate action more broadly, is that winning slowly on climate change is the same as losing, as Bill McKibben noted last year.

Perhaps that is the ultimate aim of the Monash Forum and those who share its goals. Renewable energy may win in the end, but it will win slowly enough that coal can earn one last payday.

Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Malaysia: Persecution News Update

The link below is to an article reporting on persecution news from Malaysia, where a Christian name has led to a girl being rejected from university.

For more visit:
http://www.codewit.com/asia-pacific/9362-malaysia-christian-name-reason-to-reject-top-student

Article: Why Do People Unfriend Others On Facebook?

OK, I know you all want to know the answer to this question, ‘why did _____________ (enter name) unfriend me on Facebook?’ Well, the answer to that question may lie in the article linked to below. And I thought it was simply because they weren’t really your friend.

http://allfacebook.com/unfriend-study-cambridge_b93510

Cricket: Australia – Australia Defeat India 4 Zip and the Big Bash 2012 Final

What a great day for Australian Cricket, with Australia wrapping up the test series against India 4 – 0 and the hugely successful 1st season of the Twenty20 Big Bash being completed tonight, with the Sydney Sixers defeating the Perth Scorchers.

It has been a massive day of cricket, with Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting, David Warner, Peter Siddle and Co, playing great cricket in the series win against India. Who will forget the massive triple century of Michael Clarke, the partnerships of Clarke and Ponting, the dominance of Australia’s bowling attack and the capitulation of the Indian team under relentless pressure from Australia. Both Shaun Marsh and Brad Haddin should be concerned about their immediate future in the team, with poor performances by them both throughout the series. Both Ponting and Michael Hussey silenced their critics with very solid performances in the series and David Warner has cemented his place in the team for the time being.

India however were very disappointing and several big name players should be looking at retirement – if not, they should perhaps be replaced. All the big names struggled, none more than Dravid and Laxman. Even Sachin Tendulkar struggled and at no time did it seem likely he would make his 100th international hundred.

The Big Bash Final win for the Sydney Sixers was set up right from the beginning with a brilliant first over by Brett Lee. It was a brilliant opening partnership between Moses Henriques and Steve O’Keefe that ensured the Sixers could chase down the total set by the Scorchers comfortably.

For more visit:
http://www.cricket.com.au/news-list/2012/1/28/australia-seal-whitewash

http://www.bigbash.com.au/
http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2011/content/story/551379.html

Harold Camping: Fall Out from False Prediction of the End Continues

The latest in End Times predictions by a PreMillenialist has ended in falsehood yet again. This should come as no surprise, given that no-one on earth serves in any role on the Lord’s ‘returning to earth committee (not that there is such a committee I should make clear).’ The day is not known to anybody, whether saved or unsaved and will not be made known until such time as it actually happens. Of all the difficuties surrounding the interpretations of End Times Eschatology, surely that is one of the clearer areas that most Christians should be able to agree upon.

Sadly there are too many who are willing to presume a role in deciding the time of the Lord’s return and yet again we have another example of such a delusion causing the name of the Lord and His followers to be mocked on the earth. This is all that can happen from such flights of deluded fancy, excepting the destruction wrought in the faith of some believers that are caught up in such delusive predictions.

For more on the fall out of Harold Camping’s falsehood see:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/harold-camping-bashed-as-false-prophet-on-family-radio-airwaves-50713/

 

Detained Pakistani Christian Released – But Two Others Held

Christian falsely accused of ‘blasphemy’ taken into custody, released – and detained again.

LAHORE, Pakistan, April 18 (CDN) — A Christian illegally detained in Faisalabad on false blasphemy charges was freed last night, while two other Christians in Gujranwala arrested on similar charges on Friday (April 15) were also released – until pressure from irate mullahs led police to detain them anew, sources said.

Masih and his family have relocated to a safe area, but just 10 days after he was falsely accused of desecrating the Quran in Faisalabad district of Punjab Province on April 5, in Gujranwala Mushtaq Gill and his son Farrukh Mushtaq were taken into “protective custody” on charges that the younger man had desecrated Islam’s holy book and blasphemed the religion’s prophet, Muhammad. A police official told Compass the charges were false.

Gill, an administrative employee of the Christian Technical Training Centre (CTTC) in Gujranwala in his late 60s, was resting when a Muslim mob gathered outside his home in Aziz Colony, Jinnah Road, Gujranwala, and began shouting slogans against the family. They accused his son, a business graduate working in the National Bank of Pakistan as a welfare officer and father of a little girl, of desecrating the Quran and blaspheming Muhammad.

The purported evidence against Farrukh were some burnt pages of the Quran and a handwritten note, allegedly in Farrukh’s handwriting, claiming that he had desecrated Islam’s holy book and used derogatory language against Muhammad. A Muslim youth allegedly found the pages and note outside the Gills’ residence.

Inspector Muhammad Nadeem Maalik, station house officer of the Jinnah Road police station, admitted that the charges against the accused were baseless.

“The initial investigation of the incident shows Mr. Gill and his son Farrukh are innocent,” he told Compass.

The two were kept at a safe-house, instead of the police station, out of fear that Islamist extremists might attack them; their subsequent release led to Islamic protests that compelled police to detain them anew today, sources said.

Despite police admitting that the two Christians were not guilty, a First Information Report (No. 171/2011) was registered against them under Sections 295-B and C in Jinnah Road Police Station early on Saturday (April 16).

“Yes, we have registered an FIR of the incident, yet we have sealed it until the completion of the investigation,” Inspector Maalik said, adding that the police had yet to formally arrest Gill and his son. “We registered the FIR for their own safety, otherwise the mob would have become extremely violent and things could have gone out of control.”

The police official said that after the Muslim youth made the accusation, he gathered area Muslims together.

“It seems to be a well thought-out scheme, because the perpetrators chose the time of the Friday prayers for carrying out their plan,” Maalik said. “They were sure that this news would spread quickly, and within no time people would come out of the mosques and react to the situation.”

He added that police were now inquiring of the Gills why they might suspect anyone of wanting to harm them.

“We are also looking for any signs of jealousy or old enmity,” Maalik said.

Soon after the Muslim youth found the alleged pages, announcements blared from the area’s mosques informing Muslims about the incident and asking them to gather at the “crime scene,” sources said.

There are about 300 Christian families residing in Aziz Colony, and news of the alleged desecration spread like jungle fire. Announcements from mosques sparked fear in the already shaken Christian families, and they started packing their things to leave the area, fearing the kind of carnage that ravaged Gojra on Aug. 1, 2009, killing at least seven Christians.

“It’s true…the news of the accusations against Gill and his son and the announcements being made from the mosque calling on Muslims to avenge the desecration sent shivers down our spines,” said Pastor Philip Dutt, who has known the Gill family for several years and lives in the same neighborhood. “The charges are completely baseless. I’m sure no person in his right frame of mind would even think of committing such a vile act. Someone has clearly conspired against the Gill family.”

He added that most of the area’s Christians had left their homes overnight, fearing an attack by Muslims.

Dutt said that a large police contingent arrived in time and took Gill and his son into custody after assuring the enraged mob that a case under the blasphemy laws would be registered against the two men. Police remained stationed in the area to provide protection to area Christians, but the atmosphere was tense.

According to some reports, a group of angry Muslims wanted to torch Gill’s house, but timely police intervention thwarted their plan.

At the same time, a group of Muslim extremists stormed into the house of Anwar Masih, a Christian factory owner in Aziz Colony, and started beating him and his son, sources said. The family managed to save themselves by calling the police and now they too are in “protective custody.”

The Rev. Arif Siraj, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan, which also oversees the functioning of the Christian Technical Training Centre in Gujranwala, said the accusations against Farrukh were yet another example of how the country’s blasphemy laws are misused against innocent people.

“We have been engaged with the police and local Muslim leaders throughout the day to resolve this issue amicably,” Siraj said. “An eight-member committee comprising six Muslims and two Christian pastors has been formed to probe the incident, and they will make a report on Friday.”

The names of the Christians of the eight-member committee are Pastor Sharif Alam of Presbyterian Church Ghakarmandi and the Rev. Joseph Julius.

A large number of Muslims, including members of religious parties and banned outfits, came out to the roads of Gujranwala on Saturday (April 16) to protest the alleged desecration of the Quran and pressure police to take action against Gill and his son. The protestors reportedly gelled into one large demonstration on Church Road and headed towards the CTTC. Siraj said that some participants threw stones at a church on the road, but that Muslim elders immediately halted the stone-throwing.

“The district administration and Muslim leaders have now assured us that no one will target Christian churches and institutions,” he said, adding that both communities were now waiting for the committee’s report.

Sohail Johnson of Sharing Life Ministry expressed concern over the accusations.

“This case is a classic example of how Christians and Muslims continue to be charged with blasphemy on false accusations,” he said. “Isn’t it ridiculous that the accuser is claiming that Farrukh has confessed to burning the Quran in his note and thrown the burnt pages in front of his house – what sane person would even think of saying anything against prophet Muhammad in a country where passions run so deep?”

Arif Masih, the falsely accused Christian released last night, has reportedly been relocated along with this family to a safe location.

The original blasphemy law, introduced in British India in 1860, imposed a prison term of up to two years for any damage to a place of worship or sacred object carried out “with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult to their religion…”

The current provision in the Pakistan Penal Code, as amended in 1986, introduces both the death penalty for insulting Muhammad and drops the concept of intent. According to Section 295-C of the Penal Code, “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life and shall also
be liable to fine.”

The laws have drawn condemnation across the world, and two senior government officials – Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer, a liberal Muslim, and Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, have been assassinated this year for demanding a review of the legislation.

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Pakistani Christian Falsely Accused of ‘Blasphemy’ Illegally Detained

Policeman says Arif Masih, held at an undisclosed location, is innocent.

LAHORE, Pakistan, April 15 (CDN) — Police in Punjab Province, Pakistan have illegally detained a Christian on a “blasphemy” accusation, even though one officer said he was certain an area Muslim falsely accused 40-year-old Arif Masih because of a property dispute.

On April 5 Shahid Yousuf Bajwa, Masih’s next-door neighbor, initially filed a First Information Report (FIR) against “an unidentified person” for desecrating the Quran after finding threatening letters and pages with quranic verses on the street outside his home in Village 129 RB-Tibbi, Chak Jhumra, Faisalabad district. Desecrating the Quran under Section 295-B of Pakistan’s blasphemy statutes is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

“Some identified person has desecrated the Holy Quran and has tried to incite sentiments of the Muslims,” Bajwa wrote in the FIR. Clearly stating that he did not know who had done it, he wrote, “It is my humble submission to the higher authorities that those found guilty must be given exemplary punishment.”

Bajwa charges in the FIR that when he went outside his home at 9 p.m. and found the pages, he looked at them by the light of his cell phone and thought they were pages of the Quran. Masih’s uncle, Amjad Chaudhry, told Compass the pages look like those of a school textbook containing quranic verses.

Chaudhry said Bajwa and his two brothers are policemen. After Bajwa found the pages and the threatening letters, Chaudhry said, he arranged for an announcement to be made from the loudspeaker of the area mosque.

“The message urged all the Muslims of the village to gather there due to the urgency and sensitivity of the matter,” Chaudhry said.

He said initially local Muslims were very angry and suggested that Christian homes be set ablaze, but that others said the Christians should be first given a chance to explain whether they were responsible.

“Then some Muslims began saying that because Arif Masih lived on this street, he would be the person who could have done this crime,” he said. “However, most of the people who gathered there said that they knew Arif Masih well and they could not imagine he could do such a vile thing. But others insisted that because Masih was the only Christian who lived on the street, only he could be suspected of the crime.”

At about 10 p.m. on April 5, Chaudhry said, Bajwa’s brother Abdullah Bajwa called Masih to the Siyanwala police station, where he was arrested; Masih’s family members were unaware that he had been arrested.

According to Section 61 of Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code, an arrested person must be produced within 24 hours before a court; Masih has been detained at an undisclosed location without a court appearance since April 5, with police failing to register his arrest in any legal document, making his detention illegal. Investigating Officer Qaisar Younus denied that Masih was in police custody, but Superintendent of the Police Abdul Qadir told Compass that Masih had been detained for his own safety.

Younus told Compass that he was sure Masih was innocent, but that he had been falsely accused because of a land dispute.

 

Property Conflict

According to Chaudhry, about two years ago Masih bought a plot next to his house that another villager, Liaquat Ali Bajwa (no relation to Shahid Yousuf Bajwa) wanted to buy – and who despised Masih for it, telling the previous owner, “How come a Christian can buy the plot that I wanted to buy?”

The parcel owner had given Masih preference as he knew him well, and he understood that the homeowner adjacent to the property had the first rights to it anyway.

At the same time, Ali Bajwa was able to seize about five square feet of the house of a Christian named Ghulam Masih after the wall of his home was destroyed in last year’s flooding. Feeling he was not in position to challenge Ali Bajwa, Ghulam Masih sold the land to Arif Masih so that he could take charge, Chaudhry said.

Arif Masih subsequently filed a civil suit against Ali Bajwa to evict him from his property. Chaudhry said Arif Masih was about to win that case, and that Ali Bajwa thought he could retain that property and obtain the one Arif Masih had purchased by accusing him of blasphemy with the help of police officer Shahid Yousuf Bajwa.

Ali Bajwa had been threatening Masih, saying, “You will not only give me this plot, but I will even take your house,” Chaudhry said.

Chaudhry said he had learned that Shahid Yousuf Bajwa felt badly after villagers criticized him for falsely accusing an innocent man of blasphemy, but that Bajwa feared that if he withdrew the case he himself would be open to blasphemy charges.

 

Neighbors

Arif Masih’s family has remained steadfast throughout the case, refusing to flee the area in spite of the possibility of Muslim villagers being incited to attack them, Chaudhry said.

“It all became possible because of Muslim villagers who sided with us,” he said.

Chaudhry said that when police arrived at the scene of the Muslims who had gathered with the pages and the threatening letters, the villagers told officers that they had not seen who threw them on the street. He said that the letters included the threat, “You Muslims have failed in doing any harm to us, and now I order you all to convert to Christianity or else I will shoot you all.”

The letters did not bear the name of the person who wrote them, he added.

On Monday (April 11), Chaudhry managed to meet with Masih, though Masih’s wife has yet to see him. Chaudhry told Compass that the first thing Masih asked him was whether everyone was safe, as there are only three Christian families in the area of about 150 Muslim homes.

“If the mob had decided to harm our houses, then it would have been very devastating,” Chaudhry said.

After Masih was arrested, at midnight police came to his house and began beating on the main gate, Chaudhry said. When Masih’s wife, Razia Bibi opened the door, the officers rushed into the house and searched it.

“They were looking for some proof, but thank God they could not find anything that could even be remotely linked with the incident,” he said.

Chaudhry added that police have not mistreated Masih, but he said the matter has lingered so long that he feared police may involve him in the case, or that “things may go wrong like in most blasphemy cases.”

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Christian Woman Freed from Muslim Kidnappers in Pakistan

Captors tried to force mother of seven to convert to Islam.

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 11 (CDN) — A Christian mother of seven here who last August was kidnapped, raped, sold into marriage and threatened with death if she did not convert to Islam was freed this week.

After she refused to convert and accept the marriage, human traffickers had threatened to kill Shaheen Bibi, 40, and throw her body into the Sindh River if her father, Manna Masih, did not pay a ransom of 100,000 rupees (US$1,170) by Saturday (March 5), the released woman told Compass.   

Drugged into unconsciousness, Shaheen Bibi said that when she awoke in Sadiqabad, her captors told her she had been sold and given in marriage.

“I asked them who they were,” she said. “They said that they were Muslims, to which I told them that I was a married Christian woman with seven children, so it was impossible for me to marry someone, especially a Muslim.”

Giving her a prayer rug (musalla), her captors – Ahmed Baksh, Muhammad Amin and Jaam Ijaz – tried to force her to convert to Islam and told her to recite a Muslim prayer, she said.

“I took the musalla but prayed to Jesus Christ for help,” she said. “They realized that I should be returned to my family.”

A member of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lahore, Shaheen Bibi said she was kidnapped in August 2010 after she met a woman named Parveen on a bus on her way to work. She said Parveen learned where she worked and later showed up there in a car with two men identified as Muhammad Zulfiqar and Shah. They offered her a job at double her salary and took her to nearby Thokar Niaz Baig.

There she was given tea with some drug in it, and she began to fall unconscious as the two men raped her, she said. Shaheen Bibi was unconscious when they put her in a vehicle, and they gave her sedation injections whenever she regained her senses, she said.

When she awoke in Sadiqabad, Baksh, Amin and Ijaz informed her that she had been sold into marriage with Baksh. They showed her legal documents in which she was given a Muslim name, Sughran Bibi daughter of Siddiq Ali. After Baksh had twice raped her, she said, his mother interjected that she was a “persistent Christian” and that therefore he should stay away from her.

Shaheen Bibi, separated from an abusive husband who had left her for another woman, said that after Baksh’s mother intervened, her captors stopped hurting her but kept her in chains.

 

Release

Her father, Masih, asked police to take action, but they did nothing as her captors had taken her to a remote area between the cities of Rahim Yar Khan and Sadiqabad, considered a “no-go” area ruled by dangerous criminals.

Masih then sought legal assistance from the Community Development Initiative (CDI), a human rights affiliate of the European Center for Law & Justice. With the kidnappers giving Saturday (March 5) as a deadline for payment of the ransom, CDI attorneys brought the issue to the notice of high police officials in Lahore and on March 4 obtained urgent legal orders from Model Town Superintendent of Police Haidar Ashraf to recover Shaheen, according to a CDI source.

The order ultimately went to Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Asghar Jutt of the Nashtar police station. Police accompanied by a CDI field officer raided the home of a contact person for the captors in Lahore, Naheed Bibi, the CDI source said, and officers arrested her in Awami Colony, Lahore.

With Naheed Bibi along, CDI Field Officer Haroon Tazeem and Masih accompanied five policemen, including ASI Jutt, on March 5 to Khan Baila, near Rahim Yar Khan – a journey of 370 miles, arriving that evening. Area police were not willing to cooperate and accompany them, telling them that Khan Baila was a “no-go area” they did not enter even during daytime, much less at night.

Jutt told area police that he had orders from high officials to recover Shaheen Bib, and that he and Tazeem would lead the raid, the CDI source said. With Nashtar police also daring them to help, five local policemen decided to go with them for the operation, he said.

At midnight on Sunday (March 6), after some encounters and raids in a jungle area where houses are miles apart, the rescue team managed to get hold of Shaheen Bibi, the CDI source said. The captors handed over Shaheen Bibi on the condition that they would not be the targets of further legal action, the CDI source said.

Sensing that their foray into the danger zone had gone on long enough, Tazeem and Jutt decided to leave but told them that those who had sold Shaheen Bib in Lahore would be brought to justice.

Fatigued and fragile when she arrived in Lahore on Monday (March 7), Shaheen Bibi told CDN through her attorneys that she would pursue legal action against those who sold her fraudulently into slavery and humiliation.

She said that she had been chained to a tree outside a house, where she prayed continually that God would help her out of the seemingly impossible situation. After the kidnappers gave her father the March 5 deadline last week, Shaheen Bibi said, at one point she lifted her eyes in prayer, saw a cross in the sky and was comforted that God’s mighty hand would release her even though her father had no money to pay ransom.

On four previous occasions, she said, her captors had decided to kill her and had changed their mind.

Shaheen Bibi said there were about 10 other women in captivity with her, some whose hands or legs were broken because they had refused to be forcibly given in marriage. Among the women was one from Bangladesh who had abandoned hope of ever returning home as she had reached her 60s in captivity.

Masih told CDN that he had prayed that God would send help, as he had no money to pay the ransom. The day before the deadline for paying the ransom, he said, he had 100 rupees (less than US$2) in his pocket.

Report from Compass Direct News