Salmaan Taseer: commentary

Mohammed Hanif, Guardian, How Pakistan responded to Salmaan Taseer's assassination, 6 Jan 2011 "So who are these people who lionise the cold-blooded murderer? Your regular kids, really. Some Pakistani bloggers have tried to get these fan pages banned for inciting hate. But as soon as one shuts down, another five crop up. Those who have trawled the profiles of these supporters have said that they have MBA degrees, they follow Premier League football, they love the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Miley Cyrus figures on lots of these pages. And as the Pakistani blogger who blogs under the name Kala Kawa pointed out: "If you go through the profiles of Qadri supporters on Facebook, you'd think Justin Bieber was the cause of extremism in Pakistan.""

Published in the print edition under the headline 'Modern martyr'.

Kala Kawa also comments: "Look at the Facebook warriors that have set up pages in support of the murderer Mumtaz Hussain Qadri. These people are doctors, lawyers, engineers, businessmen, students. A group of 200 lawyers of the Islamabad bar have offered their services free of cost to the assassin and showered him with flowers when he arrived for his arraignment.

"All these people would have been considered moderate in the great myth of the ‘silent moderate majority’ that we have perpetuated for so long.

"I’m afraid these people still are moderate. When society veers so far rightwards, those that only support murder in the name of religion without committing it themselves surely are moderate."

Check out the comments on the Kala Kawa piece too

Salman Taseer murder - online reaction

Declan Walsh, Guardian, Salman Taseer murder throws Pakistan into fresh crisis, 4 Jan 2011 "On the internet, Taseer's death provoked a deluge of shared grief on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. But it also highlighted the number of Pakistanis who celebrated the death as a victory for efforts to defend the blasphemy law. Within hours a Facebook page appeared in support of Qadri; by mid-evening it had over 1,000 followers."

Taseer was a frequent user of Twitter: Salmaan Taseer.

Also see this piece from AFP/straitstimes.com, Facebook praise for Pakistan assassination, 5 Jan 2011 "Nearly 2,000 Facebook users joined one group on the social networking site praising Qadri, and dozens of 'fans' joined other pages set up in Qadri's honour in the hours after the shooting.

"All the pages had been removed by Wednesday. Facebook was not immediately reachable for comment."

Other pages are still available.