ISLAMABAD -- There are still no signs of religious activists taking to the streets across Pakistan, but the country is once again in the grips of a new controversy over religious tenets and their application in daily life.
In the past few weeks, a decision by the country's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to tighten the procedures surrounding the application of the blasphemy law, won him protests from Islamic activists.
They argued that any change would weaken the law, including the general's proposal that people should no longer be charged on the basis of a report given at a police station. In the end, the general was forced to retract his proposed change. It was just another reminder of the explosive nature of the debate surrounding an Islamic tenet in a predominantly Muslim country.