Yesterday, Pakistani railways minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour put a $100,000 bounty on Nakoula Basseley Nakoula's head--and even said he wouldn't object if al-Qaeda or the Taliban killed him. You'd think that this would be grounds for Bilour to be fired, right? Well, apparently not, according to Pakistan's High Commissioner, or ambassador, to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan. He told Sky News that Bilour should be cut some slack for speaking "out of anger." No, I'm not kidding.
Speaking on Sky News, Pakistan's High Commissioner to the UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan said he did not approve of the bounty, but that the minister was "acting out of anger".
[snip]
He said: "To denigrate the Prophet is a very hurtful thing ... Osama bin Laden was declared a terrorist to the world, so should this man (the filmmaker) be described as a terrorist to the world because he has inflamed 1.4 billion Muslims?"
I've said from the start that Nakoula must be sued into poverty for lying to the cast and crew about what his movie was about. But even scumbags have rights. And Hassan calling Nakoula a terrorist is every bit as incendiary as Bilour putting a price on his head.
As if that wasn't enough, Hassan even said that we have no business criticizing Bilour in the first place because we're supposedly in bed with al-Qaeda to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.
One phone call from the State Department to Islamabad ought to be enough to send Bilour back to the backbench. Hopefully that call is coming soon, or has already come.