Pak must revisit blasphemy laws

Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws are again in the news for being the cause for violence against the tiny Christian minority in the country.

The mobs angered with the ‘news’ about alleged desecration of the Holy Quran have attacked and burned down 20 churches and looted and vandalized properties of Christian individuals in Jaranwala town under Faisalabad district in the eastern parts of the nation.

The rampaging mobs have been at it since August 16, two days after the nation celebrated its 76th Independence Day.

As suggested by the news reports from across the border, the mobs were provoked by announcements made by the town’s mosque whose imam has been arrested following eruption of violence together with the alleged principal offender Raja Amir Masih.

Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws have been widely criticised for being weaponized for targeting the minorities, especially the individuals from the Christian community.

The Islamic clerics find it easy to link the desecration of material objects even remotely related to religious traditions going back to the Prophet of Islam for perceived defilement.

These help them to seek shelter under the legitimacy such laws draw from Pakistan’s Islamic constitution. Islam being the rallying point, political parties vie with each other in claiming themselves to be passionate, true and authentic representatives as well as defenders of Islam.

Punjab governor Salman Taseer was shot dead for defending Asiya Bibi, an accused under the Blasphemy Act who was ultimately found innocent, acquitted and secretively escorted out of the nation.

Taseer was shot down by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri, brainwashed by obscurantist doctrine propagated by far right groups such as Tehrik e Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and even Pakistani Taliban. Some elements even conferred sainthood on the murderer.

At least 77 people have been extra-judiciously killed by vigilantes since 1977 after they were accused of blasphemy. The victims include a federal minister, besides Taseer who was merely campaigning against the law.

Pakistan would need to revisit and reassess the law and the punishment pertaining to blasphemy. No rational discussion can happen in the current environment in the country where this law has attracted the heightened political significance.

It can be gauged by the fact that between 2011 and 2015, the latest period for which record of blasphemy cased filed is available, 1,296 cases have been filed in the country.

In its harshness the punishment for blasphemy in Pakistan leaves even the theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran behind. Even Islamic scholars hold divergent views in matters of blasphemy as the Holy Quran itself does not prescribe death penalty for it.

Leading scholars of Islam hold the anti-blasphemy laws antithetical to the freedom of thought, conscience and faith Islam offers, citing the Quranic verse, “there is no compulsion in matters of religion” (ch. 2, v. 256).

But such moderate voices are constantly under threat and being ignored in Pakistan where intolerant policies of some nations in the West such as prohibition on raising minarets (in Switzerland), prohibition of headscarves (in France) and banning of Halal and Kosher (in Belgium) provide alibis for conservatives to plead for punishing sacrilege as a defence of faith.