Why is blasphemy a sensitive issue in Pakistan and what do the laws say? Explained – News18

21 churches in Pakistan’s Punjab province were attacked by a mob on Wednesday over an alleged blasphemy incident. Videos circulating on social media showed crowds of hundreds entering places of worship, destroying property and some even climbing and kicking the holy cross.

Pakistani police have arrested two Christians accused of blasphemy on the grounds that the two men had desecrated the Quran. Locals said hundreds of people have fled the area to stay with relatives and have yet to return out of an abundance of caution.

Meanwhile, houses and churches have been torched and looted as a crowd of hundreds marched through the streets of Jaranwala, on the outskirts of Faisalabad on Wednesday. Police said more than 120 people had been arrested for the violence.

Blasphemy in Pakistan

Blasphemy is an arson charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where anyone found to have insulted Islam or Islamic figures can face the death penalty. It has been a very sensitive issue in the country where even an indictment has sparked riots and incited mobs to violence, lynching and murder.

Right-wing Islamist leaders and political parties across Pakistan frequently mobilize around the issue. Politicians have been assassinated, lawyers murdered, and students lynched on charges of blasphemy.

In recent decades, far-right religious parties have risen to prominence by running campaigns explicitly based on protecting the “honour” and “sanctity” of Islam and its Prophet Muhammad.

How widespread is the problem?

Since 2011, when Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was shot dead by his bodyguard for calling for reform of blasphemy laws, widespread debate on the issue has been nearly impossible.

Taseer had opposed the death sentence for Aasia Bibi, who had been sentenced by a lower court, and even vowed to seek a presidential pardon for her. Some clerics issued edicts calling for his head and on January 4, 2011 he was assassinated at Kohsar market in Islamabad by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri, who disagreed with his opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

Taseer’s assassin was praised by many, and the assassination was followed by the rise of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a widely supported far-right party calling for the beheading of blasphemers. The rise of the BPD has seen an increase in blasphemy cases filed on ideological grounds.

Asia Bibi pencil case

Aasia Bibi’s ordeal began in 2009 when two fellow farmworkers refused to drink from the same container as a Christian woman. There was a fight and the two Muslim women later accused Bibi of blasphemy.

A lower court sentenced her to death after the women and a local cleric accused Bibi of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad during the altercation, a charge she has always denied.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court cleared her of blasphemy in 2018 after spending eight years on death row.

She was later flown out of Pakistan after Pakistani authorities held her in preventive custody for months after her acquittal. Ella Malook’s lawyer sought refuge in the Netherlands, citing death threats for having represented her.

The lynching of Mashaal Khan

Mashal Khan, a 25-year-old student studying mass communication at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was dragged from his university accommodation in April 2017 by a mob of hundreds of his fellow students. . He was badly beaten before being shot and his body mutilated.

In April 2017, rumors spread that Khan had posted blasphemous material online, after which hundreds of students and some staff members marched across campus looking for him. The mob broke into his room and dragged him out.

A viral video showed him beaten, trampled and shot. The mob continued to attack his body even after his death. After an investigation, the police said there was no evidence that Mashal had committed blasphemy.

What do the blasphemy laws say?

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were little used until the 1970s and 1980s, when they were strengthened and expanded to include several specific clauses for insulting Islam.

As of 2023, there are at least 53 people in custody in Pakistan on blasphemy charges, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

According to the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), as of August 16, 2023, around 198 people have been accused of blasphemy, 85 percent of them Muslim, 9 percent Ahmadis, and 4.4 percent Christians. .

He said Punjab province recorded more than 75 percent of the cases of abuse of blasphemy laws in the past 36 years. “The total defendants comprise 52% of minorities despite their participation (3.52%) in the population of Pakistan,” the CSJ published in X.

Judges hearing blasphemy cases have reported facing pressure to pass sentences regardless of the evidence, for fear of being subjected to physical violence if they do not.

Under current laws, which were strengthened yet again this year, the crime of insulting the Prophet Muhammad carries a mandatory death penalty, while “desecrating” the Koran carries life imprisonment.