PAKISTAN: Blasphemy Laws Take Mounting Toll On Christians And Muslims Alike
The suicide of the late bishop of Faisalabad
on May 6, 1998, in front of the Sessions Court in Sahiwal, 150 kilometers
southwest of Lahore, was a protest against a sentence handed down to
a Christian man for blasphemy.
According to Cecil Chaudhry, executive secretary
of National Christian Forum, a national group of Protestant denominations
and the Catholic Church, Bishop Joseph would be most unhappy to see
how many more people have been victimized by the blasphemy laws since
then.
Following Bishop Joseph's suicide, 647 people
have been charged under the legislation. Among those people, 20 were
killed outside the court system for their alleged blasphemy, including
some at the hands of angry mobs.
This tally of victims was compiled by the National
Commission on Justice and Peace (NCJP) of Pakistan Catholic Bishops'
Conference (PCBC). The commission is based in Lahore, 270 kilometers
south of Islamabad.
Blasphemy laws were introduced during British
colonial rule, before the Indian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947.
However, the late President General Zia ul Haq added new provisions
in the 1980s, apparently to appease Muslim religious hardliners and
thereby garner support after he took control of the government in a
1977 coup.
According to Section 295-B of the legislation,
introduced in 1982, an insult to the Qu'ran is a non-bailable offense
whose only punishment is a life sentence. Section 295-C, introduced
in 1984, stipulates that the only sentence for insults to Prophet Muhammad,
another non-bailable offense, is death.
Section 295-C is the law's most debated part.
The NCJP claims it is widely misused not just against Christians and
Hindus, but also Ahmadis (a Muslim sect viewed as heretical by Sunnis
and Shias) and even mainstream Muslims.
According to the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, an NGO, the blasphemy laws continue to be misused against
Muslims as well as religious minorities to settle personal scores. Some
use blasphemy charges to attack their enemies in property disputes,
business conflicts or petty rows between neighbors.
Naeem Shakir, a Christian who directs Idare
Amno Insaf Lahore (committee for justice and peace), says that not only
individuals but also various groups and the state itself misuse the
legislation. Shakir, senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, told UCA News
he agrees that the blasphemy laws have contributed to oppression and
persecution and that they have become a political weapon directed against
various Muslim sects as well as religious minorities.
Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the NCJP,
maintains that the laws clearly send a message of fear to religious
minority communities because they are religion-specific and refer to
only one religion, Islam. He pointed out to UCA News that they contain
no reference to defaming Jesus Christ or the Bible.
The Pakistan Catholic Bishops' Conference has
repeatedly urged repeal of the legislation due to its discriminatory
nature, Jacob added. "It is poorly drafted, has many ambiguities,
and its use is a misuse and abuse of justice."
Father Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, NCJP's national
director, further explained to UCA News: "Even if our demand for
repeal has not been accepted, the laws are finally under discussion,
so we have had some success. Even the government accepts that there
really is misuse of the laws. During a recent Christian gathering, Federal
Minister for Minorities Affairs Ijazul Haq admitted that though only
three or four cases were registered under blasphemy laws before the
1980s, about 5,000 cases have been registered since then."
Some pin their hopes for change on the current
head of state, President General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power
in a coup in October 1999.
According to Shahbaz Bhatti, president of the
All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, minorities have the impression that
President Musharraf wants to repeal the laws. Musharraf never said so
publicly, Bhatti told UCA News, but he has repeatedly asked parliament
to review the laws lest they be misused.
In Bhatti's view, it is obvious that Muslim
clerics will not accept any minor change in the legislation, and repeal
of the laws is beyond the capacity of the government because it is unprepared
to risk alienating the clerics.
"This legislation gives a bad name to the
country, and minorities and human rights groups strongly oppose it,
but the government is only interested in minimizing its misuse,"
Johnson Michael, a Catholic and former member of the Punjab Assembly,
told UCA News. "Little indicates that the government will move
anytime soon," he added.
Michael, a nephew of Bishop Joseph and chairman
of the Bishop John Joseph Shaheed Trust in Faisalabad, further asserted
that whatever the government intends to do, minorities will keep fighting
against these laws because they are pushing minorities against the wall.
"This government has no political will
to change the legislation," Jacob reiterated, "but we will
further our struggle for repeal of all discriminatory laws, especially
the blasphemy laws."
PA8252.1352 August 2, 2005