RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Blasphemy Law Triggers Violence in Punjab

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Beena Sarwar

LAHORE, May 11 1998 (IPS) - Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law has sparked riots and strikes in its richest province of Punjab after the suicide last week of a widely respected Roman Catholic bishop.

On Monday, shops and markets stayed shut in response to a strike call by Islamic extremists, protesting the alleged desecration of a hoarding in Faisalabad by Christian youths angered by the death of their bishop, Dr. John Joseph, 62.

Earlier mobs had targetted shops and homes belonging to the minority community in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s home province of Punjab, apparently in retaliation.

The violence followed the death on May 6 of Bishop Joseph of Faisalabad who shot himself through the head in the courtroom of Sahiwal town, in an act of protest against the sentencing to death of a Christian youth, Ayub Massih, for blasphemy.

Twenty five-year-old Ayub, who remains in Sahiwal jail pending an appeal, was convicted on Apr. 27 for allegedly speaking in support of Salman Rushdie, who has been in hiding since Iranian religious leaders sentenced him to death for his allegedly blasphemous novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.

The blasphemy law provides for death for anyone accused of defiling the name of the prophet Mohammed. But rights activists say that the vaguely worded Pakistani law is misused by Islamic extremists who use it against religious rivals and minorities.

Bishop Joseph had declared that charges against Ayub were made up to force 15 Christian families to drop a local land dispute, and alleged that the judge gave twice as much weight to the single accuser’s charges because he was a Muslim.

In a letter sent to Pakistan’s bishops and to newspapers a day before his death, Dr. Joseph urged the repeal of the blasphemy law, which he said was the “greatest block in the good and harmonious relations between Muslims and the religious minorities in Pakistan. In order to achieve national harmony, let us give a mighty push to this boulder before it crushes all of us.

“Now we must act strongly and in unity, Christians and Muslims, in order not only to get this death sentence suspended, but to get 295 B and C (of the Pakistan Penal Code) repealed without worrying about the sacrifices we shall have to offer; dedicated persons do not count the cost,” he wrote.

The bishop had threatened to protest Ayub’s death sentence in an “astonishing way” last month. But there was nothing to indicate that he was about to take his own life, shocked compatriots in the rights movement say.

“Dr. Joseph came to see us to discuss this case three days before he died,” said Asma Jahangir, chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) which has been in the forefront of the campaign to repeal the law. “But we had no idea he was planning something like this,” she said.

“This (suicide) has set the direction for struggle against black laws,” the prominent rights lawyer said, hoping that the death would not have been in vain if it gives, as she expected, “a great boost to the movement against such inhuman laws.”

In its 1997 annual report, the HRCP had again reiterated that “the practical application of the blasphemy law … needs to be honestly re-examined. The provision is known to have been widely abused. It has provided a handle to fanatical sentiment and has served as an instrument for mischief and personal malice.”

Three years ago, in another well-publicised case, a 14-year- old Christian, Salamat Massih, was sentenced to death for desecrating the Koran. But that was challenged successfully in a higher court by his lawyers who proved their client was illiterate and could not be accused of blasphemous writing in the Holy book.

Though the blasphemy law was introduced by martial law dictator General Zia-ul-Haq in 1985, higher courts of law have acquitted those accused in most of the cases registered saying charges were maliciously motivated.

But the religious right has thwarted efforts for the repeal of the “discriminatory” law. The previous Benazir Bhutto government sought to make the law less malleable to misuse, but had to back-track when the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party — now in power in Pakistan — combined with religious hardliners in protest.

The PML government was still unrelenting in the wake of Bishop Joseph’s protest death. Information Minister Mushahid Hussain, who was in London last week, told BBC television that the law was not against minorities but “aimed at providing protection to everybody.”

“The basic thing,” he said, “is to see whether as a result of this law someone is deprived of his right or if something repugnant to justice has been done.”

The government has also dismissed as “baseless” the charges of “religious intolerance” that have been levelled. The U.S State Department said the blasphemy law contributes to the “climate of religious intolerance” in Pakistan.

At the bishop’s funeral in Faisalabad on Sunday, attended by tens of thousands of mourners, church leaders vowed to continue their non-violent struggle. “We detest sectarianism and we want to live in peace,” said Father Pervez Emmanuel, adding that the “minority community (is) completely insecure.”