A protest in Karachi over the lynching of Mashal Khan. Credit: Abida Ali/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, May 5 2017 (IPS)

Aimal Khan, 27, an airman in Pakistan’s Air Force, warns the country will end up in the throes of mayhem if the state does not do something about the abuse of the blasphemy laws. “People will use it to settle personal scores,” he said.

He should know. His younger brother, Mashal Khan, 25, was brutally killed by a mob roused to a frenzy by allegations he had committed blasphemy. “They became the judge, the jury and the executioner,” Aimal said. "It's pretty obvious that religious passions are easily ignited because day in and day out all we hear about is religious sermonizing in one form or the other." --Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy

Studying at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (KPK), Khan was known for speaking out against corruption and injustices prevalent in society. On April 13, he was shot, stripped and not satisfied with that, the mob then beat up his corpse as shown in the graphic video footage.

The police investigation following his killing, however, found no evidence he had committed blasphemy. The government has since arrested 47 of the 49 accused.

Political activist and lawyer Jibran Nasir told IPS that the country’s blasphemy laws are not just used by the land mafia to evict people, but often for raising funds and recruiting members by rogue organisations. “The social media has become a more potent tool where one fake account with just one blasphemous tweet can kill someone,” he said alluding to the fake account created in the name of Mashal Khan to falsely establish he’d committed blasphemy.

According to opposition leader Syed Khursheed Shah, since 1990, 65 people have been killed on allegations of committing blasphemy and no one was executed for the crimes.

A month later, Aimal says the family continues to receive phone calls expressing condolences from all across Pakistan. Ordinary people to celebrities and even politicians have visited their home to offer comfort.

“After my brother’s murder, we thought humanity had fled from this country, but I tell you, it’s quite the opposite. We have been given unconditional support,” Aimal said, his voice filled with emotion, over the phone from his village Zaida in Swabi district, KPK.

He hopes his family’s loss can open the door to a meaningful debate on reviewing the infamous laws.

Muhammad Iqbal Khan (left), the father of Mashal Khan, who was murdered by a religious mob in Pakistan. The men offer prayers. Credit: Abdul Hameed Goraya/IPS

Aimal’s sentiments are echoed by Reema Omer of the International Commission of Jurists. “If Mashal’s most tragic killing could revive the debate and lead to blasphemy reform, that would be a fitting tribute to his bravery and courage,” she told IPS.

“The law should have been reviewed and reformed a long time ago. These incidents are latest but not the first,” pointed out Nasir. While exploitation of these laws can be corrected through procedural reforms, he said what was innately wrong was that they are in violation of Hanafi jurisprudence [followed in Pakistan] which gives no death penalty to non-Muslims for blasphemy but Pakistani law does.

Asia Bibi, a Christian, has been on death row for the last seven years. International Christian Concern  has termed her case one of the most “controversial” and best examples of the abuse of blasphemy laws.

While a complete scrapping of the law is unlikely, many see this as an opportunity to revive a debate. In 1986, to ‘Islamise’ the country, Pakistan’s then leader General Mohammad Zia ul Haq enacted these laws.

But anyone who has tried to even tried to open debate has either been censured or silenced.

In 2011, Salmaan Taseer, the then governor of Punjab, was assassinated for supporting Asia Bibi, accused of blasphemy. His murder was followed by that of Shahbaz Bhatti, a minister who had talked of misuse of the laws.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazal) chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman, enjoying a huge following in the KPK, while condemning Khan’s lynching, said he was well aware that liberal forces would use this incident and call for amendment in the laws, but warned that no one would be allowed to touch it.

“For a few days when there was such an outcry it was felt the time for a critical review of the blasphemy laws had arrived,” said I.A. Rehman, noted rights activist, speaking to IPS. “The clerics were on the defensive.”

This euphoria was short-lived.

Rehman said the lawmakers belonging to religious parties disowned the resolution in the assembly which they had earlier backed.

In fact, soon after Mashal’s lynching, the legislative assembly of Pakistan-administered Pakistan passed two resolutions regarding the finality of Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and respect of his family and companions.

A protest in Karachi over the lynching of Mashal Khan. Credit: Abida Ali/IPS

The resolution also stated that if Ahmadis (declared non-Muslims by the constitution of Pakistan) claim themselves to be Muslims, they should be charged with blasphemy.

He has little hope in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who himself narrowly survived ouster and was saved by a supreme court verdict last month, after the opposition had taken him to court on charges of corruption.

“It [ruling Pakistan Muslim League — PML-N] will not take on the clerics at this stage,” Rehman said, lamenting: “The chance of doing something about blasphemy will again be missed.” But then he never had much hope attached to Sharif in the first place. “The PML-N is an accomplice to orthodoxy therefore there is no hope of a change for the better.”

However, there are others who say the laws have nothing to do with the recent episodes of lynching. The laws were not even invoked once.

Following the killing of Khan, in another part of Pakistan, a man was shot dead by his three sisters. He was accused of blasphemy in 2004 and the sisters in their confessional statement said they were incited by the imam of their neighbourhood mosque.

The same day a mob attacked a man after Friday prayers in northern Pakistan town of Chitral, and was saved in time by the mosque imam and the police officers who intervened and rescued him. The man was mentally ill and was on his way to Islamabad for treatment.

“It’s not the law, it’s the people, a people that have gone berserk,” said eminent educationist, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, who teaches physics at universities in Islamabad and Lahore.

That is why he insists on teaching Occam’s Razor in his classes. “It’s a metaphor for parsimony of assumptions. Start with the obvious, if that doesn’t work then assume that something more complicated is involved,” he explained, adding: “In this [lynching] particular case, it’s pretty obvious that religious passions are easily ignited because day in and day out all we hear about is religious sermonizing in one form or the other.”

But Omer thinks otherwise. “Killings in the name of blasphemy and mob violence after blasphemy allegations cannot be separated from the law and its mandatory death punishment; the impunity – even patronage – enjoyed by perpetrators in the past; and the state’s use of blasphemy to clamp down on dissenting/critical voices,” she said.

Recalling the climate just before Khan’s killing, she said there was renewed movement by various state institutions condemning ‘blasphemers; calling blasphemy ‘an act of terrorism; and urging people to report blasphemy so strict action could be taken against them.

Nasir, too, believed that when the parliament associates the death penalty with a crime it “does trickle down into society, socially and politically”. He gave the example of the arrest of three people for desecrating a Hindu temple and tried under section 295A (of blasphemy laws) which does not carry death penalty but shows clearly that blasphemy against other religions does not create a “huge social or political uproar”.

In addition, Omer said, the existence of the blasphemy laws in their current form gives a certain “cloak of legality” to such calls. “Which is why we shouldn’t lose sight of the connection between the existence of the blasphemy laws and the kind of violence we saw in Mardan, in Chitral, and before that in Kot Radha Kishan and other cases,” she said.

A large number of people accused of blasphemy, or even convicted of blasphemy by trial courts for defiling the Holy Quran, suffer from mental illnesses, said Omer. “This too is a common thread in how blasphemy laws play out in practice,” she said.”This is a damning indictment of the prosecution and police, who allow these cases to continue despite the fact that the accused do not have the requisite capacity to commit a crime.”

On Mar. 9, 2013, Muslim mobs torched the Christian neighbourhood known as Joseph Colony in Lahore. Credit: Irfan Ahmed/IPS

By Irfan Ahmed
LAHORE, Apr 28 2013 (IPS)

Younas Gill, a self-employed tax accountant, sits on the pavement in Joseph Colony, Lahore, staring at the place where, until about a month ago, his home had stood.

It was burnt to ashes on Mar. 9, when a mob of Muslims tore through this Christian neighbourhood in the Badami Bagh district of Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, torching homes and displacing over 150 families.

Gill and his family now rely on government support and charitable contributions while they struggle to piece their lives back together. On Apr. 22, the Lahore diocese of the Church of Pakistan distributed a fridge, ceiling fans, pedestal fan, a two-burner stove, bicycle and iron to each of the affected families.

“The provincial government helped with the reconstruction of our house and NGOs and relief organisations are constantly supporting the locals since the tragedy occurred,” Gill told IPS.

But the passage of time, and the return of a sense of normalcy, has not replaced the fear that swept through this settlement just over a month ago. Gill says residents “fear reprisal from accused arsonists who have won bail from the courts.”

They are now back on the streets, “some of them with vengeance”, Gill said.

Men like Gill, and his fellow community members, represent the precariousness of life for Pakistan’s 2.8 million Christian residents, a tiny minority in a country of 170 million people, who have borne the brunt of so-called blasphemy laws that prescribe the death penalty for defamation of the Prophet Muhammad and life imprisonment for those who desecrate the Holy Quran.

New clauses introduced between 1980 and 1986 during the reign of former president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq opened the door to broad interpretation of the law: between 1986 and 2013 1,100 cases of blasphemy have been brought to the courts, a significant number of which are against Christians, says Peter Jacob, secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCPJ), formed by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan.

Jacob and other experts say these allegations are often trumped up and fabricated, and used by clerics and other religious leaders to incite mobs to attack Christian communities.

Joseph Colony, a three-acre settlement, was caught in the line of fire of one such blasphemy charge when a resident named Sawan Masi was accused of making “objectionable” remarks about the Prophet Muhammad.

Christian residents from the colony told IPS that the fateful day began with police instructing them to vacate the area for their “security” and not to worry about their properties.  The locals complied – and returned the next day only to find their homes burnt to ashes by a mob of 3,000 Muslims.

As information trickled in, it became clear that the police had been expecting the attack on the colony, yet failed to prevent it.

Just hours after the police chief of Badmi Bagh vowed to bring his police force to heel, and ensure the protection and security of all Pakistan’s citizens, a violent mob attacked the Christian colony of Francis Abad in the northeastern city of Gujranwala.

The incident began when a quarrel between clerics and a Christian youth accused of playing loud music outside a mosque erupted into a full-fledged street brawl between members of the two communities, which the police once again failed to prevent or halt.

Haroon Suleman, a Lahore-based lawyer who often appears in court over blasphemy-related issues, told IPS, “Most of such cases have been filed… to take over prime real estimate that Christian minorities inhabit.”

Many Christians who came to the cities as menial labourers settled on vacant state land decades ago.

As Pakistan’s cities expanded and businesses sprouted around these informal settlements, the land became highly lucrative, selling for millions of dollars per acre and quickly attracting the attention of Pakistan’s notorious urban land mafia. In Joseph Colony, the site of the Mar. 9 attack, an acre of land costs 2.4 million dollars due to its location in the heart of a highly commercialised wholesale steel scrap market.

The first step of land acquisition involves middlemen bargaining with residents for compensation of the entire settlement in order to set up godowns (warehouses).

“When the settlers refuse to accept cash offers and vacate their properties, tactics like (violence and intimidation) are use to get the desired results,” Suleman told IPS.

The political leadership of the country is well aware of the issue, but fear of reprisals from religious extremist groups prompts many to remain silent. None of the major political parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), have raised the issue in their manifestos ahead of the May 11 parliamentary polls, knowing that those who dared in the past to speak up paid a fatal price.

For instance, former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own security guard Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri in January 2011 for supporting a Christian Pakistani woman, Asia Bibi, sentenced on blasphemy charges.

Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian leader and then-federal minister for minorities, was killed the same year for his vocal opposition to the misuse of blasphemy laws.

With elections approaching in just a few weeks, the Christian community is calling attention to their total lack of representation in parliament, with some leading minority parties calling for a boycott of the 2013 polls.

The national assembly has 10 reserved seats for minorities, among 272 elected members. Under the current system, Christians and other minorities vote for Muslim candidates from various political parties and the reserved minority seats are then awarded to those parties in proportion to the seats they have won. The parties, in turn, award that seat to their “loyalist”.

Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti, founder of the Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC), told IPS his party is against this practice, saying his constituency wants to elect their own representatives on a one-person one-vote basis.

On Monday, Apr. 15, Bhatti submitted a letter to the election commissioner of Pakistan, urging the official to ensure the safety of minorities – Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis – who choose to stay away from the voting stations.

(END)