In June 2008, Asiya Bibi, a Pakistani farm worker and mother of five, fetched water for others working on the farm. Many refused the water because Asiya was Christian. The situation got ugly. Reports indicate Asiya was harassed because of her religion and the matter turned violent. Asiya, alone in a hostile environment, naturally would have attempted to defend herself but was put in police custody for her protection against a crowd that was harming her.
However, that protection move turned into one that was to earn Asiya a death sentence. A case was filed against her under sections 295-B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code, claiming that Asiya was a blasphemer. Her family will appeal against the judgment in the Lahore High Court.
The Asiya case raises the fundamental question of how Pakistan’s minorities have been left unprotected since the passage of the blasphemy law.
There may have been no hangings on account of the law but it has facilitated the spread of intolerance and populist rage against minorities, often leading to deaths. There is also a direct link between the Zia-ist state’s intolerance against minorities and the rise of criminal treatment of Ahmadis.
Cases have ranged from the Kasur case to the more recent Gojra case, from the mind-boggling row of cases between 1988-1992 against 80-year-old development guru Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan, to the case of the son of an alleged blasphemer, an illiterate brick kiln worker who was beaten to death by a frenzied mob.
Although doctor sahib faced prolonged mental torture, he was saved from the maddening rage that has sent to prison, and in some cases devoured, many innocent, poor and hence unprotected Pakistanis.
There is a long list, prepared by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, of unjust punishments handed down to Pakistani citizens whose fundamental rights the state is obliged to protect. Beyond punishments, minorities live in constant fear of being lethally blackmailed by those who want to settle other scores.
Yet most political parties have refrained from calling for the law’s repeal or improvement in its implementation mechanism.
When, in the early 90s, I asked Nawaz Sharif sahib to criticise the hounding of Dr Khan, his response was a detailed recall of the story in which Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) went to ask after the health of a non-Muslim woman who repeatedly threw garbage over him. He condemned what was happening but said politics prevented him from doing so publicly. Later, General Musharraf, advised by other generals, reversed his announcement of changing the law’s implementation mechanism. Small crowds protested against it. Among politicians, very few exceptions include the PPP parliamentarian Sherry Rehman and, more recently, the ANP’s Bushra Gohar, who asked for its amendment and repeal.
Already sections of the judiciary have been critical of flawed judgements passed by lower courts in alleged blasphemy cases. Recently in July, Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khawaja Sharif quashed a blasphemy case against 60-year-old Zaibunnisa and ordered her release after almost 14 years in custody. According to the judgment, the “treatment meted out to the woman was an insult to humanity and the government and the civil organisations should be vigilant enough to help such people.” Surely the Bench should know the plethora of abuses that Pakistan’s minorities have suffered because of an evidently flawed law.
A message more appropriate, perhaps, would be to repeal the black law that grossly undermines the Constitution of Pakistan and indeed the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, one of the most tolerant and humane law-givers humankind has known. This environment of populist rage, fed by the distorted yet self-serving interpretation of religion principally by Zia and a populist mixing of religion and politics by a politically besieged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, must be emphatically challenged. A collective effort to roll back these laws must come from parliament, the lawyers’ forums, the judiciary, civil society groups and the media.
This was originally published in The Express Tribune.
@Meengla
Adnan is not totally incorrect. Sectarian hate is created by neighboring states and no single country is to be blamed for that. Unless and until funding by outsiders to different sects is eliminated somehow ( one factor is national economic recuperation) the fight for supremacy and power will continue. Sunni’s being a majority in the country have, constitutionally as well as otherwise, the democratic right to make laws here…they do not want to follow distorted shape of Islam that is apparent in many sects….including the Shia’s who follow the Sharia of Ali. Sometimes I feel disgusted to find that there could be a |Sharia which supersedes the Sharia of Hazrat Muhammad??? Well, that is off topic but sectarian differences will continue as long as sects are there…..and disputes between Sunni and Shia’s are not a new thing, history being full of their reciprocal bloodshed just for the sake of personalities rather than God!! I feel sorry for Christians too as Marin Luther turned out as yet another personality to upheaval their faith.
yet another late entrants are Mirzai’s with their new theories….and induction of a new Prophet from Punjab!
Amazing Indeed!! Then there are Aga Khanis, Bohra’s, Zakris, etc etc……….
Rather than cuss your own people and your own faith why doesn’t it occur to Muslim that they follow the Quran straight away rather than intermix facts–right or wrong- compiled by humans ..I think we |Muslims as divided into various sects are synonymous to Christian belief in the tampered Bible! No Muslim will tamper the Quran but Traditions……just look at the Shia and Sunni versions of Khutba-e-Hajj and note the changes therein, those surely make a simple Muslim like me to bang my head against the wall!!
Tauba Mussalmaano
Na pooray mussalmaan ho
No pooray ho kafir
Tum kia ho batao toe zara
hairaan hien khaar-o-gul, gulistan-o-saba!!
@ Hina
Why did you forget to mention the Mirzai’s??? You would be more rich if you had added them in your list of ‘conspirators’!
<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>
why don’t you tell us something new?? Why don’t you rewrite your ‘Interpretation of Sharia’ rather than waste time in futile and self-loathing arguments???
Bolo ke zindagi ka ghaneemat bahut he dam
mernay se pehlay baant bhi de apnay dil ka gham!!
@Adnan,
I will concede that I don’t know for sure -really- what is happening in Afghanistan. There are the Talibans, the Nato, the new Great Game and then there may be Indians involved. And I also think it is entirely likely that some of the militants can be on foreigners’ payroll without even knowing that. Extreme poverty, lack of education, relative isolation from the mainstream Pakistan can make the northwest frontiers of Pakistan ripe for anything. At lease this ‘liberal’ is going concede these points.
However, you REALLY are going too far to say that the current PPP government is a Shia government and that’s why the are going after the likes of Lashkar Jhanvi. Equally absurd is the notion that nobody is targeting the President and Rehman Malik. Both of these, along with many others in PPP and ANP are the prime targets of the militants and so they are well protected. Remember what happened to Benazir Bhutto? But to imply that this is all some game played by the PPP government is absolutely absurd!
Get out of your sectarian mindset. No Shia is going to or can ever dominate Pakistan with a bare 20% geographically dispersed population of Shias.
@allahkabanda
The lies are coming from you, not just Adnan the whining baby.
YOU are the one who claimed that Asiya had pissed on someones mothers picture. There is no indication that she did. You just made up the charge. Another lie and a false accusation as so many others are.
Since you asked. If someone pussed on my parents picture I will be very hurt, very sad, and also very angry. But NO I will not kill them; I may have a quick temper but I am nit a brutal murderer. THAT is why the blasphemy law is wrong.
@Adnan
No need to while like a little baby.
Little boy, your rant makes no sense and we can all see that you are trying to run to mummy and making excuses instead if answering a simple question.
On the Americans. Agreed. They are criminals, idiots, murderers. Done. Finished.
Now let’s come to the guys you support.
There is a mosque that was blown up. Fact.
There were Muslims who were killed. Fact.
There were Qurans in the mosque that were desecrated and destroyed. Fact.
The Taliban gleefully took ‘credit’ for doing all of the above. Fact.
The Taliban and their supporters claim they are doing all if above because they want Shariah. Fact.
Which if the above facts are you denying. Stop trying to run away from the question like a wimp, boy. Answer the question. Stop doing you Taliban friends propaganda for them. And please don’t raise the US bogus argument. I have already said I dialysis them as much as your Taliban.