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.
HMD,
she had a trial and her case was decided. Thus, more than 1 person examined the case in full details and a conclusion was reached.
You see, it is not simply the case of saying one thing and believing it. If you have x number of witnesses as in this case (where x is greater than 2 or 3), you have a large probability that the witnesses are not lying and the Judge is sane when he/she hands out the judgement, no? Don’t you think they cross examined the witnesses individually and verified each witnesses’s version of story?
I am no lawyer or judge or jury and neither is any one of us over here claiming that she is innocent and this law must be repealed (and even if they were, none of them are involved directly with this case).
As for the Quran burning nonsense you said, it just goes to show your own thought process – this is more vile of a thing to say than some standard mom/sister related cussing.
Hina, you are being like what they say in Urdu, ‘Khisyani Billi Khamba Nochay’. Don’t curse other for your own mental infertility. If some one refute your shallow statements then all of sudden that person become a mullah,the guy spread intolerance etc. BiBi, go and learn basics first and don’t try to act up like an “Elite Mullani” by coming up your fatwas without any basic knowledge.
@Bangash: I do agree with you. Just a couple of years back late Dr.Israr Ahmed get life threats when he revealed the truth about Ali(RA) that He(ra) was drunk when he stood up for Namaz and after that Allah revealed the verse in Quran that Muslim should not go near to wine when they are going to offer Salah. Shia Millitants messed up things by doing heavy wall chalking and wrote “Dr.Israr Wajibul Qatal etc etc”.
In 2006 Amir Liaquat Hussain said(which is true) that Chest Beating is not permissible in Islam and after that radical shias attacked on Geo office to “teach lesson to Amir Liaquat”
It’s ironic that people of such faith don’t make attempts to clean the filth in their sects and yet ready to attack on others. Irony! Simply Irony!
@Sarah: No I am not smoking what you usually smoke, A/C to liberals, even a kid pee in pants they blame Talibans. So citing Pakistaniat is as lame as someone cites Ann Coulter for something sensible. Your very own Interior Minister and Pak Arm don’t get tired to blame India and other “Ghair Mulki” Haath on recent unrest and you are poping up with your own interpretations.
And let’s assume you are right then why your grand Master,USA and others are dying to talk with “Talibans”? Ask your Glorious US govt not to surrender to Talibans?
http://nyti.ms/cjcjuq
Read it and get back to your bin please? or start following news resources instead of banking on site like Pakistaniat running by people who are fed by US policy makers to pollute Pakistani society to inject their filthy thoughts one way or other.
@Ravi: Oh really? Look who’s talking! the follower of the faith whose member demolish a mosque by spreading the propaganda of some fake raam temple, the follower of a religion which Brahaman don’t allow dalits and shodars to eat on same table, where caste system makes a person miserable just because God sent him in a low caste family.
I wait for that utopian Islam the meek and the afraid keep talking about, that which is just and fair to all. I keep hearing stories from lands and cultures alien to mine about a glorious past when men had dignity and the state protected the honor of all under it and i am constantly reminded of His judgement and benevolence through fables and parables…but for now i have to live with the Islam its followers practice. I have to live in a society where man’s dignity carries no meaning for the state and his honor and safety is not on the priority list of the ruler, a ruler and a government that will use Islam as an instrument of power at will and whim. I look around and fail to find an Islamic society today where man or woman regardless of faith is treated with equality and is provided the fundamental freedoms which are his/her birth right. I see prejudice based on religion that tells me i am better than my fellow man because he chose to believe in another version of god. I see hatred all around me, hatred that is justified not only by words but also by actions. I see men yearning for a tomorrow they can only dream about because today has given them nothing but hunger, poverty, insecurity and dishonor all sanctioned by the state and the instruments at its disposal. I see a dying society that has given up on life in return for a promised bounty in a place no one has been and back and when i realize all this i ask myself, Is this all i was created for and is this all my life is worth?