Pakistan's Draconian blasphemy law: Death sentence under a black law

In a sad reminder of just how unjust and ugly the blasphemy law is in Pakistan, a trial court has sentenced a member of the country’s Christian community, Sawan Masih, to death on charges of blasphemy related to the Joseph Colony incident in Lahore. The accused had a very flimsy case against him with conflicting statements given by the ‘witnesses’. That the court deemed it fit to hand out a death sentence is baffling to say the least. Blasphemy cases in Pakistan tend to be decided on hearsay because the alleged blasphemy can never be repeated for that in itself would be blasphemy. How on earth does one then punish a blasphemy offence when the evidence cannot be cited? When one considers that capital punishment is meted out on such grounds, the injustice and absurdity of it all really hit home.

What smacks of complete discrimination is that the 3,000 rioters who torched Joseph Colony to the ground are still free with only about 133 standing trial, of which there has been no outcome so far. How can it be that those who in their rage ran rampant on an entire colony have still not been dealt with with the firm hand of the law when the lone man who stands accused — most say falsely — of committing the blasphemy that led to the rioting, has been given the worst possible punishment? Is this how the legal system in the land works when it comes to the thorny issue of blasphemy? We have not seen this level of wrong judgements by our courts as usually blasphemy accused are let off because most such cases are not about religion at all — they are about vested interests and settling vendettas. The truth is that the political will needed to take on the mullahs when it comes to this matter is sadly lacking. We are so nervous about curbing the rising extremism that the blasphemy laws have become a poster child for and all that is wrong and all that we cannot change. If repealing these laws, which would be the only sane thing to do, is impossible in the face of ‘mullah might’, then we must do all we can to amend the laws so as to safeguard people from being wrongly accused of this ‘crime’. Those who falsely accuse others of blasphemy must be punished as harshly as the alleged blasphemer. Religion does not need protection but God knows, we do.