Punish Pakistan for its un-Islamic blasphemy laws

By: Haroon Siddiqui

Barbarity of burning a Christian couple alive in Pakistan is worse than the beheadings by the Islamic State.

“The barbaric act by fanatic Pakistani Muslims of burning alive a poor Christian couple is a crime against humanity. It’s the worst crime in the history of Pakistan committed in the name of religion. It was triggered by the false accusation of the burning of some pages of the Qur’an.” That’s Father James Channan of the Dominican Order in Pakistan summing up the horrific incident last week when a mob of more than 1,000 Muslims in a small village in the province of Punjab killed a poor Christian couple.

Shahzad and Shama Masih (the Blessed One, referring to Christ — a common last name among Pakistani Christians) worked at a brick kiln. Its owner reportedly locked up the couple and their three children over a wage dispute. The next day, an announcement was made from two mosques that the couple had committed blasphemy. Frenzy ensued. A crowd ran and beat up the couple, who pleaded innocence and begged for their lives, but were dragged and thrown into the kiln and burnt alive. Shama was pregnant.

The barbarity was worse than the beheadings by the Islamic State militia in Iraq. Here was a civilian mob, mobilized by a mullah or two, either paid by the kiln owner or, worse, motivated by assumed religious duty.

Neither Islamic law nor Muslim tradition permits lynch mobs. Allegations of crime must be proven before a qadi, judge, who’s obligated as part of due process to give the full benefit of the doubt to the accused. The penalty for false accusation is greater than the penalty prescribed for a crime. In this case, therefore, those instigating the horror, those participating in it and those who did nothing to prevent it are all culpable.

The alleged crime is itself of dubious theological provenance. Tradition differs from culture to culture as to how to dispose of old, tattered copies of the revered book — burying in the ground, dropping into a well or in an ocean or a flowing river, to be one with the environment, or, according to some scholarly opinions, burning it. The real offence rests elsewhere — deliberately desecrating the book as an act of hate and incitement.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws date back to British colonial rule that made it a crime to disturb a religious assembly, trespass on burial grounds, insult religious beliefs and intentionally destroy or defile a place or an object of worship — punishable by one to 10 years in jail. (Similar laws have been inherited in India where they are also still abused.)

Pakistan toughened the laws during the 1980s. Making derogatory remarks against Islamic personages was made an offence (three years in jail); “wilful” desecration of the Qur’an (life imprisonment); blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad (“death or imprisonment for life”). There is no provision to punish a false accuser or a false witness.

Worse, the laws have been misused to settle personal scores, monetary and property disputes, or pursue vendettas while the state has watched helplessly.

“Muslims and Christian alike are victimized,” as Father James Channan notes. But minorities are disproportionately targeted. A total of 633 Muslims, 494 Ahmadis, 187 Christians and 21 Hindus have been accused of blasphemy since 1987, according to the National Commission for Justice and Peace.

Minorities are persecuted in other ways as well, and Hindus and Christians remain at the bottom of the economic ladder — bonded labour in the rural areas and in menial jobs in cities.

Seventeen people are on death row, convicted of blasphemy, and another 19 are serving life sentences. Death sentence is rarely carried out but that’s no solace.

Mere accusation of blasphemy is enough to kill you, literally. Before or during or after a trial, the accused can get bumped off and the killer never found. Those speaking out against both the blasphemy law and the absence of state protection can be killed. In the last four years alone, a moderate Muslim cleric, a Muslim governor of Punjab and a Christian junior cabinet minister have been gunned down. The governor’s murderer was hailed a hero.

Days after the Masih case, an axe-wielding police officer killed a Shiite man in police custody, claiming he had committed blasphemy. In September, a 70-year-old paranoid schizophrenic man convicted of blasphemy was shot by a police guard in jail. This is a sick society we are dealing with, doing un-Islamic things in “Islamic Pakistan.”

In the Masih case, 45 people have been arrested. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said justice will be done. “A responsible state cannot tolerate mob rule and public lynching with impunity.”

Such statements are made and forgotten. People arrested are quietly let go. Charges are withdrawn. Court dates never come. Trials are derailed by bribing or threatening the prosecutors and the judges.

In 2010, a private member’s bill to amend the blasphemy law was sent to a parliamentary committee but withdrawn a year later under pressure.

Brave people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, working to change the situation remain a voice in the wilderness. What’s needed is international pressure and severe penalties on Pakistan — not merely tribal loyalty to Christians or sympathy for other minorities.