Protests against Charlie Hebdo cartoons have turned violent in Pakistan. Experts say the controversy surrounding the magazine will likely embolden extremists in the country and shrink the space for secular people.
Religious parties have taken to the streets of Pakistan's major cities over Charlie Hebdo's Muhammad cartoons, which are deemed offensive by many Muslims.
On Friday, January 16, a protest organized by the Jamaat-i-Islami party's student wing outside the French Consulate turned violent as protesters clashed with the police in the southern city of Karachi. Security forces used tear gas and water cannons to push back the angry mob. A number of protesters and reporters, including an AFP photographer, were shot and, according to unconfirmed reports, at least two people have been killed.
The so-called "Black Day" protests were organized by the Tehreek Hurmat-i-Rasool - a conglomerate of some 20 religious groups – to condemn the French satirical magazine's decision to publish Prophet Muhammad's caricatures in its latest edition. Last week, Islamic extremists attacked the Paris-based journal, killing 12 people in its office, in what the militants said was retaliation against Charlie Hebdo's previous "blasphemous" cartoons.
Pakistani reactions to any "insult" to Prophet Muhammad or Islam have usually been violent and hostile. For instance, vociferous protests erupted in the South Asian nation against the short film "Innocence of Muslims" when it was uploaded on YouTube by a US resident of Egyptian descent in July 2012. Religious groups torched cinemas and cars, looted banks and shops, and at least ten people were killed during the clashes that followed.
Call for Muslim unity
On Friday, the country's religious groups appealed to other Muslim nations to unite against the French magazine and take a firm stand. They said that if some 40 European countries could show solidarity with the journal, the 57 Muslim nations could get together to "safeguard the sanctity of the Holy Prophet."
The protesters also urged the leaders of all Muslim-majority nations to demand "an international law against the blasphemy that hurt feelings of over 1.5 billion people (Muslims) worldwide."
Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charitable wing of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group which masterminded the attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, called upon the Islamic clerics to "sensitize the people through Friday sermons of the blasphemous acts and conspiracies of Christians and Jews against Islam."
Earlier this week, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant organizations praised the Charlie Hebdo attackers who killed 12 people in the magazine's office last week.
The Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban issued a statement lauding the two brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo assault, saying "they freed the earth from the existence of filthy blasphemers".
"O enemies of Islam beware! Every youth of this Ummah (Muslim community) is willing to sacrifice himself for the honor of (the) Prophet," said the statement, which was sent via email by spokesman Ehsanullan Ehsan.
Can it get worse?
Shahan Zaidi, a Karachi-based cartoonist, believes the Charlie Hebdo controversy won't end for quite some time and there will be more protests in Pakistan.
"Things might get uglier in the days to come. Security has been beefed up due to these protests but I think the religious groups have an unofficial backing from the government," Zaidi told DW.
Tahir Ahmed, a political activist in Lahore, says the Islamic groups are using the Paris killings to their benefit, and that it is more about domestic politics and silencing liberal voices than a stance against the West. "The caricatures controversy is beneficial for fanatics. It will embolden them. It might have some effect on Western societies, but ultimately it is liberal people like us in countries like Pakistan who will suffer the most. Our already shrinking space in society will be further reduced," he told DW.
Ahmed said that the decision to publish Muhammad's cartoons by Charlie Hebdo's management was unwise because one could not defeat extremism by going to another extreme.
Freedom of speech and hypocrisy
On January 15, Pakistan's parliament passed a unanimous resolution condemning the publication of cartoons.
Zaidi believes that many Pakistanis are extremely hypocritical in their attitudes and reactions towards the West.
"We have double standards on almost every thing. Religion is no different," he underlined.
Pakistan's rights groups say the Islamic country's religious minorities face social and legal discrimination and have almost no rights when it comes to freedom of expression. The liberal sections point out that the country's clerics deliver regular sermons against Christians and Jews, allege that their holy books are forged, but react violently when an individual or a group in the West say a word against their religion.
But Ali Hassan, a Pakistani writer, told DW it would be unfair to single out Muslims "as overly sensitive communities" while keeping religion in general out of the question. "Islam is in a particularly vulnerable point of the arc in present times. Pakistani Islam experiences more elaborate anxieties, and therefore acts out more, compared to other Islams because of our national anxieties," Hassan said.
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