By Samira Shackle
On 31 October, Pakistan’s supreme court acquitted Asia Bibi, a 54-year-old Christian woman who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. Bibi, a farm labourer and mother of five, had spent eight years on death row, accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad after an argument with her neighbours. After her acquittal, protests erupted in all of Pakistan’s major cities: smashed shopfronts, blocked motorways, burning tyres. And it has left the prime minister, Imran Khan, wavering between defending the verdict and trying to appease the hardline religious protesters.
Perhaps more than any other individual, Bibi has become a symbol of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. To liberals and secularists in the country – as well as to outsiders – this law is brutal, disproportionate and inhumane. Blasphemy in Pakistan carries the death sentence but, despite this harsh penalty, has a remarkably light burden of proof. The accuser can refuse to repeat the allegation in court for fear of blaspheming themselves; the law sets no standards for evidence and no requirement to prove intent. Lower court judges – such as those who condemned Bibi to eight years on death row – are often afraid to acquit in blasphemy cases because of the threat of mob violence. More than 60 people have been killed by mobs after blasphemy accusations since 1990.
To Islamists and conservatives, however, the law has become emblematic of Pakistan’s status as a Muslim state. It is therefore seen as something that must be defended at all costs. While the blasphemy law has been a political flashpoint for years, a specific movement has coalesced around it since Bibi’s arrest. In 2011, two politicians who had spoken up for her release were murdered – the Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, and the only Christian cabinet member, Shahbaz Bhatti. Taseer was murdered by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, who was executed in 2016. Mass protests were held by Islamist groups, who have held up Qadri as a hero.
In 2015, a political movement called Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which exists more or less only to defend the blasphemy law, sprung up. As is so often the case in Pakistan, these extreme elements have been pandered to by mainstream politicians, which provides the space for them to flourish and grow. After the assassinations of Taseer and Bhatti, tentative discussions of reforming the blasphemy law were shelved, sending a clear signal that violence works. During this year’s election campaign, the winner, Khan, appealed to this section of the voter base by vowing to “defend” the blasphemy law.
While the recent protests are ostensibly about Bibi’s acquittal, they are more than that: the TLP and other Islamist groups are defending an intolerant, inward-looking vision of Pakistan that rejects secularism and does not make space for religious minorities. The uniting power of the blasphemy law is such that it has brought together disparate, usually competing Islamist groups in a rare show of unity on the streets. In a particularly alarming speech at a recent protest, firebrand cleric and politician Maulana Fazlur Rehman called for “the people’s court” to override the supreme court.
The judges at the supreme court threw out Bibi’s case since there was no evidence against her. Even against the blasphemy law’s own incredibly low standard, the case against her fell apart. Perhaps this is why Khan, in his responses to the verdict, has repeatedly cited the need to respect the rule of law: he can support the supreme court’s verdict without going back on his election promise to “defend” the law itself.
Yet Khan’s apparent attempt to find a middle ground has left many dissatisfied. Soon after the announcement of Bibi’s acquittal, he gave a speech that – given his history of appeasing more extreme elements – surprised many in its stridency. In it, he supported the supreme court’s verdict and referred to protesters as “enemies of the state”. Yet in the days that followed, as protests closed off major motorways and caused businesses and schools to shutter, Khan and his inner circle appeared to vacillate. Reports emerged that in negotiations with the TLP, the anti-blasphemy group orchestrating the protests, Khan agreed to allow a court to review the acquittal, and to work to prevent Bibi from leaving the country. This was a betrayal of immense proportions, since it is clear that her life cannot be protected while she remains in Pakistan. Her lawyer, Saif ul-Malook, has already fled the country after receiving death threats. In addition to calling for Bibi’s death, the TLP’s leaders called for the death of the three supreme court judges who acquitted her, and instructed followers to rise up against the army chief. Her current location is unclear; over the weekend, there were reports she had left the country which were then denied.
Khan is far from being the first prime minister in Pakistan to pander to the conservative religious lobby, but this does not make it any less worrying. “If a government does not stand by the decisions of the apex court, the country cannot survive,” Khan said over the weekend. Yet these words are empty if they go alongside a willingness to cede ground to groups representing a bigoted and intolerant mindset that explicitly seeks to override the rule of law.
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