Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (20 page)

On May 29, 2001
, Mohasib,
a daily newspaper in Abbottabad, published an article, “Darhi aur Islam” (Beard and Islam), written by Jamil Yousfi, a well-known poet and author of twelve books. In it, he argued against some religious leaders’ claims that without a beard one could not be a true Muslim. He explained that in the prophet’s lifetime even non-Muslims wore beards. He also criticized self-proclaimed teachers of Islam for exploiting Islam for their personal gain. That same day, in response to Yousfi’s article
, Mohasib’s
premises were sealed off, and the paper itself was banned until June 5. Four journalists were arrested:
Mohammed Zaman, the editor, Shahid Chaudhry, the managing editor, Shakil Tahirkhelvi, the news editor, and Raja Haroon, a subeditor. The police registered a case under sections 295-A and -C, based on a complaint lodged by the religious group Waqar Jadoon of Khatme Nabuwat Youth Force. Other religious groups, including Jamiat Ulama-e-Isloam and Sipah-e-Sahaba, held a protest at Abbottabad on June 8, in which they denounced the article and demanded death sentences for the writer and journalists
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Pakistan was created as a home for the Muslims of British India, based on the belief that Hindus and Muslims constituted two nations. Although its population of 176 million is over 90 percent Muslim, it was not intended by its founders to be an Islamic state. In 1947, independence leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah pledged that Hindus, Christians, Parsis, and other religious minorities would enjoy equality with the Muslim majority. Three days before the country’s official founding, he stated: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
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In March 1949, the “Objectives Resolution,” which was to help guide the constitutional drafting process, stressed “pluralism both within Islam and among non-Islamic religions.”
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Yet, despite being 18 percent Shia, 3 percent Ahmadi, 2 percent Christian, 2 percent Hindu, and 2 percent “other,” including Baha’i, animist, Buddhist, and Parsi, Pakistan has not embraced pluralism and has moved away from many of its founders’ principles. Successive governments have subjected much of Pakistan’s public life to so-called Islamic principles and have introduced purported sharia into civil and criminal law. While political and religious reformers have sought respect for the rights of all citizens, they have had to struggle continuously with reactionary elements, especially among the
ulema
. Religious reformers, such as the esteemed scholar Fazlur Rahman, who sought to look to the Qur’an and Sunna as a “source of generic values, not specific rules,” have faced threats, including accusations of blasphemy. Rahman himself was forced to flee the country and became a professor at the University of Chicago, where he shaped a generation of students. This was America’s great gain but Pakistan’s great loss.
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These internal tensions led to an unstable legal system. The 1956 constitution was abrogated in 1958; the 1962 constitution was abrogated in 1969. The 1973 constitution, though not abrogated by the later martial law regime, was subject to so many amendments that by the 1980s, it was effectively a new constitution.
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These changes each gave an increasing role to Islam. The 1956 constitution’s references to Islamic sources were tailored to avoid making sharia itself a source of law. However, the 1973 constitution, introduced under Yahya Khan, contained Islamist-leaning provisions. Section 1(1) named the country the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan, hereinafter referred to as Pakistan.” Section 2 stated: “Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan.” Section 41(2) required the president to be a Muslim, and Section 227(1) required that all laws “be brought in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah…and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such Injunctions.”
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It also established the Council of Islamic Ideology to advise Parliament on the compatibility of laws with Islamic law.
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After the separation of Bangladesh in the 1970s, the prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, strengthened ties with the Gulf States, looking to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait as sources of aid and trade. In 1977, he outlawed alcohol, gambling, and nightclubs and declared that sharia law would be established and enforced. Since Bhutto was deposed in 1977 by a military coup led by General Zia ul-Haq and was hanged on murder charges in 1979, he never implemented these changes. However, as part of a pattern whereby the ulema’s influence tends to strengthen under military rule, Zia accelerated legal Islamization. Having a power base only in the armed forces, and lacking democratic legitimacy, he claimed that God spoke to him in a dream and charged him with creating an Islamic state in Pakistan.
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Zia subsequently introduced compulsory prayers in government offices during working hours, enforced fasting during Ramadan, and encouraged “Islamic standards” in newspapers, TV, radio, the arts, and magazines.
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On February 10, 1979, the anniversary of the prophet’s birth,
hudad
ordinances were introduced, prescribing amputation, stoning, and whipping for theft, robbery, unlawful sexual intercourse, false accusation of unlawful sexual intercourse, and the consumption of alcohol. Zia also established Shariat Benches at the High Courts, the Federal Shariat Court, and the Shariat Appellate Bench at the Supreme Court to oversee the implementation of sharia criminal law and to evaluate the laws’ consistency with sharia.
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It was under Zia that Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws were introduced. Until then the penal code had criminalized only the “injuring or defiling (of) a place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class.”
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In the 1980s, sections 298-A, -B, and -C and 295-B and -C were added, creating what are now generally known as the blasphemy laws.

Section 298-A, added in 1980, stipulates: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of any wife, or members of the family of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) or any of the righteous Caliphs or
companions of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or both.” (Sections 298-B and -C, added in 1984, are specifically directed against Ahmadis and are discussed below).

Section 295-B, added in 1982 (incorporated through the implementation of Ordinance I) requires: “Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom, or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose, shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.”

Section 295-C, added in 1986, requires: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”
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The stakes were raised even higher when, in 1990, the Federal Shariat Court ruled, “The penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet…is death and nothing else.” While this is in principle binding, the government has not yet amended the law, which means that the provision for a life sentence still formally exists, and the government uses it as a concession to critics of the death penalty.
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With these sections, Pakistan now enforces some of the world’s strictest anti-blasphemy laws. They apply only to purported blasphemies against Islam, not against any other religion. While the legal system does not yet include apostasy as such, the Islamization of the law means that any Muslim who decides to leave Islam might well be killed.
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According to the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of Pakistanis support the death penalty for apostates from Islam.
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Some lawmakers have also proposed an act imposing the death penalty for male apostates and imprisonment until “penitence” for females. Under this bill, the Apostasy Act of 2006, the property of an apostate would be transferred to his Muslim heirs, and the children would be appointed a legal guardian.
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Despite their severity, these vaguely worded statutes do not define blasphemy clearly and contain few safeguards against false accusations. Any person can bring blasphemy charges against another, relying only on circumstantial evidence that may amount merely to a bare accusation, with no requirement to prove intent. This invites serious abuses, particularly against non-Muslims, since their testimony in such cases can be given less weight in court, if not ignored entirely. The testimony of a male non-Muslim in an Islamic court can carry half the value of a male Muslim’s testimony, and that of a non-Muslim woman carries one fourth. A non-Muslim may be required by the courts to pay a double penalty to a Muslim he has wronged, while a non-Muslim receives only half of the penalty owed him by a Muslim. In some situations neither a woman nor a non-Muslim is allowed to testify at all. The government has considered amending the blasphemy laws to provide heavy penalties for false accusations, but currently the testimony of a single Muslim is still sufficient to convict a non-Muslim.
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Under international pressure, and in the light of numerous false blasphemy accusations, in 2005, the Pakistani
government established the legal requirement for senior police officials to probe all blasphemy charges before filing formal complaints, but this measure appears to be grossly inadequate.

Blasphemy accusations and laws continue to be used against political adversaries, personal enemies, and unpopular minorities, especially religious minorities. Amnesty International reports that most cases are motivated not by blasphemous actions but by “hostility toward members of minority communities, compounded by personal enmity, professional jealousy or economic rivalry.” About half of those accused under the blasphemy laws are Muslims, but a disproportionate number belong to religious minorities. Ahmadis and Christians—3 percent and 2 percent of the population respectively—have taken much of the brunt of intimidation and punishment; Hindus, at 2 percent, also suffer disproportionately.
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Amnesty International noted in 2007 that the laws are so vague that “they encourage, and in fact invite, the persecution of religious minorities or non-conforming members of [the] Muslim majority.”
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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that the laws “are often used to intimidate reform-minded Muslims, sectarian opponents, and religious minorities, or to settle personal scores.” Sometimes cases are brought against those who may be mentally ill.
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One of the strangest incidents occurred in Okara on July 28, 2001, when a Muslim and five Christian boys were arrested on blasphemy charges. The boys, ten to fifteen years old, were treating a wounded donkey, and the medicine they used on its wounds streamed in different shapes. A small group of Muslims declared that the boys had written holy names on the donkey, and some extremists demanded that they be arrested for insulting Islam. The boys were arrested, and even the donkey was briefly taken into custody. After an investigation, the police released the children, since many locals submitted affidavits testifying to their innocence.
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Pakistan’s government says it does not have exact numbers of people charged under blasphemy laws, and other sources offer differing estimates. However, these sources provide some clues to the scale of accusations and arrests. The U.S. State Department says that in the four years up to 2002, some fifty-five to sixty Christians a year were charged with blasphemy. Pakistan’s National Commission for Justice and Peace reports that from 1986 to August 2009, at least 964 people were accused. Of these, 479 were Muslims, not including 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus, and 10 of unknown religion. The commission also reported that in the first six months of 2005, sixty people in Punjab alone were the targets of blasphemy complaints; of these, fifty-three were charged. In 2005, eighty Christians accused of blasphemy were in prison. In 2005, thirty-nine Ahmadis were in detention awaiting trial on blasphemy charges, and eleven were serving time.
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As noted below, data kept by the Ahmadi community itself suggest far higher numbers for Ahmadis charged with blasphemy under various laws.

A greater threat than legal punishment is extralegal attacks, sometimes by vigilantes or mobs and sometimes by the police themselves. While nobody has yet been officially executed under the blasphemy laws, since the 1980s, over thirty accused have been killed, some only minutes after being acquitted. Many others informally accused of blasphemy have also been killed or assaulted, and there have been numerous mob attacks on houses of worship, homes, and businesses.
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Often the police and security forces fail to take effective action to protect those under attack. The BBC has suggested that, because of blasphemy accusations, “[h]undreds of people have been lynched since the mid-1980s.”
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For example, Amnesty International reports, “Niamat Ahmer, a teacher, poet and writer, was murdered by extremists in 1992. Bantu Masih, aged 80, was stabbed and killed in the presence of the police in 1992, and Mukhtar Masih, aged 50, was tortured to death in police custody. In 1994, Salamat Masih, aged 12, and Rehmat Masih, aged 42, and Manzoor Masih, aged 37, were fired on in front of the Lahore High Court by extremists, after the former two had been acquitted of blasphemy. Manzoor Masih died on the spot, while Salamat and Rehmat sustained serious injuries. One of the judges in that trial, Arif Iqbal Bhatti, was later murdered.”
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In July 2010, two Christian brothers in Faisalabad were accused of writing a pamphlet critical of Muhammad and, while being escorted by police from a district court, were shot dead. A police officer was critically wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire.
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