Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (21 page)

In 2000, Lahore High Court Judge Nazir Akhtar said publicly that Muslims have a religious obligation to kill anyone accused of blasphemy on the spot, with no need for legal proceedings. Despite a later retraction, this statement shows the degree of prejudice and violence surrounding the issue of blasphemy.
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Blasphemy laws also target freedom of the press. On January 9, 2001, a mob burned the printing press of
The Frontier Post
at Peshawar for publishing what it believed to be a blasphemous letter. The protestors, mainly college and
madrassa
students, demanded the publishers be severely punished and promised two million rupees to anyone who would murder Ben Dzac, the author of the letter, who was Jewish. Though the police were present at the newspaper’s office, they made no effort to stop the violence. The paper’s premises were sealed off by the district administration, and news editor Aftab Ahmed, chief reporter Imtiaz Hussain, feature writer Qazi Ghulam Sarwar, subeditor Muawar Mohsin, and computer technician Wajih-ul-Hassan were charged with blasphemy.
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In the wake of a series of cartoons of Muhammad being posted online, mainly from America, in May 2010, the government blocked access to YouTube and Facebook websites, which together account for about 25 percent of Internet traffic in the country, to stop Pakistanis from being able to view blasphemous material. The government later said that it would also monitor Google, Yahoo, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail, and Bing for offensive content, while seventeen less well-known sites would be blocked.
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The Ahmadi community, also called
Ahmadiyya
, was founded by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) in the Punjabi village of Qadian, now in India, in 1889. It has followers in some 166 countries, who usually identify themselves as a movement for spiritual renewal within Islam that emphasizes the wisdom and philosophy that underlie its teachings.
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Ahmadis typically support tolerance and universal human rights and consistently denounce militant Islam.
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One of the best-known Pakistani Ahmadis, Abdus Salam (1926–96), received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.

However, most Muslims do not accept Ghulam Ahmad’s teachings and maintain that he claimed to be a prophet even though Islam teaches that there can be no prophet after Muhammad. Hence, although Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, their differences have been deemed by many Muslims sufficient to place them outside Islam. Ahmadis in Pakistan and elsewhere face religious and political attacks and are often declared apostate.
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They are targeted by government policies, which reinforce discrimination and attacks against them, and by blasphemy laws, the Hudad Ordinances, and even specific anti-Ahmadi laws and constitutional provisions.

In 1974, Section 260(3) of the 1973 constitution was amended to declare that a Muslim believes “in the absolute and unqualified finality of the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him), the last of the prophets, and does not believe in, or recognize as a prophet or religious reformer, any person who claims to be a prophet, in any sense of the word or of any description whatsoever, after Muhammad (peace be upon him).” This is understood to declare that Ahmadis are not Muslims.
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Some blasphemy laws specifically target Ahmadis, described as Quadianis.
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According to Section 298-B:

(1) Any person of the Quadiani group or the Lahori group (who call themselves Ahmadis or by any other name) who by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation:

(a) refers to, or addresses, any person, other than a Caliph or companion of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), as
Ameer-ul-Mummineen, Khalif-tul-Mumineen, Khalifa-tul-Muslimeen, Sahaabi
or
Razi Allah Anho
;

(b) refers to, or addresses, any person, other than a wife of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), as
Ummul-Mumineen
;

(c) refers to, or addresses, any person, other than a member of the family (
Ahle-bait
) of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), as
Ahle-bait
; or

(d) refers to, or names, or calls, his place of worship as
Masjid
; shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine.

(2) Any person of the Quadiani group or Lahori group (who call themselves Ahmadis or by any other name) who by words, either spoken and written, or by visible representation, refers to the mode or form of call to prayers followed by his faith as
Azan
, as used by the Muslims, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Section 298-C states:

Any person of the Quadiani group or Lahori group (who call themselves Ahmadis or by any other name), who, directly or indirectly, poses himself as a Muslim, or calls or refers to, his faith as Islam, or preaches or propagates his faith, or invites others to accept his faith, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.

Together, these laws prohibit Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslims, from naming their children Muhammad, from nearly any public expression of their faith, and from anything else that could be construed as insulting the “religious feelings” of Muslims.
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A constitutional challenge to these laws was dismissed by the Pakistani Supreme Court in 1993 on the grounds that the Pakistani state was entitled to “protect” Islamic terms from use by non-Muslims and was necessary for law and order, given that “Ahmadi religious practice, however peaceful, angered and offended the Sunni majority in Pakistan.”
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As American-Ahmadi leader Mujeeb Ijaz reported, an Ahmadi in Pakistan can even fear being arrested for “saying
assalam-o-lekum
to another Muslim.”
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There is even a requirement for Pakistani Muslims seeking passports to denounce Ahmadi beliefs by declaring in writing:

I do not recognize any person who claims to be prophet in any sense of the word or of any description whatsoever after Mohammad (peace be upon him) or recognize such a claimant as prophet or a religious reformer as a Muslim.

And, more directly:

I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Quadiani to be an imposter nabi and also consider his followers whether belonging to the Lahori or Quadiani group, to be NON-MUSLIM.
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Ahmadis have faced decades of severe persecution in Pakistan, with their mosques burned and cemeteries desecrated. They are also prohibited from making the pilgrimage to Mecca or burying their dead in Muslim graveyards. Their literature is often confiscated, their attackers are rarely prosecuted or punished, and police complicity in attacks is ignored.
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Ahmadis are also disproportionately subject to blasphemy and related charges, such as “hurting the religious feelings” of Muslims. The U.S. State Department reported in 2002 that, since 1999, 316 religiously motivated criminal cases, including blasphemy, had been brought against Ahmadis, some for “crimes” such as wearing an Islamic slogan on a shirt.
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For example, in July 2002, Zulfiqar Goraya was arrested and charged for “posing as a Muslim,” based on greeting cards he had sent out that included a Qur’anic verse and Islamic salutations.
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In October 2006, police charged Mohammed Tariq with blasphemy because he had allegedly removed anti-Ahmadi stickers placed inside a bus.
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An Ahmadi-related website estimates that, between April 1984 and December 2008, 756 Ahmadis were charged with illegally displaying the
kalima
, a traditional Islamic testament of faith, 37 with offering a call to prayer, 44 with posing as Muslims, 161 with using Islamic words and epithets, and 679 for preaching. The same estimate reports over 900 other charges of violating section 298-B and -C, 258 cases under 295-C, and more than 24 for distributing pamphlets criticizing the laws against them.
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The following are five out of hundreds of such incidents.

Attar Ullah Warraich, from the Bahawalnagar district, in Punjab province, was charged with violating section 298-B on September 8, 1999. The accusation, by members of the radical Khatam-e Nabuwwat organization, alleged that he had built a minaret and a niche in a mosque adjacent to his house, possessed a copy of the Qur’an, and taught Ahmadiyyat. He responded that he had not had the mosque built, that it had been there decades, that he did not own the land on which it stood, and that he was not its caretaker. The judge concluded that a Qur’an had been found in the mosque, as had Ahmadi literature, and that Warraich had built the mosque in its current form. The judge then inexplicably added that the mosque may have been built before the passing of section 298-C made it a criminal offense, but that Warraich “should have changed the shape of the mosque after the said amendment.” Since he was a first-time offender and an illiterate farmer, the judge claimed to exercise leniency and on January 31, 2000, sentenced Warraich to rigorous imprisonment for two years with a fine of Rs. 2,000.
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On July 31, 2000, Ghulam Mustafa, Hamid, Maqsud Ahmad, and Mian Fazil were charged under sections 298-C and 295-A for “injuring the feelings of Muslims” in Bharokay Kalan, Sialkot district. They had allegedly dared to watch an Ahmadiyya television program in a garage that had its door open because of the mid-summer heat. However, Ghulam Mustafa, who was head of the Daryapur Ahmadiyya community, had never even been to Bharokay. Subsequently fifty local men gave written testimony that the allegations against the trio were false. Still, two of the men were kept in detention for at least a year.
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On September 7, 2008, the anchorman for the religious television program
Alam Online
, Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain, urged Muslims not to be afraid to kill Ahmadis, and two other Islamic scholars on the program supported him. Within twenty-four hours, six vigilantes found their way into the Fazle Umer Clinic in Mirpur Khas city and killed forty-five-year-old Dr. Abdul Manan Siddiqui, who was shot eleven times. The killers waited at the hospital until the doctor was pronounced dead and then fearlessly walked out the front door. Meanwhile the police registered the killers as unknown. A second killing occurred forty-eight hours after Hussain’s statement was broadcast. Yousaf, a seventy-five-year-old rice trader and local Ahmadi leader, was shot as he went to pray in Nawab Shah. He was hit three times and died on his way to the hospital. No arrests were made.
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In March 2009, in Sillanwali Tehsil, Punjab province, fifteen Ahmadi men were arrested when a local radical religious leader complained that the building they were using for worship resembled a mosque, in violation of Section 298-C, which forbids Ahmadis to pose as, or call themselves, Muslims “or in any manner whatsoever to outrage the religious feelings of Muslims.” Although Ahmadis had been using the facility for decades without a word of official complaint, the police complied with the radical leader’s demands. Three of the fifteen were detained and denied bail.
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In one of the most horrific attacks in recent years, on May 28, 2010, gunmen attacked two Ahmadi mosques or worship centers (in Pakistan it is illegal to call them
masjid
, mosques) during Friday prayers in Lahore, firing shots and setting off grenades. The attacks took place within minutes of each other at locations several miles apart, and ninety-three people were killed. It took the police several hours to regain control, and, when they entered the mosque, several of the attackers blew themselves up with suicide vests packed with explosives. It was reported that the Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. While Ahmadis suffer frequent violent attacks, this is the first coordinated one bearing the mark of careful planning by militants.
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A week later, the former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, shocked much of the country by referring to Ahmadis as his “brothers and sisters.”
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Christians, some 2 percent of the population, are mainly descendants of converts from Hinduism and suffer widespread abuse and harassment because of their religious beliefs and usually very low socioeconomic status. This leaves them particularly vulnerable to blasphemy accusations.
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Following are a few examples out of many hundreds.
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After a disagreement with a Muslim neighbor in 1996, Ayub Masih, a Christian, was accused of speaking favorably of Salman Rushdie, author of
The Satanic Verses
. On November 6, 1997, one of Ayub’s accusers, Mohammad Akram, shot the defendant outside the court, wounding him. Although there were firsthand accounts of the crime, the police refused to investigate Akram. Many of the Muslim defense
lawyers and judges in the case also received death threats. On April 27, 1998, a court in the Punjab town of Sahiwal sentenced Ayub to death for alleged blasphemy, relying only on the complainants’ statement. A lower appeals courts upheld the sentence, as did the High Court. During his six years in prison, there were at least two attempts on his life.
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Eventually, his lawyer was able to prove that Akram had used the conviction to force Ayub’s family off their land and to acquire control of it himself.
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On August 16, 2002, Ayub was acquitted by the Supreme Court, who ordered his immediate release from the high-security cell in the Multan New Central Jail. Faced with ongoing death threats, Ayub quietly left Pakistan in early September 2002. Not only had he lost nearly six years in prison, but also he had forfeited his home simply because a contentious neighbor wanted his land.