The Sounds Of Silence

Aye Allah ke dushman: Islam mein Gustaakh-e-Rasool ke liye hukm sirf aur sirf qatl ka hai...

(O Enemy of Allah, the punishment for blasphemy in Islam is only and always death)

—Pamphlet left at the site of Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassination
by Fidayeen-e-Muhammad and al Qaeda Punjab Chapter.

Several other critics of the blasphemy law, prominently including Sherry Rehman, a former information minister, who had piloted a Private Member’s Amendment Bill in Parliament, seeking alterations in the blasphemy law, have death fatwas issued against them by the extremists. Rehman was forced by her Pakistan People’s Party colleagues to withdraw the Amendment Bill, in the wake of the Taseer assassination. Worse, many of those accused of blasphemy are simply murdered even where they have been exonerated by the courts, or before any judicial determination of their ‘guilt’ can be made. 

On March 4, 2011, just two days after the Bhatti assassination, Mohammad Imran, who had been released by the courts after the prosecution failed to produce any evidence against him on a blasphemy charge, was gunned down by three masked men on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad. It is significant that, according to one media report, 18 cases of blasphemy were reported in January 2011 alone. One particularly twisted case included a charge of blasphemy being brought against a mentally challenged child, Idrees Khan, who allegedly torched pages of the Holy Qur’an on February 27, 2011. 

The law has not only been an instrument in the hands of extremist elements, but has been exploited in numerous cases of personal enmity or criminal conspiracies to dispossess individuals of property or possessions. This, indeed, was dramatically illustrated in the most recent case of blasphemy registered against a Christian woman, Agnes Nuggo from Faislabad. Reports indicate that Nuggo had herself sought to abuse the blasphemy laws a few weeks ago, by falsely accusing three Christians, with whom she had quarrelled, telling a local Imam that they had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. She subsequently admitted her error and withdrew the charges, only to be accused of blasphemy by her Muslim neighbours, who she alleges, are seeking to dispossess her of their lands. In this latter charge, the same Imam who she had made the earlier complaint is now testifying against her.

Across the country, attacks on religious minorities increased. The attacks came in the form of ‘fatwas’ threatening non-Muslims with death, in the form of attacks on temples, churches and other places of worship and in the form of increased kidnapping of members of minority communities.

Even more disturbing than the attacks themselves was the failure of authorities to act under applicable laws against the culprits… The material included in some text-books contributed towards the bias against religions other than Islam…

Sectarian and religious intolerance is growing. Non-Muslim citizens have faced numerous attacks… There have been more and more complaints regarding the forced conversion of Hindu and Christian girls and in June, about 100 Ahmadis were forced out of their village near Daska, in Sialkot district. This dangerous division in society on the basis of belief, and the official support given to discrimination, can only add to the dangers currently facing society.

If anything, the situation has worsened measurably, since. In its last report on the State of Human Rights, 2009, the HRCP noted "an increase in violent attacks on religious minorities while the government failed to take effective preventive measures", and, further, the "growing intolerance of religious minorities rights, increased frequency of vigilante actions against them and attacks on non-Muslims over allegations of blasphemy and desecration of religious scriptures." The report observed, further,

In a xenophobic atmosphere, created and promoted by conservative clerics and a section of the media, religious minorities are viewed with suspicion and mistrust. They are seen as constantly conspiring against Islam, Muslims and Pakistan in cahoots with the infidel foreign powers, especially the West. An imaginary combine of Hunud-o-Yahud-o-Nasara (Hindus, Jews and Christians) is supposed to be conspiring against Pakistani Muslims all the time in collaboration with the local minorities. This world view propagated on a large scale, coupled with an unfavourable legal regime, has made life difficult for the non-Muslim citizens. They cannot freely practise their religion and present their point of view without risking their life, honour and property as is evident from attacks on them.

The HRCP report recorded at least 40 cases of abuse of the blasphemy laws or related excesses in 2009 alone.

"We believe it would not be helpful to link the highly regrettable killing (of Minister Shahbaz Bhatti) squarely in the context (sic) of defamation (of religion) and blasphemy... Freedom of speech could not justify defamation and blasphemy."

Terrorist activities in and emanating from Pakistan, of course, offer the most dramatic instances of the perversion of politics and burgeoning extremism in the country. There is, however, another insidious and corrosive threat that continues to augment: the continued, vigorous and universal propagation of an ideology of hatred, of communal polarization and exclusion, and of the deionisation of all other faiths in the eyes of the Muslims of Pakistan. Islamist extremism remains the central mechanism for political mobilisation and management across country. Legal infirmities are, consequently, infinitely compounded by an extraordinarily hostile social, cultural and political milieu, in which the hatred of non-Muslims is actively encouraged by a wide range of powerful institutions, including the state and its educational apparatus, to engineer a murderous conspiracy against weak and dwindling religious minorities. 

Ajai Sahni is Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management. Ambreen Agha is Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal.