18 Mar 14 | Asia and Pacific, News and features, Pakistan
(Image: Aleksandar Mijatovic/Shutterstock)
Pakistan’s record of abuse of its dubious blasphemy law has been criticised by a report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. The country currently has 14 individuals known to be on death row while 19 others are serving life sentences on charges of committing blasphemy.
Take for example the case of Aasia Bibi, accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad. The 45-year old Christian and mother of five says she was “falsely accused to settle an old score”. In jail since June 19, 2009, she has yet to have her appeal heard. Sameena Imtiaz, founder of Islamabad-based Peace Education Development Foundation (PEAD) says the commission’s findings are another “reminder of the religious intolerance that has permeated the society at large”. The hearing on March 17, before the Lahore High Court was “cancelled by order” yet again, informed her lawyer Mohammad Yasin Badar, who does not know the reason. “I got a text message from the court,” he said but surmises: “This is a very sensitive case.”
But while Bibi may be only Pakistani woman to have been sentenced to death for blasphemy, she is not alone. In November 2013, a 72-year old homeopath doctor Masood Ahmed, a British national of the minority Ahmadi sect, which has been declared non-Muslim by the constitution, was jailed for discussing Islam — a criminal offence punishable with death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). His conversation was filmed using a mobile phone in which he is seen reciting verses from the Quran. He has been released on bail. Then there is a mentally ill, 69-year-old British citizen, Mohammad Asghar, convicted in January this year, for sending letters proclaiming he was Prophet Mohammad. He remains in prison today.
The original blasphemy law, drawn up by the British and amended in 1986 by then-dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, puts in place a mandatory death sentence under section 295-C. Imtiaz says since the amendment more than a 1,000 cases have been registered against Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus and even Muslims.
The National Commission for Justice and Peace has also been keeping a close watch on the numbers. According to them, from 1987 to 2013, as many as 1,281 people have been charged, of which 616 are Muslims, 474 Ahmadis, 171 Christians and 20 Hindus.
Pakistan has never executed anyone under the offence but the between 1990 to 2012, several of the accused have been killed in associated vigilante violence outside the courts or in prisons.
According to a report by the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies, since 1990, extra judicial murders of 52 accused have taken place.
In its State of Human Rights in 2012 report, the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan states: “Abuse of the blasphemy law continues to take a heavy toll in terms of human lives and harassment of citizens.”
“The sheer number of cases registered in the past 25 years suggests the law has been widely abused,” concedes Imtiaz, adding that investigations have revealed that often the reasons for the abuse stem from personal enmity, property disputes, religious hatred.
“Decades have passed but none of the governments that followed, found the courage to repeal the discriminatory laws that have contributed significantly to intolerance, violence, bigotry, hate and injustice in the country,” says Bushra Gohar, a senior member of the Awami National Party. A legislator in the last assembly, she had submitted a bill in the assembly for the repeal of the blasphemy clauses inserted by Zia ul Haq, but it was never tabled in the assembly.
And for that reason, says Imtiaz there was an urgent need for debate to include “all segments of society on the pros and cons of the law and how it is abetting religious intolerance”.
In the meantime, she said, “an effective counter law that prohibits the abuse of the law for settling personal gains and inciting hatred” should be implemented. “The current law is not only vague but is rarely put to use due to fear of persecution and pressures,” she points out.
There have been half-hearted attempts to initiate a debate but after two high profile assassinations — of Punjab governor, Salman Taseer and minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti — took place, for speaking on Bibi’s behalf and opposing the blasphemy laws, all efforts have been stalled.
“Political expediency, compromise and appeasement of a handful of religious extremists have prevented each subsequent government to initiate a meaningful debate, or even initiate pertinent legislation in the parliament to repeal or amend the discriminatory laws that continue to play havoc with the lives of women, minorities and the poor,” Gohar said.
Citing the recent torching of a temple in Larkana, in Sindh over blasphemy allegations, she says: “It shows how easy it is to incite mob violence and as in numerous similar cases in the past the root cause will not be addressed.”
According to the former legislator, strong political will is seriously lacking to review and amend or repeal the blasphemy law. “We cannot hope for justice for the victims and their families if we cannot even have an open debate on the discriminatory laws in the parliament and if the parliament, the courts and the government are threatened, coerced and silenced by a bunch of religious extremists.”
The annual report prepared by the Commission on International Religious Freedom looks at the state of religious freedom around the world.
This article was posted on March 18, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
14 Mar 14 | Asia and Pacific, News and features, Pakistan
(Image: Aleksandar Mijatovic/Shutterstock)
The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) have pronounced that laws prohibiting child marriage in Pakistan are un-Islamic. The move has been slammed by a coalition of over a hundred Islamabad-based civili society organisations, who have labelled it a violation of Pakistani women’s and girls’ fundamental human rights. The CII is a constitutional body but its advice is non-binding on both the government and the parliament.
The CII’s declaration on early marriage follows hot on the heels of another controversial proclamation by its chairman Maulana Mohammad Khan Sheerani, saying that the current law requiring a man to seek written permission from his wife before contracting a second marriage should be amended.
Experts see these the CII’s priorities skewed at a time when the country is already reeling from an extremist onslaught for which there has been little condemnation from the same quarters. Instead, it has found fit to pick on issues that had long been settled and accepted by the Pakistani society.
“We are not conspiracy theorists, but are forced to wonder why such deliberately anti-women/girls advice comes now, 53 years after the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, 1961, was promulgated?” asked a group of civil society organisations, including Women Action Forum and Pakistan Reproductive Health Network, in a joint press release. The CII’s advice, it stated, came at a “critical juncture”, when the government was holding talks with the Taliban.
“Does the government wish to further appease and placate the bloodthirsty killers of 60,000 Pakistanis with further Islamisation and shariatisation measures? If so, why does the so-called Islamisation begin and end only with a violation of Pakistani women’s and girls’ fundamental human rights, enshrined in the unanimously endorsed constitution, and even before that, inherent in our humanity?” the statement read.
“This shows a mindset that is regressive,” says rights activist and documentary film maker Samar Minallah, who has worked extensively on highlighting traditions like Vani (women and girls given in marriage to hostile families as compensation for a relative’s crime to end feuds) and child marriage.
“It shows how Islam continues to be misinterpreted and distorted for political reasons,” Minallah continued, adding: “The shocking part is that the parliamentarians reinforce this mindset by remaining silent. It is a deliberate effort to create confusion and degrade women.”
Rafia Zakria, a lawyer and regular Dawn columnist, fears this may well legalise child abuse. She argues CII’s edict is unacceptable because “there are many Islamic scholars who have issued rulings opposing child marriage, highlighting the contractual aspect of Islamic marriage and the fact that minors cannot give consent hence making such marriages prima facie unacceptable.”
Zakaria also points out that Pakistan has ratified and signed several international treaties underscoring the necessity of protecting children especially girls. “Cumulatively it will serve to substantiate stereotypes about Pakistan as a country that cannot respect the rights of women and children, and which is oriented backwards into ignorance as opposed to forward into enlightenment.”
“Health consequences of early marriage are grave and many,” explains Dr Farid Midhet who heads the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP) in Pakistan for USAID.
The adolescent girl, he says, is incapable of fully understanding and bearing the burden of pregnancy and childbirth. “Probability of maternal death and neonatal death is significantly higher in the early ages (under 20 years).” Having worked in the field and with communities, Midhet says premature births and congenital abnormalities are higher among births to young mothers. In addition, he finds, there is an increased risk of malaria, sexually transmitted diseases and cervical cancer among women who marry early.
Apart from the physiological toll early marriage takes on a young girl, the social consequences are as grave. “Early marriage denies the girl child her right to education, bonding with her peers, personality development and mature thinking. Young girls are almost always married against their wishes, or they are unable to fully understand and give consent for the marriage,” he said.
And so Midhet feels it is important for public health experts to voice their concerns by “making a case against early marriage, listing the social, health, economic and religious factors, and then approach the CII (or other scholars/institutions) to request them to declare, or at least recommend, that girls must not be married while they are in puberty, and that delaying marriage is not against Islam.”
In their statement, the civil society coalition has urged the government to abolish CII and in the meantime replace chairman Maulana Mohammad Khan Sheerani with someone who is “educated, enlightened, progressive and a real Islamic scholar”. It also demanded that the government ensure at least 50 percent of CII members are female and 5 percent non-Muslims.
This article was posted on 14 March 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Mar 14 | India, News and features, Pakistan
Improbable as it may seem, but 67 Kashmiri university students were briefly charged with sedition for cheering for Pakistan, and celebrating its win over India, during an Asia Cup cricket match in early March.
Sections of the Indian Penal Code that they were charged under were the following:
Section 124a – “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law..”
Section 153 – “Whoever malignantly, or wantonly by doing anything which is illegal, gives provocation to any person intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause the offence of rioting to be committed shall..”
Section 427 – “Whoever commits mischief and thereby causes loss or damage to the amount of fifty rupees or upwards..”
The students were watching the match in Meerut, at the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University when the ruckus started. According to conflicting reports, the hooting of the Kashmiri students at Pakistan’s win caused those supporting India to chase them and throw stones at their rooms. The Kashmiri students protested the next day, but the university officials suspended them for three days as “resentment was growing in other hostels because of their behavior.” The police charged them under the Indian Penal Code. After a public outcry, the Uttar Pradesh police dropped the charges, however, there is a battle of words between the police and university officials as to who initiated the charges against the students.
The incident, once again, has exposed the fragile faultlines between Kashmir and India – and the perceived disloyalty of the Kashmiri Muslims to India. The controversy has brought about some harsh reactions, including a tweet by famous lyricist Javed Akhtar that said – “Why the suspension of those 67 Kashmiri students who cheered Pakistan is revoked. They should be rusticated and sent back to Kashmir.” Others, like Shivam Vij, took a more nuanced position, stating that, “not taking action against them would have escalated the violence at the university and in the city. The Indian students at the university were responding with the same sentiment that makes Kashmiri Muslims suspect their Hindu minority: the sentiment of nationalism. How acceptable would it be to a Pakistani if some in Pakistan openly and publicly cheered for the Indian cricket team in a match against Pakistan?”
Tidbits from Kashmir also help cement this view of the Muslims from the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India. Reports that firecrackers celebrated Pakistan’s win all night, and that a skirmish between Indian army personnel and local Kashmir youth celebrating the results of the match ended in a stabbing. There have also been defiant editorials from Pakistan countering the action against the students, declaring that, “it is not the win of Pakistan but the loss of India against any cricket playing nation that revives interest for cricket in Kashmir. India’s loss is a temporary relief from all the melancholy and grief that the people of Kashmir go through on a daily basis, inflicted by the Indian state and its military architecture.”
While this incident in question might have, on the surface, been about cricket and extremely ungentlemanly behavior, very quickly it seemed to have translated into politics as usual. A outcry about serious charges against university students – Kashmiris who had travelled far from home to obtain an Indian degree – was raised by many Indians in the media, by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and international groups. Many of these students were in Meerut given under the PMSSS, or the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme, meant to enhance job opportunities for Kashmiri youth, meant mainly for low-income families. This is part of a larger drive to assimilate Kashmiri youth into the mainstream economic and educational life of India.
Indian Express’s Shekhar Gupta lamented the controversy given cricket’s globalized nature where it is increasingly normal to cheer for favourite player from another country. Instead he feels that “India’s majority has a minority complex” and this is coming to the fore “when the BJP is surging ahead, and not because of any mandir, tension with Pakistan, or rash of terror attacks. And when, in fairness, you have to acknowledge that there isn’t even a vaguely communal appeal in its leader Narendra Modi’s campaign message. India has had a 13-year period of total peace, unprecedented in its independent history. There has been a steep decline in terror incidents. Even the Maoists seem to be shrinking slowly. And yet, our level of jingoism is as if we were approaching an imminent war, as if India were under siege, its borders getting violated with impunity, the enemy at the gates.” Many echo Gupta’s view, fearing that those who believe the BJP under Narendra Modi will form government after the elections in April 2014, might be quick to adopt the jingoistic Hindu nationalism the party was based on.
Adding a layer to this incident is an interesting point of view offered by journalist Prayaag Akbar who writes about India’s many Muslims who feel affinity towards Pakistani cricket team, but are rarely called out for it, unlike the Kashmiri Muslims. He writes – “that some Indian Muslims, not just Kashmiris, support Pakistan during cricket matches must be acknowledged. But categorisation is self-fulfilling, some will say, and sport excites tribalism. It does not immediately follow—and this seems to be the consideration at the crux of the issue—that they will support Pakistan in a war against India. Yet it does not immediately follow that they will not, either. No one on either side of the debate can assert their position with complete confidence. What we can say with certainty is there has been a failure of assimilation, that has in part been caused by a rarely acknowledged, yet generally accepted, narrowed definition of what it means to be Indian.”
Cricket, criticisms and cartoons cannot be simply deemed seditious by the Uttar Pradesh police because they are problematic. And, ironically, this is in the shadow of the largest democratic exercise in the world, the Indian elections, a month away.
This article was published on March 13, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
10 Mar 14 | News and features, Uncategorized
(Image: GEO TV)
On 1 March an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan, found six men guilty of the murder of 28-year old journalist Wali Khan Babar. Four have been sentenced to life imprisonment, and two, in absentia, were sentenced to death.
The young reporter was shot dead on January 1, 2011, while working for GEO TV in the Liaquatabad area of Karachi. According to Committee to Protect Journalists, his was a work-related murder.
Convictions for attacks on journalists can be complicatd in Pakistan. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was convicted for the murder of US reporter, Daniel Pearl is the only previous journalist killer to have been sentenced to death. However, Pearl’s case remains in dispute and Sheikh has been incarcerated at the Hyderabad Central Jail for the last 12 years. His lawyers are appealing the conviction, saying he was framed. The confusion arose after Khalid Sheikh Mohmmad (currently being held in Guantanamo) confessed to the murder.
Therefore, Mazhar Abbas, former secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) while terming this month’s conviction as an “important decision” remains sceptical that Babar’s family will get justice given the abysmally low conviction rate once the case goes to higher courts. “It may take years to get a decision if the case goes to the Sindh High Court for appeal,” he said pointing to deep-rooted “corruption” that prevailes in the judicial system.
But that is not the only reason for the delay in justice. Despite setting up anti-terrorist courts (ATCs) for speedy disposal of cases, the conviction rate has not made an appreciable difference. People like former prosecutor general of Sindh province, Shahadat Awan, links the high rate of acquittal (almost 73 percent), to weak investigation and witnesses retreating.
Since Babar’s trial began, six witnesses, a lawyer and two policemen linked to the investigation have been assassinated.
After these murders, and amid threats to the prosecutors and lawyers, the trial was shifted from Karachi to another city in Sindh, Shikarpur. “The case has been tried under extremely difficult circumstances and to that extent I am satisfied,” acknowledged Abbas.
However, not everyone is wholly satisfied.
According to Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) “justice has not been fully served as two culprits are absconding and six witnesses and a prosecution lawyer were killed while the case was being heard.”
For Ambreen Agha, research assistant with New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management, the conviction was a welcome step but ensuring justice was equally important.
“It is a significant step in a place where a culture of impunity dominates” she said, citing the example of Malik Ishaq, a militant leader, who, despite his involvement in the massacre of minority Shias and his association with the defunct terrorist outfit, Lashkar e Jhangvi, “goes scot free”.
At the same time, a recent attack on the Islamabad courthouse showed how vulnerable those delivering justice were.
“Despite the threat that looms large on any functioning institution of Pakistan, the judiciary will have to stand strong and determined in bringing justice in this case. The onus lies on the judiciary despite the precarious times in Pakistan,” Agha emphasized.
Nevertheless, for the media community, the conviction of Babar’s killers is historic.
Media analyst, Adnan Rehmat, said the verdict was a “turning point in the battle for defence of beleaguered media practitioners” and Abbas termed it a “ray of hope” showing that Pakistan can improve its record on protecting journalists and pursuing their killers.
But Ambreen Agha warned that a sustained policy was required to “protect the media from the extreme intolerance of the militants and the political class”.
Further, she added: “The political lobby and its attempts to shrink spaces for freedom of expression by shutting down private TV channels, intimidating and blocking certain media outlets, has, in the past, emboldened the terrorists and opened the spaces for the perpetrators of violence.”
This article was posted on March 10, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
