Is there an end?
Thursday, 06 Aug, 2009 | 11:26 AM PST |
Time and again religious minorities have demanded repeal of the Anti-blasphemy law often used to target minorities, but the government remains indifferent. -Photo by AFP
Is there an end? Pakistans anti-blasphemy law, enacted by President General Zia-ul-Haq in1986 and later amended by the parliament in 2004, is one of the most stringent laws. The penalty includes a mandatory death sentence for defaming Prophet Mohammad and life imprisonment for desecrating the Holy Quran. According to official reports, to date, over 500 people have been charged for breaching the Blasphemy Law. Dawn.com traces the history of some of these cases that have been highlighted in the media since 1990.
2009 August 05: An angry mob attacked the house of an elderly woman in District Sanghar, Sindh, accusing her of desecrating the Holy Quran. A case has not yet been registered but the District Bar Association assured the mob that if the woman identified as Akhtari Malkani is found guilty, she will be charged under the Blasphemy Law.
2009 August 01: Seven people were burnt alive and 18 others injured in Gojra, District Toba Tek Singh in Punjab after fresh violence erupted in the town over the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran three days ago. More than 50 houses were set on fire.
2009 July 31: A mob burnt 75 houses of members of the Christian community over the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran in the village Azafi Abadi at Gojra-Faisalabad Road. Seventy-five houses and two churches were burnt by the residents of a neighbouring village.
2009 February: Five Ahmadis in Punjabs Layyah district were arrested on charges of writing blasphemous remarks in the toilets of Kot Sultans Gulzar-e-Madina mosque. No evidence or witness was presented. They were just detained on a presumption of guilt, stated the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
2009 January 28: The Punjab police arrested a labourer and four students for blasphemy, all of whom were Ahmadis. They were accused of writing the name of Prophet Mohammed on the wall of a toilet in a Sunni mosque. Investigations into the case revealed that the accusation was baseless.
2008 May: The Punjab police jailed Robin Sardar, a Christian physician, upon an accusation of blasphemy from a Muslim street-vendor who wanted to set up his shop in front of Sardar's clinic.
2008 April 08: Jagdesh Kumar, a 27 year old Hindu worker, was beaten to death by fellow Muslim workers in his factory in Karachi on the charge of blasphemy. The incident took place in the presence of policemen. Some reports suggested that the victim was in love with a Muslim girl that angered the Muslim workers, who decided to teach him a lesson.
2008 March 06: An elderly man, Altaf Hussain, was arrested for desecrating the Holy Quran in Kabir wala Town of Khanewal District in Punjab. The spokesman for the Ahmadiya community countered that the charges against the 80-year-old were false.
2007 October 28: The police arrested Muhammad Imran of Faisalabad for allegedly setting the Holy Quran on fire. He was kept in a torture cell for three days and later in solitary confinement without anyone attending to his injuries. He was released in April 2009.
2007 May 17: The nursing school at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad was shut down and seven Christian staff members suspended after female students of Jamia Hafsa protested over allegations that blasphemy had been committed at the school. Rumours spread that verses from the Quran posted on a wall had been defaced. School authorities denied all such claims.
2007 April 13: Sattar Masih, a 29-year-old worker at a water pumping station in Kotri city of Sindh, was allegedly attacked by Muslim extremists for uttering blasphemous remarks. An imam of a local mosque, Maulvi Umer, announced some written papers against Prophet Mohammad were found outside the mosque authored by Sattar. Muslim worshipers attacked Masih's house and tried to kill him but the police arrived before that could happen. Masih was later arrested. Later, in January 2009, the accusation was declared baseless.
2007 April 01: A case against Salamat Masih, 45, and four other Christians was filed for the desecration of Islamic posters and stickers containing the name of Allah, Prophet Mohammad and other Islamic verses in the Toba Tek Singh (Punjab) police station. The SHO allegedly converted the report into an FIR within 20 minutes without initiating any investigation. Subsequently, 80 young Muslims from the neighbourhood ransacked the houses of Christians in the colony.
2007 January 22: Martha Bibi, a Christian woman from Kot Nanak Singh, District Kasur, was accused of making derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad and defaming his sacred name.
2006 September 21: Shahid Masih, 17, was jailed on suspicion of ripping book pages containing Quranic verses in Punjab.
2006 June 03: Christians and Muslims in Pakistan condemned Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code as blasphemous. The then Minister for Culture, Ghulam Jamal, banned the promotion of the movie.
2006 May 24: A Christian, Qamar David, was arrested from Karachi for allegedly sending blasphemous messages to some Muslims via cell phone as revenge for attacks against churches by Muslims in Sukkur, Sindh, and Sangla Hill, Punjab, earlier that year.
2005 December 23: Five members of the Mehdi Foundation International were arrested in Wapda Town, Lahore, for putting up posters of their leader Riaz Gohar Shahi showing him as Imam Mehdi. The Anti-Terrorism Court sentenced each to five years of imprisonment under 295-A of PPC. Their prisoners records posted outside the cell falsely indicate that they had been sentenced under 295-C the Blasphemy Law.
2005 November 12: After receiving frequent death threats, Parvez Aslam Chaudhry, a lawyer who defended many accused for blasphemy, was allegedly charged with flinging a burning matchstick on an Islamic school in the Sangla Hill stadium in Punjab which caught fire. Chaudhry was also physically assaulted outside Lahore High Court.
2005 August 11: Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the Anti-Terrorist Court found Younus Shaikh guilty of defiling a copy of the Quran, and propagating religious hatred among society. Shaikh was convicted because he wrote a book Shaitan Maulvi (Satanic Cleric) in which he mentioned stoning to death as a punishment for adultery was not mentioned in the Quran. The judge imposed a fine of Rs100, 000 rupees and sentenced him to lifetime imprisonment.
2003 - November 20: Anwar Masih, a Christian labourer and resident of Shahdara, Lahore, was charged for insulting the Prophet in front of his neighbour. Masih had converted from Islam to Christianity. He was acquitted by the Lahore High Court in December 2004. Later, in August 2007, he lost his job in a factory when his employer was threatened for employing a blasphemer. Masih went into hiding.
2003 July 09: A journalist in NWFP was sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy. Munawar Mohsin, a sub-editor at the Frontier Post newspaper, was convicted of publishing a blasphemous letter in the editorial section that led to violent protests across the country.
2002 July 18: Additional sessions judge in Lahore imposed death penalty and a fine of Rs500,000 on Anwar Kenneth, a former officer of the Fisheries Department, in a blasphemy case registered with the Gawalmandi police. He was arrested on June 15, 2001, while distributing a pamphlet (Gospel of Jesus).
2002 June 11: A 55-year-old Muslim cleric, Mohammed Yousaf Ali, convicted of blasphemy was shot dead in the Lahore prison. The murderer was another prisoner, Tariq Mota, a member the banned Sunni militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba. Ali had been sentenced to death for blasphemy on August 5, 2000, in a case filed by another militant group who disapproved of his religious views. Ali had been vocal in condemning religious extremism.
2000 October: Pakistani authorities charged Younus Shaikh, a teacher at a medical college in Islamabad, with blasphemy on account of remarks that students claimed he made during a lecture. The students alleged that Shaikh had said Prophet Mohammeds parents were non-Muslims because they died before Islam existed. A judge ordered that Shaikh pay a fine of Rs100,000, and be hanged. In November 2003 he was acquitted after which he left Pakistan.
1998 May 6: Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph of Pakistan shot himself in the Sahiwal courthouse to highlight the case of Ayub Masih, a Christian sentenced to death for allegedly uttering blasphemous remarks against Prophet Muhammad. The death of the 66-year-old led to protests by Christians. Subsequently, the Lahore High Court ordered a stay of execution for Masih. His fate remains undecided.
1997 October 19: Judge Arif Iqbal Hussain Bhatti was assassinated in his Lahore office after acquitting two people who were accused of blasphemy.
1996 October 14: Ayub Masih, a Pakistani Christian bricklayer, was arrested for violation of Section 295-C. The complaint was filed by Masihs neighbour who claimed that Masih had invited them to accept Christianity and recommended that they read Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. He later made legal history when his appeal against the death penalty was turned down by the High Court in 2002.
1995 July: Catherine Shaheen, a teacher in Lahore, Punjab, was denied her salary on grounds of blasphemy. Since then she has been in hiding because of threats against her life made by some fundamentalists.
1993 November 21: Riaz Ahmad, his son, and two nephews from the Ahmadi community were arrested in Mianwali District for their blasphemous remarks. The rivalry over Ahmad's position as village headman was the real motivation for the complaint against him. The Sessions Court rejected the bail applications of the accused, however, the Supreme Court granted him bail in December 1997.
1993 May: Twelve-year-old Salamat Masih, Manzoor Masih, 37, and Rehmat Masih, 42, were charged with writing derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed on the wall of a mosque in Ratta Dhotran village of district Gujranwala - where they lived. All the three were in fact illiterate and did not know how to write.
1993 February: Anwar Masih, a Christian from Samundri in Punjab, went to jail upon a Muslim shopkeeper's allegation that, during an argument over money, Masih had insulted the Prophet Mohammed.
1992 November: Gul Masih, a Christian, was sentenced to death after having remarked to his Muslim neighbour in Punjab that he had read that Prophet Mohammed had 11 wives, including a minor.
1992 Bantu Masih, 80, and Mukhtar Masih, 50, were arrested on the allegation of committing blasphemy. Both died in the Lahore police station. Bantu Masih was stabbed eight times by a fundamentalist in the presence of policemen. He later succumbed to his injuries, whereas Mukhtar Masih was tortured to death in police custody.
1992 January 06: Christian teacher Naimat Ahmar, 43, was butchered by a young member of a militant religious group, Farooq Ahmad, on the office premises of the District Education Officer in Faisalabad while on duty. Ahmad killed him because the deceased had reportedly used highly insulting remarks against Islam and Prophet Mohammed and by killing a blasphemer he had won his way into heaven. No case of blasphemy was registered against him nor was he tried by any court. Ahmar left behind a widow and four children.
1991 December 10: Gul Masih of Faisalabad was charged for using sacrilegious language about the Prophet and his wives. The complainant, Sajjad Hussain, had a quarrel with him over repair of a street water tap. Masih was sentenced to death by the Sessions Court, Sargodha, on November 02, 1992. Years later he was acquitted but continued to receive death threats. He is now in Germany on asylum.
1991 October 08: Chand Barkat, 28, a bangle stall holder in Karachi, was charged with blasphemy by another bangle vendor, Arif Hussain, because of professional jealousy. Hussain decided to teach Barkat a lesson by accusing him of using derogatory language against Prophet Mohammed and his mother. Barkat was charged under section 295-C of PPC, however, he was acquitted by the Sessions Court for want of evidence.
1990 December 07: Tahir Iqbal, a Christian convert from Islam and resident of Lahore, was accused of abusing Prophet Mohammad at the time of Azaan and imparting anti-Islamic education to children during tuitions. The sessions judge in July 1991 turned down his bail application after he learnt that Iqbal had converted to Christianity, which, he stated, was a cognisable offence. Later on July 21, 1992, before Iqbals defence lawyer could appear in court, he was poisoned in police custody.
DAWN.COM | Provinces | Is there an end?
---------- Post added at 07:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 PM ----------
Flames of hate
By Nosheen Abbas
Saturday, 08 Aug, 2009 | 07:52 AM PST
A Christian family sits in front of their destroyed house, after it was attacked by a mob in Gojra. AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini
Wide eyed, and alert, Javed and Irfaan, two brothers, step in to the house. They sit close to each other, almost in a huddle. Both look slightly anxious not knowing what to expect from our conversation, but as it progresses, they seem more at ease.
Two of my cousins and my aunt were burnt alive in the Gojra incident, Javed states, stressing on each word holding my gaze. Javed does most of the talking while 19-year-old Irfaan sits quietly staring and occasionally, faintly, repeating his brothers last word. His cousins who were murdered were Honey who was in 8th grade and Saji, who was a little younger. Memories of them are as far away as seven to eight years, but they become ebullient as they reminisce about their horse play. We used to play hide and seek...in the mountains, not like the ones here...we used to play that a lot, and theyre both smiling.
Javed oscillates between narrating the incident as he would to an investigator, standing on an emotional brink. Suddenly avoiding eye contact and looking into space, moist eyed, he pauses, you know, I havent cried in years, but I cried so much when I heard about what happened.
The attack that took place in Gojra on the 1st of August was a premeditated attack. Warning signs were given hours in advance with some armed victims keeping the attackers at bay for a few hours. All this time, the district police officer (DPO) opted to remain a silent spectator to the brutal killing and the police refused to step in. The mild admonition of the DPO entailed a transfer of his post. Given the grave outcome of the attack the state should have prosecuted the law enforcers who were supposed to adopt a strong stance against organised terrorism and against anyone who supports it, especially those who dont prevent it from happening.
The incident at Gojra where seven Christian children women and men were burnt alive on the pretext of blasphemy allegedly on the instigation of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba is not an isolated incident. Minorities have been victims of many similar attacks in the past as well. Without a modicum of respite just a day after the Gojra incident, there was another vicious display of fanaticism in Sheikhupura when a factory owner was burnt alive. Incidents similar to these picked up pace after the blasphemy law was amended by the dictator, Ziaul Haq, creating a draconian version. It seems as if the only use of this amended law was for the purpose of misuse.
Isnt it ironic that before Zias rule Pakistan had seldom witnessed such violent incidents. Majority of the Muslim countries, except for a few, dont have blasphemy laws and no parallels can be found to the heinous incidents of murdering minorities in any part of the world as is in Pakistan. Since Zias politicisation of Islam, which corrupted the largely religiously-tolerant population, the states paucity of showing zero tolerance for raw crime has left the doors ajar for organised terrorism to flourish in Pakistan.
It wasnt too long ago when Syed Mohammad Javed, the former commissioner of Malakand division, was openly siding and showing respect to Fazlullah and Sufi Mohammad the very men whose militants carried out massacre and beheaded innocent civilians as well as personnel from the security forces. He even offered prayers behind Maulana Fazullah but the federal and provincial governments said nothing. Its absolutely mind boggling to see the stark contradiction and oxymoronic actions of the government towards crimes and what has progressively become free organised terrorism.
In a country where Muslims account for more than 90 per cent of the population one wonders why there is even a need for a blasphemy law. J. Salik, the former federal minister and activist for minority rights, says there are reasons beyond religion that has given way to this law. The main issue of minorities is land, he says. Attacks have predominantly been caused to grab land. And the tactic to manipulate the minorities oft their lands has been on the basis of false allegations, laws and rumours of blasphemy.
I conducted a comparative study and found out that 99 per cent blasphemy cases were based on false allegations due to personal feuds, trumped and false charges, says former law minister and current head of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Iqbal Haider.
But violence against minorities runs deeper than that, stemming from the fundamental attitude emanating from the majority, of distrust, disapproval and hatred based on religious differences which was truly ignited during Zias rule. The sense of who we are as a nation since then has been defined more by religious affiliations than by nationalistic association, and this has divided the country into even smaller bits, leading men to commit inhumane crimes that run against the very teachings of a religion which they claim to ardently follow a religion that has been reduced to hollow rituals, igniting hate among people of different religions as well as among Muslims.
The day after the Gojra incident, a group of people gathered on a green belt outside the National Press Club in Islamabad. As one got closer one could hear a faint sound of hymns. The group was led by a woman with a child leaning against a tree. Those present sat in heavy silence and those who spoke did so just to give information as to why they were there. There was a substantial turn up from the Christian community, but unfortunately no Muslims were to be seen. That said a lot.
nosheenabbas@gmail.com
DAWN.COM | Columnists | Flames of hate
