Ahmadis: The lightning rod that attracts the most hatred

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Ahmadis: The lightning rod that attracts the most hatred

October 28, 2011By Zofeen T. Ebrahim | DAWN.COM

Pakistani Ahmadis today live in constant fear and humiliation. So much so, the hatred has permeated into each and every slice of society and the oppressors have become more vocal and aggressive. - Illutration by Faraz Aamer Khan

A month after ten Ahmadi students were expelled from two schools in the village of Dharinwala, in Faisalabad district, all have been put back to school, not in there old ones, but in two schools in Hafizabad, thanks to Khalil Ahmad, father and grandfather of four students who were among those expelled.

“I managed to get all of them enrolled in two schools in the nearby city of Hafizabad,” he said talking to Dawn.com over phone from his village.

But it’s not been easy. Most parents of the expelled children are too poor, so Ahmed volunteered to pay for their admissions, their books and stationery. And that is not all. He, with the help of his two sons, makes sure they drop and pick all of them on a motorbike, doing turns.

In one school, the principal knows he has given admission to Ahmadi students but the educator believes faith should not come in the way of those seeking education. “In the other the principal has not been told,” Ahmed revealed.

Sadly, all during this episode, the government has remained a quiet bystander, as always.

It is not the first time that students have been expelled from an educational institution in Punjab because of their religious affiliations, remarked Bushra Gohar, a parliamentarian belonging to the secular Awami National Party. According to Gohar, her party members had condemned the expulsion of students belonging to the Ahmadiyya community each time on the floor of the house. “However, a protest or condemnation from the parties leading in the Punjab has not been forthcoming,” she said.

For far too long, Pakistani students belonging to this minority community have been facing various forms of discrimination based on their faith.

“This tidal wave against the Ahmadiyya education shows no sign of ebbing,” Saleemuddin, the spokesperson of the Ahmaddiya Jammat, told Dawn.com.

He said after 1984, when the government promulgated the anti Ahmadiyya ordinance, both the government and the clerics have been trying their utmost to punish them in various ways.

“Ahmadi lecturers were posted away to distant locations and some were not allowed to teach. Ahmadi principals and headmasters were replaced. Ahmadi students were deprived admission in professional colleges. They were refused accommodation in attached hostels. They suffered attacks by extremist elements on campuses.”

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Islami Jamiat Talaba, the student wing of the Islami Jamiat has been tasked to cleanse the educational institutions, including universities and professional colleges of Ahmadi students.

Hasan Ahmed, who was among the 23 students who were expelled from Punjab Medical College, in Faisalabad, back in 2008, can never forget the stressful event and how “night after night, for over a month” he kept stressing over the events that turned his settled student life all topsy-turvy.

“I knew it happened to others, so was not completely caught unawares,” Hasan acknowledged. He is at present completing his house job in Lahore, keeping an “ultra busy schedule”.

Eventually all were re-instated in some college or another. “After months of waiting, just before exam, my friend was sent to Bahawalpur while I went off to a distant place of Rahimyar Khan in a college of lower merit,” narrated Hasan.

After a gargantuan effort, he was finally allowed to appear in exams from Lahore and then got admitted to Allama Iqbal Medical College, in Lahore.

“To be in a state of flux was the worst part of this episode specially since exams were approaching and I didn’t know which place I was to appear from,” said Hasan.

He expressed that till the identity of an Ahmadi remains undisclosed “he remains safe”.

But that is sadly not the case if you are living in Pakistan. People are culturally nosy and want to know your cast and sect. “Eventually they end up finding that you are an Ahmadi. Once they know, you can feel a change of attitude and it just takes a mischief maker to exploit others’ feelings against you,” said Hasan.

Till Hina Akram’s faith remained unknown to her teacher in Faislabad’s National Textile University, she was considered a star student. But after it became known she belonged to the Ahmadiyya community, she faced so much faith-based harassment that she had to quit studies.

“I was told to convert to Islam,” said Hina, who was studying in the sixth semester of her BSc.

“I was handed some anti-Ahmadiyya literature to read, offered a refuge in Muslim home. But when she told the teacher she was an Ahmadi by choice he called her an infidel and warned her of severe consequences.

“You will face such a fire of animosity in the campus that not even the vice chancellor will be able to help you,” he threatened her.

True to his word, a hate campaign was initiated and a social boycott began. Out of college, she is desperately trying to go abroad. Her fate remains in balance.

But it’s not just the education aspect where the anti-Ahmadiyya lobby is hitting, said Saleemuddin. Since 1984, some 208 faith-based killings have taken place. The persecution against the community has surged following the May 28, 2010 massacre of 94 members of the community in Lahore.

After the four million Ahmadis were officially declared non-Muslims in 1984 by the state, they cannot call themselves Muslims or go to mosques. They cannot be overheard praising Prophet Mohammad. To add insult to injury, every Pakistani who claims to be a Muslim and owns a passport has declared that he or she considers them to be non-Muslims and their leader an imposter prophet.

Pakistani Ahmadis today live in constant fear and humiliation. So much so, the hatred has permeated into each and every slice of society and the oppressors have become more vocal and aggressive.

“The extremist elements are getting more and more powerful because of Saudi-US influence and the government’s policy of appeasement,” said I.A. Rehman, General Secretary Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“The Ahmadis are already the worst persecuted minority in our country – and things for them appear to be growing worse as hatred and intolerance spread,” Kamila Hyat, a journalist and a rights activist echoed the same sentiments. “The lack of enforcement of laws to prevent the preaching of hatred adds to the problem,” she added.

Saleemuddin said by allowing the extremist clerics to hold anti-Ahmadiyya rallies and conferences, the government is adding fuel to this venom. “People are openly instigated to kill us in the name of Islam,” he said.

“Violence and the advance of bigotry, prejudice and hate against minorities have never really been met with the resolve needed to remove impunity from the social equation in Pakistan,” Sherry Rehman, a legislator belonging to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, agreed.

Instead, she told Dawn.com what is seen is an “expansion in the space for religious and sectarian apartheids, which has led now to heinous acts of brutality and exclusion of many, particularly Ahmadis.”

She warned: “This is a dangerous trend that conflates national identity with religion.”

Perhaps that is one reason why Pervez Hoodbhoy expresses: “Today, when religion has become so central in matters of the state, they [Ahmadis] do not stand a chance in Pakistan of getting rights, respect, and dignity. The overdose of religion given to young Pakistanis in their schools and homes means that nothing matters more than which religion and sect you belong to. Ahmadis are the lightning rod that attracts more hatred than any other sect.”

For its part rights groups like the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) say they have “repeatedly” raised the issue of “state tolerated persecution”.

“We are urging authorities to intervene in each case,” said Rehman. “But the situation is getting worse day by day.

Terming it “abhorrent and self defeating” when society allows “for the dehumanization of Ahmadis or Christians or the Shia for that matter, it is effectively cannibalizing itself,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director of HRW.

“The federal government expresses regret at incidents but has made clear its unwillingness to repeal or amend discriminatory laws,” said HRW spokesperson.

Given the current intolerance, the fate of the new generation of Pakistani Ahmadis looks “quite bleak” said Rehman.

Even Hoodbhoy said: “For years, Ahmadis, Hindus, and Christians have been desperately seeking to flee Pakistan. They would be foolish to want to stay,” said Hoodbhoy.

This fails to dampen young Hasan’s spirits. He thinks the future looks “brighter than ever before”.

“Even if the situation is made worse in Pakistan, this does not mean the future is not bright. It’s a matter of time before we start getting equal rights in this country.

Often when they get together, the young Ahmadis discuss the “bitter realities” they have to face as Pakistanis.

“But we don’t want to leave our country at the juncture that it is at,” said a patriotic Hasan. This is because the contribution of the Ahmadi community towards building of Pakistan has been immense,” he said with conviction.

He said recently their leader urged all Ahmadis of the world to “fast once a week and pray” especially for the prosperity of Pakistan.”

Zofeen T. Ebrahim is a freelance journalist.

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/10/28/ahmadis...most-hatred.html

Ideology and intolerance

OPINION

Ideology and intolerance

October 8, 2011Irfan Husain

MOHAMMAD Ali Jinnah visualised the state of Pakistan as “a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent”.

Sadly, he did not specify precisely which sect of Muslims he had in mind. Although a Shia himself, he did not have a sectarian bone in his body.

Indeed, he was secular to the core, and this was the philosophy he bequeathed to the state he had created virtually single-handedly. This was a bequest we tore up even before he was laid to rest.

So as we witness the ongoing massacre of Hazara Shias in Balochistan, we need to take a hard look at the monsters Pakistan has spawned over the years. Management gurus teach us that before we can solve a problem, we must first analyse it to gain a full understanding of the underlying causes.

But given the deep state of denial we prefer to stay in, we shy away from making the logical connection between cause and effect. When elaborating on his ‘two-nation theory’, Mr Jinnah was of the view that Muslims could not live side by side with Hindus in a united India as we were a different nation in terms of values and cultural norms.

This notion led to the partition of India in 1947, and even though millions of Muslims did not — or could not — make their way to the new state, Pakistan was born in a cataclysm of blood and fire. Almost immediately, the hard-line vision of Islam, espoused by Maulana Maududi and his Jamaat-i-Islami, became the ideology of large numbers of right-wing intellectuals and clerics.

However, it wasn’t until Zia seized power in 1977 that this literal strand of Islam became the official ideology of the state.

Some of the hard-line Sunni groups like the Sipah-i-Sahaba came into being in Zia’s period, declaring Shias to be ‘wajib-ul qatal’, or deserving of death. Needless to say, these killers were permitted to thrive by Zia.

Step by step, the notion of separateness at the heart of Partition has fostered a feeling of ‘us against them’. Taken to its illogical extreme by hard-line ideologues and their brainwashed followers, this translates into the belief that those not following their particular school of Islamic thought become ‘wajib-ul qatal’.

Massacres and individual murders resulting from rabid intolerance bearing the spurious stamp of religious orthodoxy are too numerous to cite here. But the recent episodes of the cold-blooded slaughter of Hazara Shias in Balochistan should open the eyes of those wishing to negotiate with the terrorists responsible for these acts.

Another hard-line, anti-Shia group, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was quick to claim responsibility for these murders, and yet the state has done nothing to bring this organisation to book.

According to a Human Rights Watch press release, “In Balochistan, some Sunni extremist groups are widely viewed as allies of the Pakistani military, its intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are responsible for security there.

Instead of perpetrating abuses in Balochistan against its political opponents, the military should be safeguarding the lives of members of vulnerable communities under attack from extremist groups”.

But it’s not just in Pakistan that Hazara Shias have been targeted: in Afghanistan, thousands have been killed by the Taliban.

Being a visible ethnic group, they are especially vulnerable to an increasingly vicious and violent Sunni majority. In a blog on this newspaper’s website, Murtaza Haider has cited a revealing doctoral thesis by Syed Ejaz Hussain. According to his research, 90 per cent of all those arrested for committing terrorist attacks in Pakistan between 1990 and 2009 were Sunni Deobandis.

And it’s not just Shias who are being targeted, or Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis: as we have seen time and again, suicide attacks against mosques and Sufi shrines have killed thousands of Sunnis as well. While there are a growing number of extremist groups, they are all united in their intolerance, and their contempt for democratic values and common decency.

Despite the evil these killers represent, there are growing voices in Pakistan demanding that the government negotiate with them. A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban was quoted recently as saying his group would talk to the government provided it broke off its relationship with the United States and imposed Sharia law in the country.

For a criminal gang to make such demands is preposterous; but for sane, educated Pakistanis to advocate talks with such people is even worse. Instead of insisting that we lock up these terrorists and try them, we are being asked to treat them as a political entity with valid demands.

If we are to ever defeat the hydra-headed monster we have created, our defence establishment will have to acknowledge its huge error in thinking that it could use these killers to further its agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmir. This has provided them with legitimacy, support and impunity. Unless the Pakistani state repudiates all links with extremism in all its forms, outfits like the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi will continue to murder at will within Pakistan, while the Lashkar-e-Taiba creates mayhem in our neighbourhood.

Quite apart from the collapse of the writ of the state caused by the depredations of these groups, and the innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of misplaced expediency, Pakistan has become a pariah in the international community. Increasingly, the use of terrorism as an instrument of policy is making us a scary country with a powerful death wish.

But while we struggle to cope with the rising tide of extremism, we need to step back and examine how and why we arrived at this abyss.

Clearly, it did not happen overnight. Looking back, we can see that the demand for separate electorates for Muslims in British India over 100 years ago was a major historical fork in the road. By conceding to this demand from a group of Muslim aristocrats as part of their divide-and-rule policy, the British tried to ensure that the two major religious communities would not unite against them.

However, we do not have the luxury of blaming our predicament on past imperial policies. The British are long gone, and the barbarians are poised to capture the state. We still have a choice, but if we don’t act quickly, we risk joining the ranks of failed states like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/10/08/ideology-and-intolerance.html

Reality begins to dawn

OPINION

Reality begins to dawn

August 25, 2011By Khalid Aziz | From the Newspaper

AFTER 10 years of facing an existentialist threat from terrorism inflicted by extremist groups, Pakistan has finally woken up to the seriousness of the situation.

An indication of this came the other day when the cabinet defence committee decided that there was a “need to clearly identify the threat posed by terrorism including the underlying factors such as ideological, motivational, funding, weapon supply, training and organisational support for terrorist groups and those abetting the terrorists”.

At this juncture, this seems a difficult task; nevertheless, one admires the statement as a meaningful one since the gathering included all heads of the military establishment. Maybe, the light of reality is now beginning to dawn.

Clearly, the challenge is huge. The status of minorities and the existence of pluralism in an Islamic state remain insurmountable barriers thwarting any move towards modernity unless the Saudi king helps out by favouring the use of ijtihad and ijma.

In his recent analysis, one of Pakistan’s most astute foreign secretaries in recent years, Riaz Mohammad Khan, in his book Afghanistan and Pakistan: Conflict, Extremism and Resistance to Modernity identifies the causal relationship between the mediaeval version of Islam followed in Pakistan and its attendant consequences. He thinks that had Pakistan travelled on the path it had adopted in 1960, it could have become an exemplary Muslim nation like the Turkey of today. However, this is still possible if a concerted effort is made.

Pakistan’s tragedy is that the narrative of modernity is viewed with hostility by the religious fraternity; in fact we have allowed the creation of separate minds that have different presumptions and attitudes. Most spurn modernity as if it was a devious philosophy of the West aimed at subjugating the Islamic world. The second suspicion of those harbouring this mentality is that modernity is America’s hegemonic tool. Both these critiques are challenged by the elite. As a result, the state is fragmenting rapidly.

Whatever the criticism of the West on the grounds of global politics or great-power strategy, modernisation is not the West’s property; it is a way of thinking. Islam has as much claim to modernity as the West’s claim in the Middle Ages to the medical knowledge provided by Muslim scholars like Abd Allah ibn Sina or Avicenna.

Forty of his medical treatises were taught in universities in Europe and he was adopted as the father of medical knowledge by a Christian Europe that was in the grip of religious rancour against Islam in the aftermath of the Crusades. Yet, Europe accepted his teachings since as modernists they separated knowledge from religion.

We, on the contrary, have developed a faulty logic that denies the value of knowledge emanating from Hindu, Jewish or Christian sources as being threatening to Islam; this is ridiculous and the very anti-thesis of a modernist mind generated more by paranoia than empirical reasoning.

Clearly, if we want to move Pakistan away from ignorance and bigotry, then a counter-extremism policy must focus on creating a new narrative and vision for Pakistan. It will not be an easy task. The vision must incorporate our history and culture. It must also include global values and respect for others. In order to grow and develop, we need to reform our educational system, and create a trained pool of skilled youth ready to undertake employment. If these attributes are missing then the shift to modernism will be futile.

A transformative vision could be Pakistan becoming “a progressive and a cosmopolitan state that believes in and practises principles of peace, love and brotherhood in its internal and external policies. It will be a society where diversity is respected and where differences of opinion are expressed within a democratic framework functioning under the rule of law and where equity is provided in state policies.”

However, to contemplate such a reconstruction of Pakistan requires major adjustments in the way that our key institutions, particularly the army and the religious political parties, think. Those who have benefited from the previous dispensation will need to be transformed; that will not be easy.

Pakistan may be facing immense difficulties, but its existence is not threatened by India, the Jews or the Christians; its greatest detractors are its own guardians — both civil and military.

Riaz Khan narrates how we took lightly the initial onslaughts by the religious parties when they rioted in Lahore in 1953 demanding that Ahmadis be declared non-Muslims. Later, we kept quiet when Gen Zia introduced the Nizam-i-Mustafa as a political device to win the support of religious parties against the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy.

Gen Zia changed the Pakistani mindset by moving it away from rationality and modernity through these reforms, without understanding what the result of this ill-advised social experimentation would mean for Pakistanis. The two main planks of his intervention were the Hudood Ordinances and the Toheen-i-Risalat (insulting prophethood), blasphemy laws. These measures targeted the Ahmadis and other minorities; simultaneously he increased state patronage for clerics for the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Gen Zia’s changes introduced Islamic radicalism as a state narrative. He was assisted in his design by the religious parties, as they were the main beneficiaries of his largesse and that of Saudi Arabia and UAE in the 1980s that was linked to Salafism. It fuelled extremism and embedded it in Pakistan’s security paradigm that began to see itself as a protector of global Islam.

Apparently, the task before the defence committee though difficult, is clear. They need to correct the state narrative, make peace with India, repeal regressive laws and instil economic growth. But they also need Saudi assistance for legitimising modernity through ijtihad.

The writer is chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research in Peshawar.
azizkhalid@gmail.com

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/02/15/herald-exclusive-shrunken-space.html

Pakistan’s future is tied to rights for minorities

Commentary: Analysis

Pakistan’s future is tied to rights for minorities

Monday, June 13, 2011

By David Alton

In 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah gave a speech to the New Delhi Press Club, setting out the basis on which the new State of Pakistan was to be founded. In it, he forcefully defended the right of minorities to be protected and to have their beliefs respected:

“Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion, faith or belief will be secure. There will be no interference of any kind with their freedom of worship. They will have their protection with regard to their religion, faith, their life and their culture. They will be, in all respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any distinction of caste and creed.”

These words are a forgotten aspiration in today’s Pakistan where minorities, ranging from Ahmadis to Sikhs, from Christians to Hindus, Buddhists and Zoroastrians, face relentless violence and profound discrimination.

It is estimated that, of a population of over 172 million people, at least 4% of the population come from the minorities: in 2011 the Pakistan Hindu Council put the number of Hindus alone at 5.5% - some 7 million people, while there are almost 3 million Christians, and Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya community is 4 million strong. All of these minorities have suffered grievously, along with those caught up in the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.

Jinnah rightly declared that the Government of Pakistan has a duty to protect all of its citizens, regardless of their beliefs or origins. The international community ought to be asking how the State today honours that pledge.

Take the Ahmadis. One year ago, in two separate attacks in Lahore, 98 Ahmadis were murdered and many more injured while they were at Friday prayers. The vicious brutality of these attacks is magnified when considering the Ahmadis’ belief: “love for all and hatred for none.”

Sadly, too few share the same passion for tolerance. While the Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals, in 1974 the State declared them to be non-Muslim and, in 1984, they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims. Ali Dayan Hassan of Human Rights Watch believes that Ahmadis had thus become “easy targets” for militant Sunni groups who behave with impunity believing they have the full authority of the State in declaring Ahmadis to be infidels. Despite repeated attacks on the Ahmadis no prosecution of perpetrators has occurred in the past 15 years.

And the situation is set to get worse. Earlier this month, on June 11th, The Asian Human Rights Commission issued a statement that “extremists openly plan to kill hundreds of Ahmadis while the government turns a blind eye.”

Last year Terrorism Monitor warned that:

“As the Pakistani Taliban are trying to spread their war on the Pakistani State, they are likely to continue to target minorities like the Ahmadis in their efforts to create instability.”

On March 29th of this year that threat was brutally and graphically underlined by the murder of Pakistan’s Minister for Minority Affairs, Mr.Shahbaz Bhatti. An advocate of reform of the country’s Blasphemy Law - the cause of many bogus prosecutions against non Muslims - he was gunned down by self described Taliban assassins as he left his Islamabad home. His murderers scattered pamphlets describing him as a “Christian infidel”. The leaflets were signed Taliban al-Qaida Punjab.”

Shahbaz Bhatti’s death is the second high profile killing this year of someone asking for changes to Pakistan’s laws and greater protection for its minorities.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said that Bhatti’s death “is a tragic loss for Pakistan and for all people who believe in human rights and freedom of speech.”

Alistair Burt, Minister for South Asia, added that he had supported Mr.Bhatti’s “in his difficult role and in his attempts to revise his country’s Blasphemy Laws. Those laws have been used to target minorities.”

Minister Bhatti’s death was not an isolated incident.

As terrorism and instability has intensified, so have the deaths. Over 35,000 people have died in attacks since 2003; 2,522 fatalities in the first six months of 2011 alone. And, on the day of writing this, a report from Peshwar detailed the deaths of 34 more people, with over 100 badly injured.

Meanwhile, forced conversions to Islam, rape, and forced marriage are increasingly commonplace.

Take the case of Sidra Bibi.

She is a 14 year old Christian living in the district of Sheikhupura in Punjab, and the daughter of a worker in the cotton industry. She was molested, abducted, raped and threatened her with death. Physically and psychologically abused, she became pregnant. Police have refused to accept her complaint.

Samina Ayub, is also a Christian. Aged 17, she lives with her family near Lahore. Kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam, renamed Fatima Bibi, she was coerced into marrying in the Muslim rite. Her family reported the abduction but police have not prosecuted those responsible.

Attacks have also been made on places and books sacred to those with minority beliefs. The radical Islamist party, Jamiat ulema-e-Islam recently filed an application to the Supreme Court to ban the circulation of the Bible, describing it as “blasphemous” and “pornographic”

Such intolerance and such virulent attacks pose a grave threat to Pakistan, to the region, but, also, to the UK, where around 1.2 million British citizens of Pakistani descent now reside.

Unlike the authorities who have such a lamentable record in protecting their citizens, Pakistan’s own citizens clearly understand from where the threat to their security originates. In an independent survey 90% cited religious extremism as the greatest threat to the country: which is why we have a duty to speak out for these vulnerable and preyed upon minorities, especially in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, since when intolerant violence has intensified.

The former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband commented that: “It is when the international community has taken its eye off the ball in Pakistan that instability has increased…Internally, Pakistan has a duty to protect minority groups and needs the support of its allies to do so.”

Those words are in complete accord with Jinnah’s 1947 Declaration promising tolerance, respect and security for the new country’s minorities - a vision that needs to be reinserted into the political mainstream. In 2011 the grievous plight of Pakistan’s minorities is inextricably bound to its destiny as a nation.

Professor Lord David Alton is a member of the House of Lords. The author of several books, Lord Alton has been widely recognized for his work on behalf of human rights. See: http://www.davidalton.net

© Copyright Spero, All rights reserved.
URL: www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34...minorities

Climate of fear over Pakistan blasphemy laws

South Asia

28 April 2011 Last updated at 09:25 GMT

Climate of fear over Pakistan blasphemy laws

The scene of Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder is festooned with banners and flowers commemorating his life

Earlier this year two prominent politicians in Pakistan were murdered over their opposition to Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. The BBC’s Jill McGivering investigates how the abuse of these laws is creating a climate of fear among Pakistan’s religious minorities.

One stretch of road in a residential suburb of Islamabad has the air of a shrine.

This is where Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead in March. Bunches of flowers, many now dry and brown, are piled on the kerb. Large colour posters showing his picture are displayed alongside.

On seeing the media, guards from his mother’s home nearby rush out to explain what happened.

Mr Bhatti had just left her home, they say as they walk me through the short distance, when another car blocked his path at the junction and the gunmen inside it opened fire.

Mr Bhatti’s murder shocked Pakistan.

It came just weeks after the shooting of another prominent politician, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer.

Both men had dared to speak out about the need for debate and possible reform of the controversial blasphemy laws.

And both men paid with their lives.

Not long before his death, Mr Bhatti had a long phone conversation with one of his brothers, Paul, an affluent doctor based in Italy. I met Paul Bhatti in Shahbaz Bhatti’s old offices.

‘Victimised’

“We discussed his work and the threat to his life,” he told me. “I tried to persuade him to stop and move to Europe but he wouldn’t.”

Meher Aslam Nasir is pursuing a charge of blasphemy against some Ahmadi men

Now, as a result of his brother’s death, Paul Bhatti has decided to suspend his medical career, return to Pakistan and continue his brother’s fight.

“We need to change the laws,” he said, “and also change people’s thinking. Some people think we want to amend the laws so that people can commit blasphemy. Of course we don’t want that - why would anyone want to do that?

“But we do want to protect innocent people who are victimised by this law. Some people use it for personal revenge.”

The Bhatti family are Christians and particularly aware of false blasphemy charges made against religious minorities.

In terms of actual numbers, most cases are filed against Muslims - but groups like Christians and Ahmadis, a very small proportion of Pakistan’s population, account for a disproportionately high percentage of cases.

It’s not only Christians. It's also many Muslims who are suffering because of this”

Joseph Coutts
Roman Catholic Bishop of Faisalabad

The recent high-profile murders have certainly added to the climate of fear surrounding this highly sensitive issue.

As I travelled through Pakistan, speaking to people who are directly involved with current cases, either as accusers or accused, many were terrified.

Many of the accused, even those who had been acquitted by the courts, have been forced to abandon their homes and go into hiding.

A blasphemy conviction carries the death penalty although in practice it is not carried out in these cases.

But the accused, whether they are convicted or not, face a constant threat of being murdered.

Many Pakistani Muslims feel intense passion about their faith. Any suggestion that someone may have insulted the Prophet or defiled the Koran sparks anger which can sometimes turn to physical violence.

Conservative clerics oppose attempts to reform the laws. They also warn that if the courts are lenient, the public may increasingly choose to take the law into its own hands and execute its own form of extra-judicial justice.

In Nankana Sahib in Punjab Province, I met Meher Aslam Nasir, a lawyer and leading member of an Islamic political party. He is currently pursuing a charge of blasphemy against several Ahmadi men.

“As Muslims, how can we allow anyone to intentionally or unintentionally defame the Prophet and not bring them to justice? We must implement the law. Innocent people have never been targeted and never will be,” he said.

‘False accusations’

But others disagree. Joseph Coutts, the Catholic Bishop of Faisalabad, says his concern is not with the purpose of the laws but with the way he says they are being abused.

Christians argue they are often falsely accused of blasphemy

“Most cases are false accusations,” he told me, “to settle personal disputes or sometimes for land grabbing. Once you are accused, no-one stops to ask: excuse me, did you really say this? The emotions just boil over.

“And if it is announced from the mosque, everyone accepts it as true and they’re ready to attack the person. It’s not only Christians. It’s also many Muslims who are suffering because of this.”

There are concerns too about the difficulty of proving innocence. Allegations that someone verbally insulted the Prophet often come down to one person’s word against another’s.

Some suggest that one way of reducing false and malicious allegations would be to introduce stiff penalties for anyone who makes an allegation which fails to lead to a conviction.

In the meantime, one consequence of the recent bloodshed is that public debate has been stifled.

To critics of these laws, that is a severe blow to Pakistan’s weak democracy as it continues to battle against Islamic extremism.

Jill McGivering’s report Blasphemy: A Matter of Life and Death can be heard on the Assignment programme on the BBC World Service on Thursday 28 April.

BBC © 2011
URL: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13038060

The fate of minorities in Pakistan

READERS FORUM Mon, 03/21/2011 10:04 PM

The fate of minorities in Pakistan [Letter]

This is in reference to “Pakistan, Ahmadiyah and democracy, (the Post, March 16) by Sanaullah, the Ambassador of Pakistan.

Sanaullah is ambassador of Pakistan and it’s his duty to paint a glorified picture. But the reality is too bleak. Living in Pakistan is altogether different from what Sanaullah states.

As far as the economy is concerned, I am not an economist but the figures available on the Internet indicate Pakistan’s GDP Growth rate is now at 2 percent as compared to 6.8 percent in 2007.

Minorities, in fact, are treated as second-grade citizens. Constitutionally, they are free to worship but practically an Ahmadi cannot worship freely; thanks to blasphemy laws. Minorities are not allowed to build places of worship according to their needs.

Hindus are fleeing to India. According to a recent report published in media, more than 50,000 have fled in recent years, including legislator Ram Singh Sodho. The plight of the Ahmadis is even worse.

Let alone building new places of worship, they are not allowed to repair their old and dilapidated ones. They are routinely bullied in their neighborhoods, discriminated in government jobs, and the education and business sectors.

Their headquarters town (Rabwah; forcibly re-named Chenab Nagar by the government under pressure from radical mullahs), which is built on purchased land, is practically under siege by fanatics who have forcibly occupied their land.

They are not allowed to purchase land around the town to expand their housing.

Wake up Indonesia. Religion-related laws are a bad omen of radicalism/Talibanization, which have plagued Pakistan where no place/community and sect is safe. It all started with just a constitutional amendment.

Anwar Ahmad
Karachi

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/21/the-fate...

Ahmedis remained target of religious hatred in Pak: Report

17/03/2011

Ahmedis remained target of religious hatred in Pak: Report

Lahore, Mar 17 (PTI) Some 100 members of the Ahmedi community were killed across Pakistan last year while 67 cases were registered against them on religious grounds, an organisation representing the minority sect said today.

A report issued by the Jamaat Ahmadiya said: “In 2010, Ahmedis continued to be the target of religious hatred and violence.”

Jamaat spokesman Saleemuddin said there was “great concern” over the cases registered against members of the sect on religious grounds.

Saleemuddin said a total of 202 Ahmedis were killed “on account of their faith” since 1984, when Ahmedi-specific laws were added to the Pakistan Penal Code by late military ruler Gen Zia-ul-Haq.

During the period since 1984, a total of 234 Ahmedis suffered violent attacks, 22 places of worship of the sect were destroyed and 28 sealed by authorities, Saleemuddin said.

Another 15 places of worship were unlawfully seized by opponents of Ahmedis.

Saleemuddin said: “A total of 67 Ahmedis were charged for various offences last year. Since the induction of Ahmedi-specific laws, the members of the community have endured years of persecution and harassment at the social, civil and political levels. This is a clear infringement of their right to live as free and equal citizens in Pakistan.

“Ahmedis were prevented from building any new place of worship in 2010, he said. They were also stopped by police from repairing old ones though all Pakistani citizens are “at liberty to do so in accordance with their faith”, he added.

Saleemudin alleged that hate literature was being distributed against Ahmedis with impunity.

Ahmedis consider themselves Muslim but were declared non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment in 1974. A decade later, they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims in Pakistan. Some 1.5 million Ahmedis live across the country.

URL: http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5044461

Antagonizing religious minorities

OPINION Fri, 03/11/2011 9:25 PM

Antagonizing religious minorities

Endy M. Bayuni, Asia Pacific Bulletin, Washington

Blasphemy can be a deadly affair in Indonesia and Pakistan, two of Asia’s largest Muslim-majority countries. Triggered by allegations of blasphemy, virulent mob attacks against those perceived to have offended Islam have rocked the two countries in recent months.

While Indonesia and Pakistan have laws that specifically address issues of blasphemy, those unfortunate enough to be labeled blasphemers are rarely taken to court. Encouraged by, if not with tacit approval from, conservative Muslim leaders, Indonesian and Pakistani mobs have been taking the law into their own hands instead.

On Feb. 5, three Indonesian adherents of Ahmadiyah, a sect with origins in 19th-century British India and considered heretical by many Muslims, were killed when a mob raided their house in Pandeglang, a town in Banten province to the southwest of Jakarta.

This was the deadliest attack yet on the sect — which has 200,000 to 500,000 followers in Indonesia — that subscribes to most of the tenets of Islam but recognizes its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as a prophet. Sunni Muslims, the great majority of Indonesians, believe that Muhammad is the last prophet, and any claim to the contrary is considered offensive to Islam and thus blasphemous.

Under great pressure from Muslim conservative groups, the Indonesian government has been trying to persuade — to no avail — Ahmadis, followers of Ahmadiyah, to cease all “deviant” religious activities and “return to the right path,” or at the very least drop their claim to being Muslims. This is the gist of a 2008 joint decree signed by Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs, Minister of Home Affairs, and Attorney General.

Deriving its legal basis from an anti-blasphemy law originally promulgated in 1965, the joint decree also enjoins that Muslims refrain from attacking Ahmadis. As Ahmadis refused to obey the joint decree, conservative Muslim groups have grown impatient and attacks on Ahmadis have become more frequent and more violent. A YouTube video of the Feb. 5 raid shows frenzied attackers beating an Ahmadi to death while shouting “God is great” in — or perhaps because of — the presence of unstirred police officers.

Two days later, with Indonesia still in shock after the brutal attack on the Ahmadis, another mob vandalized several churches in Temanggung, a town in Central Java. The trigger this time was a district court’s ostensibly insufficiently harsh conviction of a man charged with insulting Islam through the leaflets he had produced and circulated around town.

Antonius Richmond Bawengan had received the maximum sentence of five years under the anti-blasphemy law, but the crowd amassing in court to hear the verdict demanded nothing less than the death penalty. That Bawengan’s leaflets also insulted Christianity mattered little to the mostly Muslim crowd. More disturbingly, attacks on Christian churches and schools have become more frequent under many pretexts, blasphemous or otherwise.

In Pakistan, two top government officials have been assassinated in the last two months for speaking out against the anti-blasphemy law, apparently a capital offense. On March 2, Federal Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian and a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, was shot in Islamabad by unidentified gunmen as he left home for work.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, although Bhatti had said before his death that he had received many death threats. There was no doubt about who killed Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab, on Jan. 3: his own bodyguard.

Instead of widespread handwringing, reports from Pakistan immediately after the murder described massive rallies of Muslim conservatives who endorse the murder. Both men spoke in defense of Asiya Bibi, a Christian farmer who was sentenced to death for insulting prophet Muhammad and is awaiting execution.

Although the anti-blasphemy law has been part of the criminal code since the creation of Pakistan, the death penalty was introduced in 1984 as an addition to life imprisonment for offenses that amount to insulting Islam, the Koran, and Prophet Muhammad. Only in 1992 did capital punishment become mandatory for those specific offenses.

Nevertheless, while no execution has taken place in Pakistan under the anti-blasphemy law, extrajudicial killings of over 30 people presumed guilty of those offenses by angry individuals or mobs have occurred. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, at least 1,030 people had also been charged for blasphemy in Pakistan since 1986. The fatalities figures exclude Ahmadis who, as in Indonesia, have been the target of recurrent violent attacks. In May 2010, a mob massacred 86 Ahmadis in a Lahore mosque after Friday prayers.

Furthermore, Pakistan has declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslims and continued to let violent persecution of the sect persist. This is little comfort for Indonesian Ahmadis who are under pressure to drop their claim to being Muslims.

In light of these recent events, there is little hope of seeing the anti-blasphemy laws in Indonesia and Pakistan repealed any time soon. On the contrary, both governments are under growing pressure from conservative Muslim groups to deal even more harshly with religious minorities that are perceived to offend Islam and with any effort to alter the legal status quo.

Presiding over a precarious coalition government, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani has ruled out repealing the anti-blasphemy law, and Sherry Rehman, a coalition politician whose bill would repeal the law, has been told to withdraw the offending bill. In Indonesia, the Constitutional Court rejected by a majority decision a petition to have the 1965 anti-blasphemy law annulled in April 2010.

The anti-blasphemy law’s increasing use in the two countries is a reflection of the growing political clout of conservative Muslim organizations, and religious minorities are increasingly finding themselves at the wrong end of the law. The Ahmadis are the most vulnerable because their belief itself is considered blasphemous by the majority Muslims.

At a time of increasing religious intolerance, conservative Muslims may construe any indication of slight by members of other religious minorities, Christians in particular, to be a blasphemous offense. A relative absence of government intervention in cases of violent vigilantism, a judiciary unwilling to stand up for the defense of minority rights, and a legislature swayed by conservative Muslim leaders cannot but undermine the underpinnings of the state.

Leaders of Indonesia and Pakistan should know what to do: the Indonesian and Pakistani constitutions do provide for, respectively, religious freedom and the protection for citizens to practice their faith, and the protection of the rights of religious minorities.

Indonesia and Pakistan support the resolution on “the defamation of religions” at the UN Human Rights Council. Each year, the Council votes on the resolution, which is proposed by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Congress, to address concerns about the rise of Islamophobia around the world. Looking at recent events, Indonesia and Pakistan have a far bigger problem at home than Islamophobia.

The writer is visiting fellow at the East-West Center in Washington and formerly editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Post.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/11/antagonizing...

Herald exclusive: Shrunken space

HERALD

Herald exclusive: Shrunken space

By Nasir Jamal and Madiha Sattar | Herald Exclusive
February 15, 2011

Crushing the voice of reason: a massive rally in Karachi against amendments to the blasphemy law.

Holding a memorial reference for Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, who was shot dead on January 4 by a member of his security detail because of his stance against the blasphemy law, had not even been the original intent of the Citizens For Democracy (CFD). Founded in December last year as a network for those unhappy with the spread of religious extremism in Pakistan, and especially with the blasphemy law, at first its members wanted to hold a seminar on the law itself. They tried to book the auditorium at the Pakistan Institute for International Affairs in Karachi’s Saddar area, explains founding member Noman Quadri. They were refused. When Taseer was murdered and the issue became too hot to handle, the CFD decided to hold a memorial for him instead.

Initially the Karachi Arts Council agreed, but at the last minute withdrew. “They said they had received direct and indirect threats and had heard from sources that our event would be targeted,” says CFD member Beena Sarwar. The next stop was the Karachi Press Club, historically a place open to people who have all types of causes to publicise and injustices to protest. But press club officials refused to allow the CFD to hold the event at its premises, Quadri says . Tahir Hasan Khan, the president of the club, claims the CFD’s request was not turned down. According to him, given the sensitivity of the issue the administration needed to consult the club’s officials before arriving at a decision, which meant they could not say yes immediately. Insiders say the press club’s governing body was unwilling to give permission “because it could have threatened the club’s members”.

Sarwar believes the club did not need to consult its governing body. “We know that they can take such decisions without all that bureaucracy. They have done it many times in the past,” she says. For Quadri, then, the reason for the refusal was simple. “The club was not willing to host any event associated with Taseer or the blasphemy law,” he says.

The event was finally held at the offices of the Pakistan Medical Association. But the small space available there could not hold the crowd of about 500 that showed up, a literal manifestation of the shrinking space for moderate voices in Pakistani public discourse. Nor is this surprising when one considers how little Taseer’s own party has done to protect and expand this space. When Mumtaz Qadri publicly confessed to killing the governor, Taseer’s sympathisers were shocked to hear many Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders, including Babar Awan, the federal law minister, and Fauzia Wahab, the party’s information secretary, dubbing the killing a “political murder” instead of seeing it as an assassination carried out on religious grounds.

And after refraining from supporting Taseer on his stand on the blasphemy law while he was alive, the party is yet to officially organise a meeting or a reference in his honour. The only mention of his death in a party-organised event so far – apart from perfunctory messages of condolence from senior leaders and a week-long suspension of party activity – was when PPP co-chairperson Bilawal Bhutto addressed a London memorial reference for Taseer.

“The decision to not play up the religious side of the murder came from the top party leadership because the government cannot afford to open a new front with rightist groups and parties,” a PPP provincial leader from Lahore admits to the Herald. The party and its struggling government in Islamabad clearly do not want to be seen as pitching themselves against the religious right on the issue of the widespread misuse of the blasphemy law.

This reluctance to back Taseer’s views from one of the most liberal political parties in the country seems to be both a manifestation and a cause of the shrinking space for frank, rational debate on issues that are creating deep fissures in Pakistani society and ultimately leading to violence. “This is a message to all liberal and progressive people to keep quiet and scare and intimidate them,” Taseer’s daughter Sara told foreign media outlets after her father’s killing, “[it] is a message to every liberal [Pakistani] to shut up or be shot.” A Lahore-based political scientist who does not want to be named agrees with her. “The implications of Taseer’s murder by a religiously motivated man will be significant and far-reaching for our society, where religious conservatism is rapidly increasing because of the silence of successive governments on the issue in the past,” he says.

In the days immediately following Taseer’s murder, leaders of Jamaat Ahl-e-Sunnat Pakistan issued decrees against offering funeral prayers for Taseer or even expressing regret over his killing. Taking a cue from these statements, the khateeb of Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid and the imam of a mosque inside the Governor House, both government employees, refused to lead Taseer’s funeral prayers. A few weeks later, two senators refused to lead a prayer for the slain governor when the Senate met for the first time after his death. One of them, Professor Ibrahim, belongs to Jamaat-e-Islami while the other, Abdul Khaliq Peerzada, represents the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which prides itself on its liberal credentials. And when Islamabad-based CFD member Marvi Sirmed invited Senator Humayun Khan Mandokhel, an independent from Balochistan, to participate in a memorial service for Taseer, she received an alarming response. “[Taseer] met his fate. This is our religion. You have to accept it or leave Pakistan,” he told her.

Nor were ordinary citizens far behind. A group of lawyers cheered for Qadri and showered rose petals on him during his first appearance in an Islamabad court, and a number of rallies were taken out in various cities of Punjab by religious groups openly supporting him and his action. On social networking website Facebook, about 2,000 users hailed Qadri as a brave man willing to sacrifice everything to protect the honour of the Prophet of Islam, and that was before the group’s page was shut down. A large section of the media, particularly television channels, stopped far short of condemning the murderer and instead continued focusing on why Taseer was killed in the way that he was. Many regulars on talk shows and in newspapers’ opinion pages also focused on discussing the ‘crime’ he had committed by publicly supporting Aasia Bibi, a Christian mother condemned to death under the blasphemy law, rather than denouncing Qadri and his act. The advocates of amendments to or a repeal of the blasphemy law were painted negatively in the media, usually as intending blasphemers working on a foreign agenda to harm Islam and Muslims.

Urdu newspaper Ummat, for instance, translated an Observer article on former information minister Sherry Rehman, who has filed a bill to make amendments to the law, to imply that she had willingly and independently gone into exile in her home. This was emphasised several times in the translation despite the fact that the original article had described how threats against her life have been pouring in and the government has instructed her to provide a 48-hour notice before leaving home. Another Urdu newspaper mistranslated a New York Times article on Taseer by his daughter Shehrbano in such a way that she began to receive threats in response to it (the newspaper later fired the subeditor responsible for the translation).

“Religious intolerance has become a way of life for many of us in Pakistan,” says a Christian-rights activist who requested anonymity. “People are scared of speaking or writing on issues such as the shabby state of religious minorities in Pakistan. Taseer’s assassination will certainly add to the existing repressive atmosphere and make things more difficult for those who are working to realise the ideal of a tolerant, progressive society for all citizens of Pakistan,” he adds, saying the governor had won Christian hearts by espousing Aasia’s cause.

But even though Pakistani Christians feel strongly for Taseer and his family, they have not organised public events to pay tribute to him because they have been “advised against it”, he explains. “Church leaders don’t want the murder and their opposition to the blasphemy laws to be seen as a Christian-Muslim issue. That is why public displays of emotion on his death were avoided. We cannot afford to invite trouble. Our community has already lost a lot in violent attacks on its members and churches in Punjab and elsewhere in recent years.”

Civil society activists, Taseer’s friends and his close relatives have been able to organise candlelight vigils in Lahore, Islamabad and elsewhere in the country, and a handful of liberal politicians and human rights activists have spoken out on television talk shows in his favour. But that has been the extent of the public protest. “It is time for progressive elements to sit back and reconsider their strategy for countering the growing power of conservative forces in society, especially in the media, rather than indulge in any adventurism,” advises the analyst from Lahore. According to him, the most important task at hand for them is to see to it that Qadri is punished for taking the law into his own hands.

But it is unclear whether the state is powerful enough or has the courage to punish Taseer’s murderer. Police officers investigating the case are said to have received threats to their lives and the prosecution has been unable to find lawyers. “Few lawyers, if any, would want to represent the state in this case because of possible threats,” says an Islamabad-based reporter who has been covering the proceedings of Taseer murder case. He claims the majority of lawyers from the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, including those belonging to Punjab’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz, are supportive of Qadri, which prevents others from taking the risk of representing the prosecution. “Even the judiciary is scared of hearing the case for similar reasons and because of the active backing of Qadri and his instigators by religious parties and groups,” he adds.

More than anyone else, it is Taseer’s family that is facing a real threat, says a businessman close to them. They are said to be shunning any interaction with the domestic media for fear of stoking a new controversy. After the mistranslation of Shehrbano’s article, “they have decided to stay away from the media,” he confirms. Although they did not agree, he adds that “some people had even advised Taseer’s wife and children to quietly leave the country for some time and return when the issue is forgotten.” If Taseer’s assassination underscores anything, then, it is the Pakistani state’s increasing inability to take on extremist violence, and its helplessness in protecting those who differ from a narrow interpretation of religion that seems to be becoming mainstream.

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/02/15/herald-exclusive-shrunken-space.html

Herald Exclusive: The law of diminishing utility

HERALD

Herald Exclusive: The law of diminishing utility

By Asad Jamal | Herald Exclusive
February 15, 2011

What the history of blasphemy cases in Pakistan overwhelmingly points to is the suffering of those who languish for years in jail because of faulty trials and biased proceedings.

Zaibunnisa was jailed in 1996 on blasphemy charges when Qari Hafeez, a cleric from Lahore, complained to the police that he had found torn pages of the Quran thrown in a drain. A medical board declared her mentally ill soon after her arrest, but she was still incarcerated. It was only in July 2010, 14 years after she was first sent behind bars, that the Lahore High Court ordered her release, but not on medical grounds. Her lawyer had convinced the court that there was no evidence linking her to the crime. After she was freed, Hafeez told the media that he had not named her as an offender and a police official reportedly told journalists that she had been arrested to defuse tension that had developed in the area over the defiling of the Quran.

That an innocent, mentally-challenged woman had to spend nearly a decade and a half in prison because the police made her a scapegoat is as much a comment on the ideological biases of judges, lawyers and law-enforcement agencies as it is a description of the multiple pressures they face in blasphemy cases. In almost all these cases, trial courts are either unwilling to give the accused the benefit of the doubt or are under pressure to dispense strict punishment even when, as in Zaibunnisa’s trial, evidence is not solid and incriminating.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Abid Hassan Minto tells the Herald that hers is not an isolated case. “Many blasphemy cases go on for years,” he says. “Sometimes even bail applications are not taken up because judges and prosecution lawyers use delaying tactics to keep the accused in jail as long as they possibly can without his or her trial reaching a conclusion.” Naeem Shakir, a senior lawyer based in Lahore who has served as defence counsel in dozens of blasphemy cases, says the prosecution and even judges do not really want those accused of blasphemy to get justice. “Short of awarding the death penalty instantly, both lawyers and judges want to prolong the agony of the accused to the maximum,” he says.

The case of Wajihul Hasan, booked under blasphemy charges in 1999, tells a similar story. He could not get bail because the complainant, Lahore-based lawyer Ismail Qureshi, who is known for his extreme religious views, wields considerable influence in both the bench and the bar. A trial court awarded Hasan the death penalty in 2002, but no judgment was made on his appeal to the Lahore High Court (LHC) until 2010. It came as no surprise that Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry, the recently appointed LHC chief justice, upheld Hasan’s sentence and in his verdict praised Qureshi for his services to Islam and the cause of the honour of the Prophet of Islam. An appeal is now pending in the Supreme Court.

Aside from verdicts influenced by personal ideologies or external pressure, Shakir says blasphemy accused and their lawyers also face an extremely hostile situation within and outside courtrooms. “When I was defending Salamat Masih in a Gujranwala sessions court (see “Law Unto Themselves”) the entire passage from the court’s main gate to the door of the courtroom would be full of people carrying placards and banners demanding death for my client and raising incessant slogans against him as well as me.” At one stage, he says, the atmosphere became so aggressive that they had to ask the high court to shift the trial from Gujranwala to Lahore.

But Shakir says the situation is hardly different in Lahore. “During one hearing the prosecution produced some evidence, and when I wanted to see it the crowd in the courtroom made so much noise that the judge stopped me from taking notes on it and took it back from me,” he says. According to him, this was a clear violation of legal procedures that stipulate that no framing of charges can be complete unless the accused and his counsel hear all the charges and see the entire body of evidence. Shakir also claims that he and his family faced threats to their lives while he was working as defence counsel for another blasphemy accused, Gul Masih. “I became so scared for my son that I made it a point that he never went out unaccompanied.”

Apart from being under pressure due to this hostile environment, judges have also been swayed by their religious bias while deciding blasphemy cases. In two cases filed under the same subsection of the blasphemy laws, a court applied different yardsticks for a Muslim and a Christian. In 2008, Khwaja Sharif, the outgoing LHC chief justice, did not quash a case against a Christian woman, Martha Bibi, even after her counsel cited an earlier decision in which the same judge had quashed a case against one Qari Mohammad Yunus on the grounds, among others, that the complaint was not registered with the permission of the government, even though 295-C cases do not carry this requirement (see What the Law Says).

Tahir Iqbal’s case is another instance of how prominently personal biases figure in blasphemy cases. A Muslim who converted to Christianity, Iqbal was arrested under blasphemy charges in Lahore in December 1990. He was denied bail despite his lawyer’s contention that his client was paralytic. The sessions court judge who dismissed the bail application on July 7, 1991 passed the following order: “Learned counsel for the petitioner has conceded before me that the petitioner has converted to Christianity. With this admission on the part of petitioner’s counsel there is no need to probe further into the allegations… Since conversion from Islam to Christianity is in itself a cognisable offence involving serious implication, I do not consider the petitioner entitled to the concession of bail at this stage.” The judge was unaware, and did not want to be informed, that there is no law in Pakistan that makes conversion from Islam to any other religion an offence. In July 1992, Iqbal was found dead in jail under mysterious circumstances. His lawyer believes he was poisoned.

In at least one blasphemy case, the high court recorded in detail how the sessions court had completely disregarded legal procedure. When Salamat Masih, a 13-year-old Christian, appealed against his 1995 death sentence, Justice Arif Iqbal Bhatti of the LHC pointed out glaring gaps in the trial, declaring that the sessions court had disregarded legal requirements for examining and verifying evidence and had based its judgment on tenuous grounds. Bhatti was later gunned down for exonerating Salamat Masih and his co-accused (see “Law Unto Themselves”).

This is not the only case in which a higher court of appeal has noted inconsistencies in the trial at the lower level. In 16 out of 17 reported blasphemy cases in which final verdicts have been announced by the High Court, Federal Shariat Court or Supreme Court since 1980, the accused were acquitted. In all 16 cases, appellate courts pointed out weaknesses and flaws in the prosecution’s case and pointed to the questionable veracity of evidence as a major factor in final acquittals. They also found various violations of legal procedure and other problems with investigations, collection of evidence and preparation of the prosecution’s case that proved instrumental in defeating or weakening the case. In two-thirds of the cases, courts found that personal enmity, religious rivalry and property disputes were important factors in the registration of blasphemy cases in the first place.

But in many cases, intimidation does not end even after punishment has been meted out. Despite having served their sentences, convicts in blasphemy cases live under perpetual fear for their lives. Amin Masih, 45, was convicted for blasphemy in 1999 and awarded imprisonment. His appeal was never taken up. He completed his sentence in 2004, but even now he cannot return to his village. The last time he met his old parents was seven years ago. He does not meet any of his brothers and sisters and does not attend family get-togethers for fear of being hunted down. He now lives under an assumed identity after a minority rights organisation got him a new job and a new residence.

His case offers clear insight into the problems with blasphemy-case trials. First, a mob mobilised through mosques gathered to kill him immediately after his business competitor alleged that he had committed blasphemy. It was only after some village elders took him into their protective custody that his life was saved. Once the trial began, religious activists would throng the courtroom during each hearing. His appeal against conviction was never taken up by the high court.

That Amin Masih will immediately run into trouble if he goes back to his village is evident from what happened to Zahid Shah. A resident of Chak Jhumra near Faisalabad, Shah was charged under the blasphemy laws soon after converting to Christianity. His family claimed he was mentally unstable. In 1997 he was granted bail but still had to stay away from his village and relatives for the next several years. When finally he returned in July 2002, he was dragged out of his brother’s house by a mob that beat him with iron rods and stoned him to death.

What the history of blasphemy cases in Pakistan overwhelmingly points to is the suffering of those who languish for years in jail because of faulty trials, biased proceedings, hostile crowds howling in and outside courtrooms, and inordinate delays in the hearing of appeals. All this makes these cases a nightmare not just for the accused but also for any defence counsels. There are only a handful of lawyers among thousands of trained attorneys in Lahore who are willing to defend those accused of blasphemy in a court of law, Shakir tells the Herald.

All this leads to the most important question about the blasphemy laws: Have they discouraged incidents of blasphemy or have they simply contributed to the fracturing of society? “We need to ponder over whether these laws are creating social and religious harmony or dividing society into religions and sects and putting people into the conflicting categories of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal,’” says Yunus Alam, who heads the Multan-based Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan. Data suggests that the number of registered blasphemy cases has increased consistently with every passing decade since the 1980s (see “Law Unto Themselves”), and extrajudicial killings, mob justice and unfair trials suggest that they have become tools for religious persecution, minority-bashing and, of late, suppressing freedom of speech.

— Asad Jamal is a Lahore-based lawyer who deals with minorities and other human rights issues
— Additional reporting by Muhammad Badar Alam

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/02/15/herald-exclusive...utility.html

Indonesian blasphemy law sparks Muslim violence in Java

Indonesian blasphemy law sparks Muslim violence in Java

Riot provoked by ‘lenient’ sentence for Christian who handed out leaflets poking fun at Islamic symbols comes two days after extremist attack on Muslim sect

Bruno Philip Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 15 February 2011 13.59 GMT

United front … Indonesians from various religions hold hands in Jakarta as they condemn the recent clashes. Photograph: Bay Ismoyo/Getty

Indonesia has been shocked this month by two outbreaks of religious violence on the island of Java, involving Muslim fundamentalists who attacked members of the Muslim Ahmadiyya sect and, in a separate incident, three Christian churches.

On 8 February an angry mob condemned a court in Temanggung for its “lenient” sentence against a Christian convicted of blasphemy. Antonius Banwengan, 58, was arrested last year for handing out a Christian book and leaflets poking fun at some of the most sacred Islamic symbols. The five-year prison sentence for blasphemy, the maximum allowed under Indonesian law for this type of offence, was not enough for the crowd. “Kill him,” chanted more than 1,000 demonstrators who attacked the building and police, threatening the judges and prosecutor, the accused and his counsel.

Muslims account for 80% of the country’s total population of 230 million but the Indonesian constitution guarantees freedom of religion. However, human rights organisations stress that violence against religious minorities has been on the rise.

The riots in Temanggung came two days after another outbreak of violence, also in Java. On 6 February about 1,000 extremists armed with stones and machetes attacked members of the Ahmadiyya community, a Muslim sect founded in India in the 19th century that does not recognise Mohammed as the last prophet and is considered heretical by orthodox Muslims.

Three people were killed and six others seriously injured. A video showing the attack prompted a public outcry. The next day President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he was “deeply shocked” by the violence, which erupted just before the start of World Interfaith Harmony Week.

This article originally appeared in Le Monde

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
URL: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/indonesia...philip

“No option” but to abide by PM’s decision on blasphemy: Sherry

Pakistan

“No option” but to abide by PM’s decision on blasphemy: Sherry

AFP
February 03, 2011

Sherry Rehman — (File Photo)

ISLAMABAD: A liberal lawmaker on Thursday accused Pakistan’s prime minister of sabotaging efforts to reform blasphemy laws that have been widely condemned by rights groups.

“Appeasement of extremism is a policy that will have its blowback,” said Sherry Rehman, a lawmaker for the main ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

The former information minister petitioned parliament to reform the legislation in November after a Christian woman was sentenced to death, but the private member’s bill was never listed on parliament’s agenda.

Despite escalating international condemnation and the murder of politician Salman Taseer for backing reform, the government refuses to consider any amendment, bowing to protest from the nation’s powerful religious right-wing.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday told lawmakers that Rehman “agreed to withdraw her bill according to party policy”.

“The prime minister categorically made it clear that government has no intention to amend the law. Neither he nor the speaker of the national assembly has constituted any committee to consider the amendment bill,” his office said.

A furious Rehman disagreed, but said she had “no option” but abide by the decision after the prime minister ruled out any discussion.

“It was a question of protecting our citizens from injustice done in the name of a religion that values peace and tolerance more than anything else,” she said.

The government had pledged to keep intact the blasphemy law on December 30, in a bid to head off threatened protests.

The move exposed Rehman and Taseer as lone campaigners. Five days later Taseer was murdered outside an Islamabad cafe by his bodyguard, since lauded a hero by hundreds of religious conservative clerics, student activists and lawyers.

The law stirred fresh controversy this week after the arrest of a 17-year-old boy for allegedly writing a blasphemous comment in a school exam.

Human rights campaigners say the law encourages Islamist extremism and is too often used to settle personal scores.

“Pakistan has set the standard for intolerance when it comes to misusing blasphemy laws, but sending a schoolboy to jail for something he scribbled on an exam paper is truly appalling,” said Human Rights Watch.

While the law carries a maximum penalty of death, those sentenced to hang in the past have had their sentences overturned or commuted on appeal.

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/02/03/no-option...sherry.html

Extremist Intimidation Chills Pakistan Secular Society

Extremist Intimidation Chills Pakistan Secular Society

by Julie McCarthy

 Listen to the Story or Download. 07:46

Pakistani police guards carry the coffin of the assassinated governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, during the funeral procession in Lahore on Jan. 5. - Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

January 24, 2011

In Pakistan, a battle has been joined by those who want a tolerant Islamic state against those who want a fundamentalist religious regime.

The killing in Pakistan earlier this month of Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer has cheered the religious right while chilling secular Pakistanis and exposing deep fissures in the society.

The governor was gunned down in Islamabad by a bodyguard angered at his bid to relax the country’s blasphemy laws. The assassination of Taseer, an audacious advocate for modernism, revealed the conservative attitudes about Islam that are sweeping through Pakistan.

A Growing Rift

A growing and dangerous dichotomy is evident in the Old City of Lahore that teems with shop owners and vendors. Outdoor stalls sit cheek by jowl in the city of 6 million.

In the aftermath of the governor’s killing, Zafar Iqbol, 65, who owns a fabric shop in the Mehood Cloth Market, says he “fears for the future.”

“We feel utterly helpless,” he says. “The market here is under the dominion of elements who have affiliations with religious parties. They come along and they insist that we shut things down, and of course we’re afraid not to, so we do close things down and we lose our business.”

A few of the men who run the market traders association hoist themselves onto the counter of Iqbol’s stall and lean in to listen, causing the owner obvious discomfort.

Members of the Association to Protect the Dignity of the Holy Prophet, or Tahafuz-e-Namwoos Risalat, join the Sunni Itehad Council in a protest march to denounce the Pope. The Vatican called for the abolition of Pakistan's blasphemy laws after a Christian woman accused of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad was sentenced to death. - Julie McCarthy/NPR

While Iqbol mourns the loss of the governor, his unannounced visitors feel anything but sorrow. Mohammad Ilyas, the vice president of the traders association, says the slain governor maligned Islam when he said Pakistan’s strict laws on blasphemy had become a tool to oppress religious minorities.

“It was totally wrong on the part of the governor to say that the blasphemy laws of Pakistan should be changed. The governor not only criticized the law of the land, but he went out of his way to protect Asia Bibi,” a Christian woman who was sentenced to death last year on the charge of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad.

When asked whether Taseer deserved to die, Ilyas, 65, says, “Definitely, because he interfered with the religion of this country. If he hadn’t interfered, he would not have been killed.”

Making An Assassin A Hero

Banners draped in the streets of the Punjab capital, Lahore, call the governor’s confessed killer, Mumtaz Qadri, a hero. The 23-year-old police commando assigned to guard the governor said Taseer was an apostate for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

Evidence that fundamentalism is becoming mainstream was found in the young lawyers who showered the assassin with rose petals as he entered court in Islamabad one day after the shooting. It signaled that religious fundamentalism was not the purview of the poor Pakistani masses but reaches far into the educated class as well.

Demonstrations saluting Qadri have continued throughout the country, a disturbing signal for Washington, which is hoping for greater stability from its nuclear armed ally.

Supreme Court Bar Association President Asma Jahangir says each time democracy begins to take hold in Pakistan, the extreme right wages an offensive that is more lethal than the one before.

“And there is a reason behind it. They do not want a democratic dispensation here. It doesn’t suit them. They don’t figure in there. They get marginalized there. So the murder of the governor was a part of that larger plan as well,” she says.

Parliamentarian Sherry Rehman also is facing death threats for proposing amendments to the blasphemy law, as had the governor. Rehman says “sane” voices have been silenced.

Historian Mubarak Ali estimates that the religious right now makes up some 30 percent of Pakistani society and says radical clerics have been emboldened by the mainstream parties, including President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party. - Julie McCarthy/NPR

“And none of them are seeking to offend sensibilities of any religion, let alone Muslims themselves,” she says.

Rehman’s Pakistan Peoples Party, the party of President Asif Ali Zardari, has disowned any reform of the blasphemy laws and has been conspicuously quiet amid the uproar. Historian Mubarak Ali says all of the mainstream parties have emboldened the religious right by kowtowing to the radical clerics who are roiling the streets.

“Instead of fighting, instead of challenging — they just surrendered,” he says. “And now these clerics, they are so powerful, they are so bold, that now they are threatening everybody.”

‘No Other Alternative’

Farid Piracha, the deputy secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s largest religious party, says “if there [were] justice in Pakistan,” there would be no eruptions on the streets.

The party’s Islamic revivalist message has pushed Pakistan toward conservatism while preaching the dangers of a perceived U.S. war on Islam.

The radical right is gathering strength in Pakistan conflating religious dogma with the policies of the United States. Piracha says they cannot be separated.

“There is damage of more than 30,000 innocent people during the so-called war against terrorism. So, one cannot believe that America is not against Islam. America’s total military actions are against the Muslim states,” he says.

U.S. drone attacks and the war in Afghanistan have provoked a popular outcry among Pakistanis, which radical Islamists exploit. Historian Ali says extremists have expanded their constituency by emerging as the only alternative voice in a country where millions feel under threat by everything from the faltering economy to the lack of security.

“They say that dictatorships didn’t give them anything. Democracy didn’t give them anything,” he says. “So, they are exhorted that Islam is going to solve their problems, give them dignity in the society and rule of law. Because there is no other alternative, they believed it.”

The extremists also benefit from the legacy of Zia al Haq, the 1980s dictator who undertook the Islamization of the schools that indoctrinated a generation in religious orthodoxy.

“As a result of this education,” Ali says, “they have very closed minds.”

Speaking Out

As religious passions stifle liberal voices, one group refuses to be repressed — the Ajoka Theater.

Ajoka Theater founder Madeeha Guahar on stage following a performance in Islamabad of a play about blasphemy. In the antisecular atmosphere following the Punjab governor’s assassination, the staging of the play is a rare example of secular society standing up against the intimidation of religious extremists. - Julie McCarthy/NPR

It’s been in the forefront of the struggle for a secular democratic Pakistan. This past week, it staged a disturbing production about blasphemy and dedicated it to the slain governor.

It’s a study in brutality, with white-robed clerics in league with black-clad followers haranguing their victims as they hang them.

“That this play was shown in Islamabad is an act of courage,” says audience member Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and essayist. “This is a country that stands at the very verge of religious fascism.”

Hoodbhoy says he fears for the theater company.

“I don’t know when they might be targeted,” he says.

The theater founder and director of the play, Madeeha Guahar, says Ajoka will continue performing and take the risk.

Copyright 2011 NPR
URL: www.npr.org/2011/01/24/...secular-society