Persecution of Ahmadis Spreads

Persecution of Ahmadis Spreads

By Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Nov 22, 2011 (IPS) — “Hatred against us has now spread to small towns and villages,” Saleemuddin, spokesperson of the persecuted Ahmadiya community in Pakistan, told IPS.

The Ahmadis believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a 19th century cleric, “was the messiah promised by God”. Such beliefs are seen by orthodox Muslims as unacceptable. Pakistan has declared its four million Ahmadis to be non-Muslim.

Speaking to IPS over the phone from Rabwah – a city in the Punjab province also known as Chenab Nagar – which is 95 percent Ahmadi, Saleemuddin added, “We are in a fix – if we say we are Muslims, we will be charged and sentenced; but we cannot say we are non-Muslim when we are Muslims.”

On May 28, last year, 94 members of the Ahmadi community were massacred in their mosques during the Friday congregation in the eastern city of Lahore. Since then, Saleemuddin said, there has been a marked increase in persecution, with 11 more people killed.

Last year, the Punjab government made it mandatory for students to reveal whether they were ‘Muslim or non-Muslim’ before being admitted to school or college, or even before registering for the board exams.

Two months ago Raziatul Bari, a 23-year-old English teacher at Chenab Public School in the Punjab village of Dharanwali, was sacked from work. The same afternoon ten students – some from Chenab Public School and some, like four-year old nursery student Manahil Jameel, from the Muslim Public School – were expelled.

Yasser Arafat, the principal of Chenab Public School, told IPS, “The teacher was preaching her faith in school despite warnings, so she was asked to leave. The students left in protest.”

Arafat charged that the students and the teacher want “international attention so they can seek asylum.”

Bari, who had studied at Chenab Public before becoming a teacher there, said she had never faced a problem like this before.

“It all began a few months ago when a cleric came and poisoned our village,” she told IPS. Following the cleric’s visit, Arafat asked Bari on several occasions to convert to Islam. “Each time I would tell him I was a Muslim,” Bari said, adding that her insistence was in vain.

Of the 210 households in Dharanwali, Bari says just nine belong to Ahmadis, who live in constant fear.

“Today our children have been expelled from schools, tomorrow we may be forced to leave our homes. Where will we go?“

For years Ahmadis in Pakistan have kept a low profile, living in constant fear and humiliation. Now the hatred has spread and the oppressors have become more belligerent, which has led to several instances of overt faith-based persecution.

In June, pamphlets listing the names and addresses of Ahmadi families alongside messages inciting murder were distributed in the Punjab city of Faisalabad. Several months later 55-year-old Naseem Ahmed, whose name had appeared on that list, was shot dead in his home.

In another case, the local cleric of a small village in Punjab issued a severe edict after seeing the sons of a deceased Ahmadi offering funeral prayers for their father: “Anyone who offers prayers for a kafir (an infidel, in this case an Ahmadi) gets expelled from Islam.”

This anti-Ahmadi sentiment is not restricted to Punjab alone. In Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, a group of clerics forced an Ahmadi to ‘renounce’ his beliefs, warning him that if he refused his business would be set aflame and he would be killed.

According to Pakistan’s constitution, the Ahmadi minority cannot call themselves Muslims, are banned from referring to their places of worship as mosques and cannot even sing hymns in praise of Prophet Muhammad.

Meanwhile the government of Pakistan has updated the electoral list for the forthcoming 2013 national elections to include a new column for religion, meaning that if Ahmadis choose to cast their vote, they will be forced to mark this new form, thereby accepting their designated ‘status’ as non-Muslim.

The new form states that any citizen who declares himself a Muslim also affirms that “he believes in the finality of Prophet Muhammad; that he is not a follower of any person who claims to be a prophet after Muhammad and does not call himself an Ahmadi.”

Qari Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, a leading cleric for Khatme-Nabuwat Momin, one of the several religious movements in Pakistan that aims to protect the sanctity of Prophet Muhammad, has been living in Chenab Nagar since 1976. He believes that if the constitution has declared Ahmadis non-Muslim, they should accept that status if they want to continue living in the country.

“They lead astray the true believers and want Pakistan to disintegrate. They are enemies of our country,” Usmani said, adding he has never maintained any “social contact” with Ahmadis.

But Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS that the government’s move to update the electoral lists was a “historical blunder”, adding that the “unwillingness” of the government to either repeal or amend discriminatory legislation has made it “complicit” in abuses perpetrated against the Ahmadis.

Since 1974, various civilian and military governments have passed a series of ordinances that discriminate against Ahmadis.

Hasan said, “the legal apartheid that the state instituted against Ahmadis in 1974 has led to increased social apartheid over the decades.”

Describing the recent expulsion of students and the teacher in Dharanwali as “obscenely abusive”, Hasan said Pakistan’s state and some sections of its society “appear determined to deny Ahmadis, Christians and any others who question bigotry and prejudice any place at all in the social fabric.”

Saleemuddin, too, blames the government for stoking hatred against his community. “It has allowed extremist clerics to hold hate campaigns against our community,” he said.

Rights groups and the usually raucous media have been virtually silent in the face of such blatant discrimination. “The role of the media in our society is deeply flawed,” Kamila Hyat, a rights activist and journalist told IPS. “The same biases that pervade the rest of society also influence the reporting of these cases.” (END)

Copyright © 2011 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
URL: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105923

Pakistan: Abuse of Christians and Other Religious Minorities (Part Two)

October 7, 2009

Pakistan: Abuse of Christians and Other Religious Minorities (Part Two)

Adrian Morgan

Click here for Part One

Methodology of Oppression

Christians are not the only group to have been affected by Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. These statutes have been used against Hindus, Muslims, and members of the Ahmadiyya (or Ahmadi, Qadiani) sect, who consider themselves “Islamic” yet are shunned as heretics. The laws are also used to “punish” people as a result of feuds, arguments over land, and other reasons. In these cases, innocent Muslims are often the victims of the blasphemy statutes. But there are other ways of oppressing minorities in Pakistan.

Forcibly converting people is one means of oppression that has been used against minority groups. On May 26, 2006, a conference was held in a Lahore hotel, sponsored by the Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan (MRC). It was claimed at this meeting that although only 100 cases of forced conversions were reported in the Pakistan media, the true annual figure ranged between 500 and 600 a year.

I.A. Rehman, a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) told the conference: “In Pakistan we do not have any law against forced conversion and converting from Islam to any other religion means death. To change this state of affairs, we must consider the issue as a struggle for democracy and invite Muslims as well to these meetings, so they can help us to better understand all points of view of the argument.”

The practice of forcing Hindu girls to convert has been documented in Pakistan. In November, 2005, there had been 19 such cases reported in Karachi, the main city in Sindh province. Hindus are generally in low numbers in Pakistan, but in Sindh, there are two districts (Jacobad and Larkana) where (according to the 1998 census) they comprise about 40 percent of the local population. Hindu girls were abducted, converted to Islam and hastily married to young Muslims before their families could trace them.

The most offensive method of forcible conversion is gang-rape. In the fall of 2005, a young Christian girl was allegedly gang-raped to force her to convert to Islam. The 12-year-old girl was abducted from her home and forced to have sex with numerous men. The case was presented by the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA). One former influential member of APMA, Shahbaz Batti, is now the Minorities Minister in the current government.

Christian news sites have several details of such cases of forcible conversions through rape that have taken place in Pakistan. A report by the Asian Human Rights Commission from March 2007 describes how a 15-year-old Shia Muslim girl was gang-raped in Layyah in Punjab province, as a means to force her to convert to Sunni Islam.

Ahmadis

Ahmadis are said to comprise less than one percent of Pakistan’s population. They are treated by the majority population and by the establishment in a manner that should invoke the outrage of “rights groups” like CAIR, but strangely, few groups are prepared to defend the rights of the Ahmadis. The group has as its slogan: “Love for All, Hatred for No One,” yet the group has received vilification from conventional Muslims. In Pakistan in 2005, more than 1,300 reports containing hate material against Ahmadis were published in the Urdu press. The group has also been subjected to violent attacks in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The persecutions of the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan are similar to those endured by Christians. Occasionally villages are attacked, or individuals are accused of blasphemy, often in an attempt to invoke sectarian violence against the community of the “blasphemer.” Such an instance happened on June 24, 2006, when a village was attacked after allegations were made that two Ahmadi youths had burned a copy of the Koran. Seven Ahmadis had been arrested under Section 295-B of the Penal Code (desecration of Koran), but a mob nonetheless rampaged through the village of Jhando Shai in Punjab province. Thirteen Ahmadi families lived in the village. Twelve families were forced to flee, while their homes (and some shops) were burned down. The Ahmadi families who fled could not return to register complaints against those who had vandalized their abodes — the police had banned them from coming back.

Between 1986 and 1999, a total of 189 Ahmadis were imprisoned for contravening Section 295-C of the Penal Code. This outlaws blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, and is the most serious of the religious statutes, potentially meriting the death penalty.

In 2002, Ahmadi political candidates in the general election were forced to sign a pledge confirming that Mohammed was the final prophet (khatm-e-nabbuwat), essentially forcing them to deny the prophethood of their founder Ghulam Ahmad. The Ahmadis do, however, state that Muhammad was the last law-giving prophet.

The discriminatory oath seemed designed to oust Ahmadis from the political process. Not only are Ahmadi candidates placed in the uncomfortable position of either denying the tenets of their faith or sacrificing their rights to stand for election, the same oath must be signed by voters. As a result, Ahmadis are denied the right to partake in the political process.

The Ahmadiyya were officially declared to be non-Muslims on September 21, 1974. This declaration was made by the National Assembly, and became the second amendment to the constitution. The government then was under the leadership of Fazal Elahi Chaudry, of the PPP party.

The official demonization of the Ahmadis obviously contradicts Jinnah’s original vision of Pakistan as a nation where people of all faiths should be equal. The machinations of anti-democratic fanatics and dictators have betrayed not only Jinnah, but the first government after independence. The first foreign minister of Pakistan was Sir Zafrullah Khan (1893 - 1985), who was an Ahmadi. A figure of international politics, and champion of the Third World, Zafrullah Khan’s religion seems to be the reason why he is not remembered in Pakistan.

Political discrimination continues. The leaders of Pakistan’s Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party (JUI) follow strict Deobandi beliefs. Sami ul-Haq, who leads the “S” wing of the party, heads the Haqqania madrassa which educated most of Afghanistan’s Taliban, including Mullah Omar (even though the latter did not finish his course). The “F” wing of JUI is led by Fazlur Rehman. Both have argued for Sharia law to replace Pakistan’s democracy. On September 29, 2009, Senator Dr. Khalid Mehmood Soomro of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) publicly condemned the exiled leader of the MQM party for supporting the Ahmadi. Soomro also condemned the governor of Punjab for supporting the Ahmadis, and vowed that JUI activists would ensure people knew about khatm-e-nabbuwat.

In December 2004, the Pakistani authorities removed the necessity of a column in a person’s passport that declared one’s religion. Briefly, it seemed that Ahmadis would be able to join the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. However, in March 2005 government ministers restored the religious identification section on all Pakistani passports. They had apparently been pressured by fundamentalist groups.

Scattered as they are across Pakistan, the cohesion of Ahmadis as a group is maintained through publications. Now, the Internet is used to keep Ahmadis aware of what is happening to their communities both nationally and globally. On September 9, 2006, the offices of an Ahmadi newspaper in Rabwah, Punjab, were raided by police. The Blasphemy laws (298-B and 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code), introduced in 1980 by dictator Zia ul-Haq to deny Ahmadis the right to present themselves as “Muslims,” were invoked to justify the raid. Additionally, the newspaper was said to have published “hate literature.” Arrests were made, some staff escaped. The Daily Alfazl newspaper, which was founded in 1911, was forced to stop printing. It continues, and has an online edition.

The Ahmadis face discrimination even after death. When an Ahmadi is buried in a Muslim graveyard, there are often protests, leading to exhumations and reburials, as happened to a 60-year old-woman in June 2007 and a 17-year-old Ahmadi girl in March 2006. This girl, Nadia Hanif, was reburied because local clerics, supported by extremists, campaigned against her body lying amongst “true” Muslims. A family spokesman said: “How can peace and harmony be built in society?” Between 1988 and 2006, there were a total of 28 Ahmadi exhumations from Muslim cemeteries. Attempts by Ahmadis to expand or alter their own cemeteries are limited by the actions of fanatical Muslims.

In April 2007, when Ahmadis wished to place a fence around a graveyard at Wagah Town near Lahore, a radical cleric declared this unacceptable. The cleric, Dr. Sarfaraz Ahmed Naeemi, promised retaliations if the government allowed it. He said that as the cemetery was near the Indian border, having it enclosed appeared to suggest they wanted a headquarters. Naeemi added: “The government should remember that according to our belief, apostates should be killed within three days. It is only the difference of opinion on this decree within Muslims that has stopped us from doing so.”

Ahmadis — like Christians — are killed for the sake of their faith. Between 1984 and 2004, at least 79 Ahmadis were killed. On March 1, 2007 a senior police officer shot dead Muhammad Ashraf, an Ahmadi man who was eating his breakfast in a hotel in a village near Lahore, Punjab province. Before shooting him, the policeman shouted: “You are an infidel, and are preaching an infidel creed in the area.”

Early on Friday October 7th, two gunmen burst into an Ahmadi mosque in Mong, Mandi Bahuddin town, 60 miles south of Islamabad, the capital. The assailants fired Kalashnikovs at Ahmadis who were offering morning prayers. Eight people were killed and 14 more were injured. The gunmen fled on a motorcycle of a third man, who waited outside. A witness said: “The floor of the one-room place of worship was littered with blood.”

On Monday January 19, 2009 a 55-year-old Ahmadi shopkeeper was shot dead in Kotri district, Sindh province. Saeed Ahmed had been returning home from work when he was shot in front of his house. The only reason for his killing, claimed an Ahmadi spokesman, was his faith. The spokesman blamed a media fatwa for allowing such killings to happen (see below).

Killings are horrific but when children are criminalized under the law on account of their faith, there can be no moral justification. In February 2007, it was revealed that police in Khushab district in Punjab province had registered a case against five young Ahmadis. Their “crime” had been to subscribe to an Ahmadi children’s magazine called Tasheezul Azhan. The police officer who made the case claimed the magazine was “banned” and contained “hate material,” even though it had been printed since 1906. Two of the accused were preteens. One was an 11-year-old girl, Nusrat Jahan, and one was an 8-year-old boy called Umair Ahmed.

In Layyah district in Punjab province, another incident involved children being criminalized. Four Ahmadi boys from the district were arrested on January 28th this year. The boys, named Muhammad Irfan, Tahir Imran, Tahir Mahmood and Naseeb Ahmad, were said in the FIR (First Information Report) to have written “blasphemous material” in the latrines of the Gulzar-e-Madina mosque in Kot Sultan. They were all charged under Section 295-C of the Blasphemy Laws. This statute, which outlaws the use of “derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet”, is the most serious, as it can lead to the death penalty.

Following a well-established pattern, the accusations of blasphemy were followed by mob violence. On January 29, 2009, a day after the arrests, a mob tried to burn Ahmadi houses in Layyah district. The protagonists of the violence were said to be banned Islamist extremist groups.

The case is serious. It is the first time since 1986, when Section 295-C of the PPC was introduced, that it has been used against children. The “banned groups” who led the agitation against the Layyah Ahmadiyya community, were the Sipah-i-Sahaba. Apparently a retired schoolteacher called Noor Elahi Kulachi, who is a member of the Sipah-i-Sahaba, led the campaign to have the children arrested. Kulachi approached a relative of a member of the National Assembly, who then convened a meeting. This had the boys branded as “guilty.”

On Friday January 30 a 45-year old man called Mubaser Ahmed was also arrested. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) released a statement. This asserted that the boys had not been part of the mosque where the graffiti was found, nor were they from the area.

The AHRC statement also read: “After contacting Dr Muhammad Azam, the district police officer (DPO) of Layyah, family members were told that the police were under pressure from fundamentalists to act against the children. If he did not arrest them, Azam said, the group had threatened to close down the whole city and attack the houses of Ahmedi sect members. Worried about civilian deaths, the officer arrested the children.”

On February 7, 2009, it was revealed that the four accused children had been sent to Dera Ghazi Khan Central Jail. A local community leader sent them books in jail, so they could review for their examinations. Members of the banned Islamist groups that were said to be responsible for attacking Ahmadiyya homes in Layyah were not charged or arrested.

I contacted a British Ahmadiyya mosque and was told that the four Ahmadi boys have since been bailed. Even though they are no longer in prison, they are still awaiting their trial for blasphemy.

In a country that receives so much money from Western nations, particularly from the United States, it is shocking that some officials and politicians flout the rule of law and show no respect for the human rights of others. On September 7, 2008, a former government minister repeatedly declared that as Ahmadis did not believe Mohammed to be the last prophet, it was necessary under Islamic teachings to kill them. He also persuaded his two guests to agree with the statement. Within 48 hours, two Ahmadis had been murdered.

Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain had formerly been the religious affairs minister for Pakistan, and used to be with the MQM party. On July 4, 2007, he was forced to resign from his post as religious affairs minister, on the orders of the MQM party. The party was unhappy with Liaquat Hussain’s comments that Salman Rushdie should be killed for blasphemy.

Liaquat Hussein made his comments on the popular religious show that he had fronted as anchorman, called “Aalim Online,” This show is on Geo TV. Shortly after his calls for Ahmadis to be killed, the MQM party also dropped Liaquat Hussein from their main committee.

Eighteen hours after Liaquat Hussein called for Ahmadis to be killed as a “religious duty” (Wajib ul Qatal), six people walked into a clinic in Mirpur Khas, Sindh province. Here, Dr. Abdul Manan Siddiqui had a medical practice. They called for the doctor, an Ahmadi, to come to assist a patient. When the doctor came down to see them, he was shot eleven times and died. A woman and a guard were injured by gunfire. On September 9, 2008, a 75-year-old man was killed in Nawab Shah, Sindh province. Mr. Yousaf was a rice trader and head of his local Ahmadi group. He was shot at by men on motorbikes, hit three times, and died in an ambulance before it reached hospital.

On May 29, 2009 the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat issued a press release. This stated that a 54-year-old Ahmadi man from Faisalabad in Pakistan had been killed in what appeared to be a targeted assassination. Mian Liaq Ahmad was driving home when he found a car blocking access to the road where he lived. Men jumped from a car and shot Mr Ahmad in the head. The press release stated: “He becomes the 5th Ahmadi to be martyred in 2009 and the 101st to be killed in Pakistan since anti-Ahmadiyya laws were introduced by the Government of General Zia-ul-Haq in 1984.”

Christians

In Part One I mentioned the case of Fanish “Robert” Masih, who was apparently murdered in his jail cell. His extra-judicial killing is not without precedent. On May 28, 2004 a Christian called Samuel Masih died from injuries. Samuel had been a suspect in a blasphemy case, and while incarcerated, he had developed tuberculosis. On May 22, 2004, he had been escorted to hospital by police guards. One of these police officers, Faryad Ali, hit Samuel on the head with a brick-cutter. Apparently, the police constable claimed that he wanted to gain a place in heaven by killing Samuel.

Christians are most frequently murdered in connection with blasphemy cases, but occasionally acts of naked sectarian violence are used against them. On Christmas Day 2002, three girls were killed in a grenade attack at a church. The incident happened in Chianwala, north of Lahore in Punjab province. The assailants who threw the grenade wore burkas. Two girls died instantly, and another died later. The victims were aged 6, 10 and 15.

The grenade attack happened after a local Muslim cleric told his congregation: “It is the duty of every good Muslim to kill Christians. You should attack Christians and not even have food until you have seen their dead bodies.” The cleric, Nazir Yaqub, was a supporter of banned group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is linked with al Qaeda.

On September 25, 2002, seven Christians were killed in Karachi, Sindh province. On March 17, 2002 another church was attacked with grenades in Islamabad. Five people were killed and 45 were injured.

On Monday August 5, 2002, six people were killed at the Murree Christian School near Islamabad. On August 9, 2002 grenades were thrown into a Christian hospital in Taxila, 25 miles from Islamabad. Three nurses died.

The worst sectarian attack against Christians happened on October 28, 2001 when 18 people died after gunmen attacked a church service in St. Dominic’s church in Bahawalpur in Punjab province. In July 2002, four people were arrested in connection with the incident. Two of these belonged to the banned group Lashkar-i-Jhvangi.

Challenging the Blasphemy Laws

In May 2007 Christians in Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province, close to the Afghan border, were threatened by Islamists. A letter telling them to convert or die was circulated in the town. The threats came after a legal attempt to change the blasphemy laws had failed.

Attempting to challenge the blasphemy laws has always invoked the ire of Islamic fanatics. These are highly organized. Lashkar-Jhvangi comprises former fighters who were in Afghanistan, fighting the Soviets. Other groups, such as Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat, have been instrumental in oppressing the “heretical” Ahmadiyya, and also challenging any proposed changes to the blasphemy legislation. The Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat reappeared in the news in May last year demanding that Pakistan cut ties with the Netherlands and Denmark.

The aggression of this group was expressed by its leader, Hanif Tayyab, who said: “We put the government on one-month notice to expel these envoys and recall our ambassadors from the two countries, otherwise we will ask our followers to march on Islamabad.”

Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba appear to have been instrumental in many notorious instances of communal violence against Pakistani Christian communities (as well as their documented attacks upon Ahmadi and Shia Muslim communities). Often they invoke “blasphemy” accusations against individuals to better mobilize groups to violence against whole communities. This appeared to have happened at Sangla Hill in Punjab province in 2005, and also at Gojra in August this year.

The first major case of such communal violence happened against the Christian village of Shanti Nagar near Karachi, Sindh province. On February 6, 1997, thousands of Islamic protesters descended on the village with placards stating: “Kill the Christians because they are Blasphemers towards the Holy Quran and Holy Prophet.” In the village of Shanti Nagar 785 houses were destroyed, four churches were burned, and 2,500 people forced to flee. Two days before, Muslims had run riot in the town of Khanegal. In all, 13 churches were destroyed and 2,000 Bibles were destroyed. The mob violence, in which incendiary devices were used, had stemmed from the discovery of a ripped Koran, which had Christians’ names written on the pages.

The problems with attempting to challenge the blasphemy laws are plain: Anyone who attempts to alter the laws is seen as an “enemy of Islam,” and the Islamist groups can mobilize support with little resistance from the authorities.

Lawyers who have acted to defend those accused of blasphemy have been threatened. Aslam Pervaiz is one individual who had received death threats and had been assaulted for defending those accused of blasphemy. Sheikh Anis A Saadi is the Chairman of a free advocacy service and said in November 2008 that he has been subject to social stigma from defending alleged “blasphemers.” His office had been set on fire, he had been assaulted, and his family had received written threats from a “jihadi” group.

The Asian Human Rights Commission reports that a lawyer has been mentioned in a printed Urdu advertisement, placed in several newspapers. The lawyer in question is called Rao Zafar Iqbal, and he is head of the National Council for Human Rights. He received threatening letters in July 2009. These demanded that he stop defending religious minorities. They came from Jan Nisaran-e-Nabuwat and Aqeeda-e-Tahafuz-e-Kathme Nabuwat. When he went to Faisalabad police to request protection, they refused. He was then shot at.

On August 4, 2009, an advertisement appeared in the Daily Pavel newspaper. It is reproduced above. This advertisement declared that Rao Zafar Iqbal is deserving of death, because he defended a man called Mohammed Ayube who claims to be Prophet Mohammed. Even though Ayube appears to be mentally ill, fatwas appeared against him in the Daily Pavel and Daily Express newspapers. The advertisement mentioning Rao Zafar Iqbal stated that murdering the lawyer would be doing a service to Islam.

The police appear to have taken no action against the newspapers, and in so many cases of alleged “blasphemy,” as well as when sectarian riots occur, the police are said to have stood back and done nothing.

When lawyers have been successful, and their clients are freed, the acquitted individuals have to flee for their lives. Several have been killed after gaining freedom. For example, Manzur Masih, Rahmat Masih and Salamat Masih had been arrested in May 1993, accused of blasphemy, under Section 295-C of the PPC.

The Christians were said to have passed pieces of paper into a mosque in Punjab province. The slips of paper allegedly bore insulting comments about Mohammed. The three had been accused by a cleric, Maulvi Fazl-e-Haq, who was a leader of the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba, which at that time was not banned. Fazl-e-Haq claimed the three had also scribbled graffiti on the mosque wall.

At Lahore High Court, the three were acquitted, and set free, accompanied by another young man who had been falsely accused. Standing on the steps of the courthouse, the four were shot at by gunmen. Manzur Masih was killed. The judge who had acquitted him would also later be killed by extremists for freeing the Christians.

Bishop John Joseph, the first ethnic Pakistani to become Bishop of Faisalabad, attended the funeral of Manzur Masih, and even kissed the feet of the dead man. He vowed that he would be the next person to die under the blasphemy laws. Later, in his frustration, Bishop Joseph would give his own life. But even his own sacrifice brought no change to the laws.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. He is currently compiling a book on the demise of democracy and the growth of extremism in Britain.

URL: www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4464/pub_detail.asp

Pakistan: Abuse of Christians and Other Religious Minorities (Part One)

October 6, 2009

Exclusive: Pakistan: Abuse of Christians and Other Religious Minorities (Part One)

Adrian Morgan

This year, Christians in Pakistan have suffered their worst persecutions for a decade. As a percentage of the population in the predominantly Muslim country, Christians number less than five percent. This year, seven Christians were burned alive in mob violence at Gojra in Punjab province. Four of these were women and one was a four-year-old child. In other parts, homes and churches have been destroyed and hundreds of Christians have been forced to flee their homes.

Pakistan’s discriminatory blasphemy laws have continued to be used to oppress minorities. As soon as a police complaint (FIR or First Information Report) is made about blasphemy the accused is compulsorily remanded in custody until trial. One Christian individual who was detained in this manner died violently on September 15th, even though the police who incarcerated him attempted to pass off his death as a suicide. In almost all the cases of legislative oppression and mob violence against Christians, blasphemy has been invoked as justification.

Recently Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari was on an international diplomatic tour, in which he visited Rome for three days. On Wednesday September 30th, he met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and signed an agreement on intelligence-sharing and military cooperation. The persecution of Christians in Pakistan was briefly mentioned.

Zardari said: “We are confronting the problem of religious minorities in Pakistan. We support all religious minorities in our country. They have the same rights, whether it is their religious practices or political rights.” Berlusconi confirmed this, noting that he “found president Zardari to be very attentive.”

The following day (October 1st) Zardari visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo. The Vatican Press Office stated: “The cordial discussions provided an opportunity to examine the current situation in Pakistan, with particular reference to the fight against terrorism and the commitment to create a society more tolerant and harmonious in all its aspects.”

The Blasphemy Laws

The blasphemy laws as they are now employed derive from amendments made in the 1980s to Pakistan’s Penal Code (PPC). This legislation derives from 1860, as a set of statutes introduced by the British Raj for the governance of West Pakistan, then a predominantly Urdu-speaking region of India. The controversial amendments were introduced by the Islamist military dictator General Zia ul-Haq. This individual deposed Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and imposed martial law.

In 1980, ul-Haq introduced a Majlis-e-Shura (a council) of unelected advisers — many from the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party — to replace parliament. Later, he enacted sham elections. Zia ul-Haq retained connections with religious extremists, such as Maulana Muhammad Abdullah Shaheed who was imam at the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad. Ul-Haq gave himself the role of President, with power above prime minister, and ruled Pakistan until his death in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. The main blasphemy amendments were introduced while Pakistan was under a military dictatorship, and not under a civil democracy.

Part XV of the PPC lists offenses involving religion. Originally, there were only four laws of this nature, numbered from 295 to 298, but these have been expanded to number 10. The laws generally invoked to oppress Christians (and also Hindus and the Ahmadiyya, an Islamic sect deemed by some to be heretical) are all the results of amendments. These are Sections 295-B, 295-C and less frequently Section 298-A.

Section 295-B which outlaws “Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur’an” originally arose as an amendment introduced in 1927 and revised in 1982. This states: “Whoever willfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur’an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.”

Section 295-C prohibits “Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet” and was introduced with the approval of General Zia ul-Haq and the Islamist Jammat-e-Islami party in 1982 and revised in 1986. This statute reads: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

The death penalty option to Section 295-C was added in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, III of 1986, S. 2

Section 298-A deals with “Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages”. This amendment was introduced in 1980, and states: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of any wife (Ummul Mumineen), or members of the family (Ahle-bait), of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), or any of the righteous Caliphs (Khulafa-e-Rashideen) or companions (Sahaaba) of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”

Other sections of the PPC - 298-B and 298-C specifically target the Ahmadiyya. The first of these, introduced in 1980 prevents the Ahmadiyya from using devotional names to anyone other than Prophet Mohammed and his companions, and from calling any place of worship associated with anyone other than Mohammed as a “masjid” (mosque).

Section 298-C was also introduced in 1980, with a further amendment made in 1984. This forbids any Ahmadiyya from calling him or herself a “Muslim” and forbids any proselytizing of their religion. Sections 298-B and C both carry penalties of up to three years’ imprisonment and/or a fine.

Events Leading Up to the Gojra Violence

The violence in Gojra, in which Christians were burned to death, stemmed from a dispute that involved accusations of blasphemy. On Tuesday June 30th, a month before the atrocities, more than 110 Christian families were forced to flee their homes in the village of Bahminwala (Bahmina Wala) in Kasur district in Punjab province. The Christians were forced to hide in the fields around the village. They were driven out because Muslim mobs, encouraged by the local mosque, accused them all of blasphemy after one of their number had been listed in an FIR report.

The rampaging began after an incident that had occurred on the previous day. An argument broke out between a Christian farm laborer, 38-year old Sardar Masih (Arif Mashi), who was driving a tractor, and a Muslim riding a bicycle who came by and demanded that he should be allowed to pass. When this did not happen, the Muslim (Muhammad Riaz) apparently accused the Christian of being lower caste and a fight broke out.

According to Pakistan Christian Post, a mosque imam called Qari Lateef (Qari Latif) was consulted, and charges were filed against Sardar Masih at the local police station. These charges did not — it seems — include blasphemy, but the imam used his mosque loudspeaker system to make such accusations. In the ensuing unrest, electricity meters on Christian houses were smashed, Christian villagers were beaten, and houses were looted and burned.

The Daily Times newspaper sent journalists to the region. They met Shaan Ali and his brother Imran, who had both led the mob that attacked the Christians. Shaan Ali claimed, “The Christians had committed blasphemy.” He could not specify who had committed this blasphemy. Ahmed Ali Dhillon of the provincial assembly confirmed that Qari Latif, imam at the village mosque, had instigated the violence against the Christians.

A few days later after the violence, while Christians made public protest at their treatment, Pakistan’s minority minister Shahbaz Bhatti visited the village. Bhatti promised compensation to victims of the violence. Chief Justice Khawaja Mohammed Sharif at the Lahore High Court demanded that the local police chief for Kasur district appear to give their account of the events.

The events at Gojra followed — like so many similar cases of mob violence — the same trajectory as at Kasur, but the outcome was more horrific. Gojra is situated 99 miles west of Lahore in Punjab province. The spark that triggered the rampage began with an accusation that blasphemy had occurred. It was alleged that three Christians, Mukhtar Masih, Talib Masih and Talib’s son Imran, had desecrated pages of the Koran at a wedding ceremony in Korrian, outside Gojra town.

A case was registered against the three men under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, but they were not immediately arrested. It is traditional for money to be presented at a wedding, and for those who are poor, “pretend money” is displayed. The Christians had allegedly cut up pieces of paper to look like money. There was no evidence from any sources that a Koran had actually been desecrated.

On Thursday July 30th, fearing reprisals for the alleged desecration, residents had fled from Korrian, leaving many houses empty. A mob gathered, and set fire to about 50 houses, also burning cattle. A kangaroo court was held in which Talib Masih was asked to apologize for desecrating Islam’s holy book. He denied having desecrated pages from the Koran and refused to apologize. Two churches were also set ablaze. The mob blocked the main road to the village, to prevent fire engines from putting out the fires.

Imran Masih was officially charged under Section 295-B of the Penal Code. Pages of the Koran were allegedly found among garbage outside the scene of the wedding on July 26th.

A second incident followed, on Saturday August 1st, which filled international newswires for the scale of its ferocity. The police did nothing as a mob of fanatical Muslims entered the town of Gojra and started to shoot. They threw Molotov cocktails at houses, burning down forty domiciles. The assailants were said to be from Lashkar-e-Jhvangi or its associated group Sipah-e-Saba. These groups have been involved in previous instances of sectarian violence against any minority that is not Sunni Muslim, including attacks upon Shia civilians.

Six of the individuals who died came from one family, that of Almass Hameed. A week after the event, Almass Hameed spoke from his hospital bed: “I think there were thousands. My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house.”

Mr. Hameed described how he and nine members of his extended family hid in an upstairs bedroom, and heard members of the mob breaking in, smashing items and dividing valuables between them. Some intruders beat on the bedroom door where Almass and others were hiding. The intruders threatened to burn them alive, and soon he could smell smoke as flames spread. He recalled: “We just couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them.”

Those who remained in the bedroom were Almass’ four-year old son Mousa, his 11-year-old daughter, his wife, her sister and her mother. Unable to escape, they were burned to death.

A Muslim youth blamed the event upon the Christians. He said: “We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots. Of course it is bad that Christians died. But they provoked the Muslims here. I don’t understand why everyone is on their side.”

In the aftermath of the atrocity at Gojra, missionary schools were closed on Monday August 3rd.

A total of 800 individuals were charged with murder, including the local chief of police and the District Coordination Officer. Only 17 of these were actually named and placed in custody, with the remainder listed as “unknown” individuals. The charges had been brought by a local bishop. Shahbaz Sharif announced that 500,000 Rupees ($6,002) would be awarded for each family member that had died in the August 1st rioting.

The events in Gojra were to precipitate further attacks in a wave of “blasphemy hysteria”. At Mudrike in Lahore, immediately after the Gojra arson deaths, a Muslim factory owner was falsely accused of blasphemy. The incident took place on Tuesday August 4th. It involved Mian Najib, the owner of East Leather, a leather-processing factory at Khatiala Virkan near Muridke. Najib removed an out-of-date Islamic calendar from the wall of the factory and, it is alleged, burned it. Calendars of this nature often have verses or quotations from the Koran upon them, and as such, any destruction of these quotations is seen as destruction of the Koran.

A worker at the factory called Moulvi Shabber claimed to have seen this act, and incited revenge for this act. A crowd of hundreds attacked the East Leather factory. In the ensuing violence, a security guard was killed, along with a security guard. Several others were injured.

On Wednesday, August 5th at Sanghur in Sindh province, a 60-year-old Muslim woman was accused of blasphemy, and her home became surrounded by a mob, led by a local shopkeeper who accused her of blasphemy. The shop owner had said that Akhtari Begum had thrown around some pages of the Koran inside his store. She, for her part, claimed that she had thrown the book in which her credit entries had been kept by the shopkeeper, onto the ground. Police took the woman into custody, apparently sparing her life.

Other Incidents

The fact that Muslims too can become innocent victims of mob violence may perhaps be the key to having the Blasphemy Laws revoked. Traditionally, extremist Islamic groups, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which had a part in writing the laws, have campaigned successfully for blasphemy laws to remain. In March 2008, for example, the Jamaat-e-Islami party (which seeks Sharia law and wants apostates from Islam to be executed under law) condemned political parties for ignoring its rallies in favor of enforcing the Blasphemy statutes.

The mention of agitation by the groups Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba in some of the recent attacks against the Christian minority suggests that the extremes of violence have been deliberately manipulated.

While the victims of the Gojra violence were buried, police took action against suspects and arrested 65 people, including Qari Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a leading figure in Sipah-i-Sahaba. The residence of Abid Farooqi, another member of the banned terror group, was raided, but Farooqi had fled. His father and two brothers were apprehended and taken into custody.

On November 12, 2005, a similar incident had taken place in Sangla Hill in Punjab province, where a false allegation of blasphemy had been made. Yousaf Masseh was accused of desecrating pages from the Koran, though it was claimed that he had been accused by two men who owed him money from gambling debts, and did not wish to pay. Masseh had been imprisoned, while a mob of about 1,500 Muslims, encouraged by loudspeaker announcements from a mosque, descended upon the Christian homes in Sangla HIll. Three churches, including a Catholic and a Protestant house of worship, a school, a youth hostel, a nunnery and two homes belonging to Protestant priests were destroyed.

Shortly after the orgy of destruction, Christian community leaders in Sangla Hill had been threatened over the phone by a man who identified himself as a member of Lashkar-i-Jhvangi. He warned them to accept his “deal” within two days or to “get ready to die.”

Lashkar-i-Jhvangi was the group believed responsible for the kidnap and decapitation of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. An offshoot of Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhvangi came into existence in 1996. It was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization on January 30, 2003. Both Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba had been banned by President Musharraf in Pakistan on August 14, 2001. Sipah-i-Sahaba had been formed in Punjab province in the 1980s. Both groups have a Deobandi philosophy (the ideology which governs the actions of the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan) aimed for a Sunni state in Pakistan under sharia law.

In April 2009, Christians came under threat from Taliban-supporting militants in a community near Sarjani Town in a suburb of Karachi, in Sindh province. Buildings, including two houses and about six shops, were set on fire. Roadside traders’ stalls and carts were destroyed by fire. Gunfire broke out between groups and four people were injured. The violence broke out after graffiti on the walls of a church had been found on Wednesday April 22nd. The graffiti comprised of pro-Taliban slogans.

Christians responded by burning tires and throwing stones at passing vehicles. The two groups — Pakhtoons (Pashtun migrants from the Afghan borderlands) and Christians — faced each other down, and then gunfire broke out. Four people were injured, including an 11-year-old boy. One of the individuals who had been shot, a man called Irfan Masih, died later in hospital.

The graffiti which was chalked onto the wall of the Roman Catholic church in Sarjani town included: Taliban are coming,” “Long live Taliban” and “Be prepared to pay Jizya or embrace Islam.”

Jizya is a tax, listed in the Koran and the Hadiths, which non-Muslims were traditionally obliged to pay to Muslim overlords when a community was fully controlled by Islam and governed by the precepts of Sharia. In the Koran, Sura 9, verse 29, it is written (Yusufali’s translation): “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

During the incident in the Christian settlement (called Khuda ki Basti) near Sarjani Town, police were present but had done nothing to stop the incident. When the shooting began, only Christians were injured.

On August 28th in the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, southwestern Pakistan, six Christians were shot dead and seven more were injured. For months before the atrocity, Christians in the region had been receiving letters from Islamic fundamentalists which ordered them to convert to Islam or to die.

The most recent incident of prejudice against the Christian community involved the Blasphemy Laws. A 25-year-old Christian man from Sialkot in northeastern Punjab province, close to the Indian border, was arrested on Friday September 11th, accused of desecrating the Koran. A mob of about 100 people, most of them young men, made the accusations against Fanish Masih, who sometimes went under the name of Robert. The mob went on the rampage through Sambrial district and attacked a Roman Catholic church, setting it alight.

The alleged incident that provoked the violence was a claim that a Christian had snatched a Koran from a 10-year-old girl and had then desecrated it. No authentication of the incident has appeared from other sources, and it seems that — like almost all alleged cases of Koran desecration — it could be a baseless myth.

On Tuesday September 15th, police announced that Fanish Masih had committed suicide in his cell. The young man had been kept in a separate cell, and police maintained that he had tried to commit suicide by hanging himself with a narrow cord. This version was immediately contested. Asma Jahangir, the head of HRCP, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, claimed that “This is death in custody and the police authorities are responsible.”

Kamran Michael, the Punjabi provincial Minister for Minority Affairs said: “I have seen the body and there were torture marks on it.” It is obvious that there is a deep gash on Robert’s forehead, which appears to have been caused by impact from a sharp-edged object. The body was taken away by local Christians who demanded a private autopsy.

At the funeral of Fanish Masih on Wednesday September 16th, there was discontent. The body could not be buried in Fanish’s native village of Jaithikey-Sambrial for fear of inflaming tensions again. Instead, a memorial service was held in the grounds of a Christian school in the industrial city of Sialkot. There was ill feeling on the night before the funeral, and some Christians blocked roads, threw stones at vehicles and trashed 13 shops. On the day that Fanish was interred, there were clashes with police, and nine Christians were arrested.

The day of the funeral, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Minorities demanded an official inquiry into the circumstances of Robert Fanish Masih’s death in police custody.

While Pakistani newspaper editorials carried sincere expressions of regret about the treatment of Christian and other minorities in Pakistan, a bizarre turn of events took place in Toba Tek Singh, the district that included Gojra. On September 26th, it was announced that an individual called Ghulam Murtaza had filed a case against 129 Christians from Gojra.

Murtaza claimed that he had been among 12 Muslims who had been injured on August 1st, the day that seven Christians had been injured in Gojra. In this counterclaim, it was stated that one of the Muslims who was injured on the day of the rioting, Muhammad Asif, later died from injuries. The legal charges invoked the Anti-Terror Act as well as Sections from the Penal Code, including Section 295-C (insulting Prophet Mohammed), 280 (theft from a house), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house etc.), 324 (Qatl-i-amd or attempting to cause death of another), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (being part of an unlawful assembly and guilty of committing a crime) and Section 342 (wrongful confinement).

The individuals listed in Murtaza’s charge sheet included John Samuel, the Bishop of Gojra, and also Samuel’s two sons, and a local administrator.

Six days before Ghulam Murtaza brought his extraordinary set of charges against members of Gojra’s Christian community, 18 people who were held in custody for the violence of August 1st were released. A joint committee of Muslims and Christians, set up to enact reconciliation, had decided to declare the 18 individuals innocent. A similar committee had brought the same results — and consequence lack of punishment for offenders — in the aftermath of the Sangla Hill riots of 2005.

The Death of a Dream

When Pakistan broke free from British rule, it was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It is hard to imagine that originally, the state of Pakistan was officially secular. Nowadays, Section 2 of the constitution maintains that “Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan.” Jinnah was only in power for 13 months before he died. With him died the dream of a secular nation.

The current Constitution maintains in Section 20 A that, “subject to law, public order and morality, every citizen shall have the right to profess and propagate his religion”. Section 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code deliberately suppresses this basic right in relation to the Ahmadiyya. These believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded their faith on March 23, 1889, is a prophet. In every other way they follow the tenets of the Koran, though they are banned by Saudi Arabia from performing one of the five pillars of Islam, making the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.

One of the few heartening things to have emerged as a consequence of the recent attacks against Christians is a willingness on the part of respected Muslim commentators within Pakistan to voice their shock and shame at the events that have been allowed to take place on account of the Blasphemy Laws. For the first time in three decades, there appears to be a determination on the part of Pakistan’s elite to discuss the removal of the contentious and divisive laws.

Several writers have gone back to the historic speech made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah on August 11, 1947, the day of Pakistan’s Independence. As president of the new republic, Jinnah addressed the Constituent Assembly.

He included the following words: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State.”

He added: “Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”

The evidence is now incontrovertible: Pakistan is now a nation where Hindus, Christians and the “heretical” Ahmadiyya are minorities who have none of the freedoms that were described by Jinnah in his first speech as elected president. Jinnah was speaking of the need to frame a Constitution and what it should encompass. He railed against the corruption that had been endemic at the time of Independence. Acknowledging that Pakistan would have non-Muslims in its population, he urged that the state should work for the well being of everyone. He said: “If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his color, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.”

Pakistan has long abandoned the principles that brought it into being. The rule of Zia ul-Haq was the third military dictatorship since independence. Since 1947, only one government, the one that preceded this current one, has completed a full term of office, and that was blighted by emergency powers introduced by Musharraf at the end. The Blasphemy Laws, approved by Zia ul-Haq with the support of Islamic fundamentalists, have been a source of strife, a means by which personal scores can be settled, a pretext for communal violence. At a speech delivered after the funeral of Fanish Masih, Father Emanuel Yousaf Mani called on the current government to review the Blasphemy statutes. He told a press conference that since their introduction, 947 people, all of them non-Muslims, had been killed.

In Part Two, I will describe how previous attempts to amend the Blasphemy Laws have foundered in the face of fundamentalist opposition, and show how they have been used to settle scores and to turn minority groups into convenient scapegoats.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. He is currently compiling a book on the demise of democracy and the growth of extremism in Britain.

URL: www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4447/pub_detail.asp

PAKISTAN: Repeal of Blasphemy Laws Still a Pipe Dream

---IPS-Inter Press Service, Italy

PAKISTAN: Repeal of Blasphemy Laws Still a Pipe Dream

By Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Oct 6 (IPS) — It is a never-ending saga.

Every time someone charged with violation of the controversial blasphemy laws is murdered or suffers mistreatment in the hands of an angry mob or individual, calls for their repeal intensify.

Yet concerned sectors are still waiting anxiously for concrete action by the state to stem the tide of religious violence against minority groups who bear the brunt of these laws.

The death of a 20-year-old Christian while in the custody of the police has intensified the campaign against the laws. But clerics are not backing down, insisting the laws should stay.

In 2000, then President Pervez Musharraf promised to repeal the laws. “He retracted when the ‘mullahs’ (religious teachers) threatened protests,” recalled Zohra Yusuf, vice chairperson of the Sindh chapter of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

Robert Fanish Masih was arrested around mid-September on blasphemy charges after Muslims went on a rampage in his village, Jaithikey, near Sialkot, close to the Indian border. He was found dead in his cell four days later. Asma Jahangir, the head of the HRCP, called it “death in custody” and held the police authorities responsible for it.

His family and community members were forced to flee the area, where they were also prevented from burying him.

Rights activist Tahira Abdullah said mobs using the law to inflict harm on others are acting “like private vigilante groups,” she said.

No less than governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer has called for a repeal of the blasphemy laws. But his bold call on Sep. 16 for the controversial laws’ repeal was met with a warning from the president of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who said that his party would resist any attempt to annul the blasphemy laws.

Continued state inaction on the much-maligned blasphemy laws has only reinforced perceptions that “the present government has no intention of repealing the laws,” said Yusuf.

I.A. Rehman, noted rights activist and secretary general of the HRCP, told IPS “(neither) the present government (nor any) government in Pakistan is likely to have the courage to repeal the blasphemy laws”. He added that “the state has committed the folly of making obscurantist fanatics stronger than itself.” Calling for a repeal of the law “is the only rational way out” although “this demand is unlikely to be met.”

The Pakistan Minorities’ Democratic Movement, which has 51,500 members and affiliates in 47 districts, has started a signature campaign for the repeal of the blasphemy laws. “Since July 16, 2009, we have collected over 200,000 signatures,” said party chairman Atif Jamil Paggan.

“What we hope to gain from our pressure is a policy of making the laws dormant. If these are not invoked, for some years or do not yield the results the fanatics expect, repeal will become possible,” said Rehman.

Declaring Masih’s alleged suicide a “judicial murder,” the HRCP, in a press statement issued shortly after his death, expressed concern “over the increased attacks on religious minorities” demanding the “government take proactive measures to prevent such violence.”

The blasphemy laws were enacted by military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1986 in a bid to Islamise the country, where only four percent of the country’s 170 million population consists of religious minorities, including Christians.

While none has been executed since the laws were passed, lynch mobs have killed several of the accused, citing the laws to justify their actions.

According to the National Commission of Justice and Peace (NCJP), which provides legal aid to the victims of these laws irrespective of religion, at least 966 people have been charged under the blasphemy laws between 1986 and September 2009. These include 481 Muslims, 120 Christians, 340 Ahmadis, 14 Hindus and 10 people of unidentified religion. About 32 people have been killed extrajudicially by an angry mob or individuals, states NCJP.

On Sept. 15, jail officials of Sialkot district jail claimed that Masih had committed suicide by hanging himself. Rights group refused to believe this statement, alleging he was “tortured to death” by jail officials.

Sialkot is about 125 kilometres from Lahore, capital city of the Punjab province and is famous internationally as manufacturing hub for sports equipment and surgical instruments.

Following the public outcry triggered by Masih’s death, the government suspended the jail superintendent. But such an action has done nothing to appease the concerned sectors.

A U.S.-based non-profit group, Advocates International (AI), has urged Pakistan to “end unlawful impunity, police brutality and religious persecution caused on its blasphemy laws.”

The AI said photographs of Masih taken at the morgue show clear signs of torture, and not strangulation as the police are claiming was self-inflicted.”

“We are investigating the cause of (his) death as there are signs of torture on his body,” said Shahbaz Bhatti, minister for minority affairs, speaking to IPS by phone from Islamabad. He described the death as “very barbaric, tragic and highly condemnable,” intimating that he, too, believed that Masih was murdered.

Masih’s alleged murder came in the wake of two violent attacks against Christian communities in Korian village and Gojra in Punjab on July 31 and Aug. 1, respectively. The incidents left nine people dead and led to the burning and looting of hundreds of Christian homes by an enraged Muslim group, reacting violently to reports of Christian children tearing pages off the Quran, Islam’s holy book, during some wedding festivities.

“Considering the environment prevailing in the country, we’re asking for a review, revisit and amendment to the laws,” said Bhatti, a Catholic.

Mohammad Nafees, a journalist and senior research fellow for Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy in Islamabad, supports this move. He knows, however, that the “religious lobby” against such a call was so strong that “any attempt to change (the laws) may not be very easy.”

The controversy sparked by the Gojra incident, he said, failed to bring justice to the victims, who were “now being haunted by law enforcers while the culprits are at large.”

“If we can at least save these poor people from this legal harassment and torture, we would be able to claim some sort of success. If we fail here, we can’t even talk about a little change in the blasphemy laws,” he said. “It’s a simple equation.”

“A bad law cannot be amended to make it better,” argued HRCP’s Yusuf. “No government has been able to roll back the intolerance unleashed (by the laws). The current spurt (of violence) is due to the extremist forces wanting to assert their power.”

Nafisa Shah, a member of the National Assembly and a long-time rights activist acknowledged that the questionable laws have been abused.

“We have stated that these laws have caused religious violence and have been used to settle personal scores. The laws have made minorities vulnerable but have also been used against people of the Muslim majority and several cases of public lynching and mob violence are incited on the premise of blasphemy,” said Shah, who has been selected to head the newly formed subcommittee of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Minorities. The committee is tasked to prepare a comprehensive report on the damaging effects of this law and make recommendations to the government.

“Laws are made according to the needs of society, but in Pakistan, there was no need for these laws,” said Peter Jacob, chairman of the NCJP.

“What we need, apart from repeal/amendment, is greater tolerance in society — from revision of textbooks to sensitisation of police, administration, councilors, parliamentarians,” said Yusuf.

Shah said she favours a repeal of the law but reminded civil society that “that there are a range of parties from extreme right to left in the parliament and the standing committee which have to be brought on board,” adding that without including them, nothing can be passed in the assembly.

“What we are trying to do is to create a negotiating space through which we can enlarge our support in the parliament and move forward against discriminatory laws.”

“Blasphemy laws can at least be taken up by our legislators, and it won’t create a storm,” said Jacob. They did so when they reverted the holiday from Friday to Sunday and amended the Hudood Ordinances — still another controversial legislation that makes it difficult for women to prove an allegation of rape — were amended, nothing adverse happened, he added.

(END/2009)

URL: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48736

Protests mount against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws

---World Socialist Web Site, USA

Protests mount against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws

By Ali Ismail
1 October 2009

Pakistan’s draconian “blasphemy” laws have come under renewed criticism since several Christians were killed this summer by a mob of Muslim fundamentalists in a pogrom-style attack. Demands have risen for the abolition of these laws, which were introduced in the 1980s by the US-backed dictator General Zia-ul Haq as part of an “Islamization” drive. They have often been used to persecute Christians and members of other religious minorities.

The violence occurred in the town of Gojra in eastern Punjab, when a banned Islamist group falsely accused local Christians of desecrating the Qur’an. A large crowd of Muslim fundamentalists set fire to several homes, leaving their occupants to be burned to death. Seven people were killed, all believed to be Christians.

Over 100 people were arrested in connection with the massacre, which according to Pakistani officials, was ordered by Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni Islamist group that has frequently been involved in sectarian violence against the country’s Shia minority.

Attacks against Pakistani Christians usually go unpunished. But because of the outcry from Pakistani Christians, civil rights groups, sections of the press, and international Christian groups, Pakistan president and People’s Party of Pakistan (PPP) head Asif Ali Zardari may be compelled to deliver at least a modicum of justice.

President Zardari and Punjab’s provincial government have offered paltry compensation to the victims’ survivors, amounting to just a few thousand dollars per family.

There were several other incidents of violence perpetrated against Christians in Pakistan in the months leading up to the Gojra atrocity. Last March, a Christian woman was killed when a church was attacked in Gujranwala. On June 30, dozens of Christian homes were attacked when Muslims plundered a village in the Kasur district.

Islamic militants and bigoted clerics have been able to foster animosity between Muslims and Christians by exploiting the disgust generated by the crimes of US imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Pakistan itself. The Bush administration funded and armed the dictator General Pervez Musharraf, who was only forced out as president in August 2008, and under Obama the US has declared Pakistan an integral part of the Afghan counter-insurgency war, mounted regular drone missile attacks inside Pakistan and prevailed upon the government to bloodily suppress Taliban-allied militia in the country’s northwest.

Notwithstanding the outcry over the Gojra massacre, attacks on Christians are continuing. On September 12, the Pakistani English-language daily Dawn reported that a church was set ablaze by Muslim communalists after another dubious allegation of desecration of the Qur’an. Bishop Samuel Pervaiz subsequently accused the government of failing to protect minorities.

In a particularly disturbing incident, 20-year-old Robert Fanish Masi, who had been arrested on blasphemy charges, was found dead September 15 in his jail cell in the Sialkot district. While police claim Masi’s death was a suicide, his body was reported to bear clear signs of torture, indicating that he may have been murdered while in custody. The Daily Times cites the Punjab Minister for Minority Affairs Kamran Michael as saying, “I have seen the body and there were torture marks on it.”

Masi is by no means the first person accused of blasphemy to be found dead in their cell under mysterious circumstances.

Local authorities denied Masi’s family permission to bury him in his native village, some 20 kilometers from Sailkot, and police attacked his funeral procession in Sailkot with tear-gas after it transformed into a protest demanding repeal of the blasphemy laws and a public inquiry into his death.

The recent anti-Christian communal attacks have sparked protests involving Christians, human rights activists, and other working people in cities across Pakistan. According to Joseph Francis, the chairman of the Christian National Party, people are saying “We hate Pakistan and we want to leave. It’s truly a terrible thing for community relations.”

The protestors are outraged not only by the violence, but by police indifference to, and outright collusion, in the attacks.

To cite but one example, on September 16 The News reported that police in Karachi severely beat up several members of a Christian family, the Lawrence’s, after a family-member, a 60 year-old diabetic patient, allegedly urinated on the roof of a neighbor’s house where there was said to be some religious literature.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, “There was a hue and cry and local clerics gathered and attacked Lawrence’s house. An HRCP team is investigating this case.” Yousuf Ashiq of the Muthahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the political party that leads Karachi’s municipal government, said, “Although there is no eyewitness to the incident, the Christian family has decided to pay compensation in accordance with Islamic laws and an announcement has been made in this regard at the local mosque.”

Pakistan’s approximately three million Christians make up less than two percent of the country’s total population. Most of the Christians are descendents of untouchables who converted to Christianity during the second half of the 19th Century and early 20th Century. The conversions were at least in part an effort to improve their socio-economic status and escape caste oppression. Today they are the largest non-Muslim minority group in Pakistan.

Although only Brahamanical Hinduism gives religious sanction to untouchability, in colonial India better-off Muslims, as well as Hindus, enforced caste divisions. Today Pakistan’s Christian must deal with both class and caste-based prejudice. They are often taunted as “cleaners” referring to the menial tasks performed by their ancestors—tasks which dire poverty compel many of them to continue to perform today.

Bigotry and religious sectarianism are the inevitable products of the betrayal of the mass anti-imperialist movement that convulsed British India during the first half of the 20th Century by the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League and the creation in 1947, under the tutelage of the British of imperialism, of twin independent bourgeois states—an expressly Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India. The immediate result of partition was an orgy of communal violence in which up to two million people died and more than 12 million were uprooted from their homes.

Virtually all Hindus and Sikhs fled the western half of the bifurcated Pakistani state, while millions of Muslims from north India sought refuge in Pakistan.

Christians, by contrast, did not leave Pakistan in large numbers, and thus subsequently became the country’s largest religious minority. There are several reasons for this. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the “founder of Pakistan,” courted the tiny Christian elite. Even as he was inciting communalism and violence with cries of Islam in danger and by insisting that Islam and Hinduism were incompatible ways of life, Jinnah claimed that the Christians would have equal rights in Pakistan. Being amongst the poorest of the poor, Pakistan’s Christians lacked the connections, transportable skills, and financial resources to migrate in 1947-48.

In Pakistan, as in post-independence India, the bourgeoisie has used communalism as a means of diverting and derailing the social discontent born of its inability to ensure the basic needs of masses and as a means of mobilizing popular support for the geo-political struggle against the rival state created in 1947.

Under the dictatorship of Zia-ul Haq, Pakistani politics and society underwent a further communalization, with disastrous consequences for the Pakistani people. Zia openly promoted Islamic parties and the Muslim clergy as a bulwark against the working class. At the behest of the United States and their Saudi allies, the Pakistani state armed the mujahedeen in Afghanistan and made Islamicist militias an integral part of the Pakistani bourgeoisie’s geo-political strategy. Zia also promoted religious schools and social services as an alternative to state funding for education and health.

It was under Zia that Pakistan developed its draconian blasphemy laws. In 1982, Section 295-B was added to the Penal Code. It states, “Whoever willfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom, or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.” In 1990, the Federal Shariat Court, which was authorized by Zia, made death the only punishment for blasphemy.

Section 298 of the Penal Code is particularly discriminatory. It was enacted for the sole purpose of preventing members of the Ahmadiyya community from freely practicing their religion. Ahmadiyya is a religious movement which venerates Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure awaited by Muslims. Although Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims, they are considered heretics by the state. There is a direct correlation over the years between the enactment of anti-Ahmadiyya laws and violence committed against Ahmadis by Sunni extremists. In 2008, two Ahmadis were murdered after a TV news anchor justified attacks on the community saying Ahmadis should be killed.

The blasphemy laws are only one of the means by which Pakistani state infringes on the freedoms of religious minorities and non-believers.

Article 2 of the Pakistani Constitution declares Islam the state religion. Non-Muslims cannot aspire to the highest offices in the government. Pakistani passports stipulate the faith of the passport holder and minorities must vote in communal electorates for their own parliamentary representatives, instead of with the general population, thereby making clear that they are to be viewed as apart from and inferior to the Muslim majority.

While religious fundamentalism contributes to massacres like Gojra, accusations of blasphemy usually occur over property and other financial disputes. Nearly every accusation ends up being proved baseless. It is a clear case of landowners and clerics capitalizing on poverty and unemployment to assert their own financial interests.

In the face of the recent protests against the communal attacks on the country’s Christian minority, Pakistan’s government has merely promised to “review” the blasphemy laws.

Meanwhile sections of the establishment are sponsoring a movement in favor of keeping the laws intact. Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), told a commercial television channel that his party would oppose any measure to abolish the blasphemy laws, cynically adding that it was the duty of every Muslim to protect minorities. The PML (Q) was the party created by former President Pervez Musharraf and his supporters, many of whom had defected from the Nawaz Sharif-led PML (N). Many Islamist parties have also come out in opposition to abolishing the laws.

Communal violence is symptomatic of the general crisis confronting Pakistani society. The country’s economy has been hit hard by the world financial meltdown. The IMF recently allocated an additional $3.2 billion to Pakistan, in exchange for government promises to eliminate fuel price subsidies, raise more tax revenue and lower the budget deficit. The austerity measures imposed by the IMF will continue to wreak havoc on the living standards of the Pakistani working class. The majority of Pakistanis live on less than $2 per day. The lack of access to public education and health services will inevitably lead to the continuation of wretched living conditions for the vast majority of the population.

A client-state of the US virtually since its establishment, Pakistan and its bourgeois elites remain heavily dependent on foreign powers, especially Washington.

Now the Pakistani government has obediently declared war on a large segment of its own population in the interest of US imperialism. The collaboration with the US has only intensified under the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)—a party that in the past has postured as socialist and epitomizes the craven and venal character of Pakistani liberalism.

The blasphemy laws are but one example of the anti-democratic character of the Pakistani state. Political power in Pakistan remains largely in the hands of the US-backed military, while the various politicians engage in reactionary religious, nationalist, and ethno-linguistic appeals. And the politicians and army are equally committed to upholding the present grossly unequal socio-economic order.

The struggle to complete basic democratic tasks such as the separation of mosque and state and the eradication of landlordism is bound up with larger struggle against capitalism itself. Pakistani workers and their counterparts across South Asia must unite across religious and ethnic lines to fight for socialism in Pakistan and throughout the region.

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