Blasphemy in Pakistan

Pakistani penal code on insulting religion
a list of blasphemy cases in Pakistan

The Pakistan Penal Code outlaws blasphemy against any recognized religion, with punishments ranging from a fine to the death penalty. According to various human rights organizations, Pakistan's blasphemy laws have been used to persecute religious minorities and settle personal rivalries, frequently against other Muslims, rather than to safeguard religious sensibilities. From 1967 to 2014, over 1,300 people were accused of blasphemy, with Muslims constituting most of those accused. Between 1987 and February 2021, at least 1,855 individuals were charged under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Although death sentences for blasphemy have been issued on numerous occasions, no one has yet been executed by the order of the courts or government of Pakistan. However, those accused of blasphemy are frequently targeted and killed by angry mobs before any trial can begin. At least 89 Pakistanis were extrajudicially killed over blasphemy accusations from 1947 to 2021. Among the victims of such killings have been high profile Pakistanis such as Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, and high court justice Arif Iqbal Bhatti, who was slain in his chambers.

During the 1920s, after the assassination of a publisher of a book named Rangila Rasul, published in Lahore, Punjab, the administration of the British Raj enacted Hate Speech Law Section 295(A), in 1927, under pressure from the Muslim community, as a part of the Criminal Law Amendment Act XXV. This made it a criminal offence to insult the founders or leaders of any religious community. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, many anti blasphemy laws and clauses were introduced in Pakistan's Penal Code. In 1986, it was supplemented by a new blasphemy provision also applied to Ahmadi Muslims (See Persecution of Ahmadis). Between 1987 and 2017 at least 1,500 people were charged with blasphemy and at least 75 people involved in accusations of blasphemy were killed in Pakistan according to the Center for Social Justice. According to another source, between 2011 and 2015, "the latest period for which consolidated data is available" as of 2020, there were "more than 1,296 blasphemy cases filed" in Pakistan. Blasphemy is a capital offence in Pakistan. Muslims’ stances on blasphemy are not just about religion, though. They are influenced by international affairs. Across the globe, Muslim minorities — including the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Chechens of Russia, Rohingya of Myanmar and Uyghurs of China — have experienced persecution.

The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is a religious body that rules on whether any particular law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. If a law is repugnant to Islam, "the President in the case of a law with respect to a matter in the Federal Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List, or the Governor in the case of a law with respect to a matter not enumerated in either of those lists, shall take steps to amend the law so as to bring such law or provision into conformity with the Injunctions of Islam" (Constitution, Article 203D). In October 1990, the FSC ruled that § 295 C was repugnant to Islam by permitting life imprisonment as an alternative to a death sentence. The Court said "the penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet is death". The FSC ruled that, if the President did not take action to amend the law before 30 April 1991, then § 295 C would stand amended by its ruling. Promptly after the FSC's ruling in 1990, Bishop Dani L. Tasleem filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which has the power to overrule the FSC. In April 2009, the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court considered the appeal. Deputy Attorney General Agha Tariq Mehmood, who represented the federal government, said that the Shariat Appellate Bench dismissed the appeal because the appellant did not pursue it. The appellant did not present any argument on the appeal because, according to reports, he was no longer alive. Consequently, it appears to be the law in Pakistan that persons convicted under § 295 C must be sentenced to death with or without a fine.

Those who are accused of blasphemy may be subject to harassment, threats, and attacks. Police, lawyers, and judges may also be subject to harassment, threats, and attacks when blasphemy is an issue. Those accused of blasphemy are subject to immediate incarceration, and most accused are denied bail to forestall mob violence. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are known to be widely abused by those seeking personal gain from those accused, as evidenced by the Imran Ghafur Masih case study. Masih was accused and sentenced to life in prison under Section 295B of the blasphemy laws after his neighbor manipulated and tricked him into unknowingly throwing away a copy of the Quran, because the neighbor wanted to gain Masih's storefront real estate.

Pakistan's support of blasphemy regulation has caused it to be active in the international arena in promoting global limitations on freedom of religion or belief and limitations on freedom of expression. In March 2009, Pakistan presented a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that called upon the world to formulate laws against the defamation of religion. In January 2021, an Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) convicted and sentenced three men to death for sharing blasphemous content on social media. A fourth accused in the same case, one Anwaar Ahmed, professor of Urdu language, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 100,000. He had been accused of disseminating controversial, blasphemous views during a lecture at the Islamabad Model College. On the other hand, the International Crisis Group reports that the Islamic parties are most successful in galvanising street power when the goal is narrowly linked to obstructing reforms to discriminatory religious laws that often provoke sectarian violence and conflict and undermine the rule of law and constitutionalism. Pakistani human rights activists say that charges of blasphemy are being used to harass minorities and settle personal conflicts. Harshil Mehta, South Asia's political observer, has commented that it is "an urgent need to replace these laws" in his article in Outlook. If the Islamic Republic, he wrote, "wants to prove itself as a haven for religious freedom, then it must ban these regressive laws".