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Blasphemy law in Pakistan

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The Pakistan Penal Code, the main criminal code of Pakistan, punishes blasphemy (Urdu: قانون توہین رسالت‎) against any recognized religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. From 1967 to 2014, over 1,300 people have been accused of blasphemy, with Muslims constituting most of those accused.

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  • Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or makes any sound in the hearing of that person or makes any gesture in the sight of that person or places any object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.
    • § 298, Pakistan Penal Code
  • .. 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.
    • Islamic Parties in Pakistan Crisis Group Asia Report N°216, (PDF). International Crisis Group. 12 December 2011. p. 26. [1]
  • In 1996, a Pakistani Christian named Ayub Masih was accused by his Muslim neighbor of encouraging him to read The Satanic Verses. Under Pakistani law, the testimony of a single Muslim suffices in blasphemy cases, and Masih was sentenced to death on April 28, 1998. When the Court failed to order his immediate execution, he was attacked in the courthouse itself but was saved. In a subsequent Christian protest march, attacked with stones by Muslim bystanders, Bishop John Joseph shot himself in a spectacular act of desperation (some Christians allege he was murdered). In Masih's village, all the Christians fled and their houses were occupied by Muslims... Even more serious cases go unreported. Islamists shot and killed in October 1997the Pakistani High Court judge, Arif Bhatti, who had acquitted two Christians on blasphemy charges. ... In Pakistan with its draconian anti-blasphemy law, many people (mostly from the Christian and Ahmadiya minorities) have been arrested on blasphemy charges, many of them have been sentenced to years in prison, some have been sentenced to death, some have been murdered in custody or at large, but in no case has the state dared fully and formally to implement the whole course of its legal provision of a death sentence....
    • Koenraad Elst: Afterword: The Rushdie Affair's Legacy, in Pipes, Daniel, & Elst, K. (2004). The Rushdie affair: The novel, the Ayatollah, and the West. New Brunswick [u.a.: Transaction Publ. [2]
  • “Bitter Winter” has recently spoken with a number of Pakistanis from different religious backgrounds, wishing to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. They are alarmed by the constant climate of serious intolerance that reigns in the country, where a bigoted interpretation of Islam, intermingled with politics, persecute all religious minorities. In Pakistan, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims of Shia (including the Hazaras) and Ahmadi persuasion live under the sword of Damocles of that set of norms that are generally and commonly referred to as the “blasphemy law.” Many feel threatened by a situation that apparently never improves, even if better signs appear at times. They–for example the Ahmadis—are in fact even scared that those better signs could be superficially or ideologically exploited by some outside or hostile forces to imply that, after all, the situation is not that bad.
  • [T]he blasphemy law is felt to be a sword of Damocles and has developed a huge symbolic significance which contributes substantially to the atmosphere of intimidation of Christians. The detrimental effect of the law…is most dramatically illustrated by the incident at Shanti Nagar in February 1997 in which tens of thousands of rioting Muslims destroyed hundreds of Christian homes, and other Christian property, following an accusation of blasphemy. Furthermore the blasphemy has engendered a wave of private violence. Equating blasphemy with apostasy and influenced by the tradition of direct violent action and self-help which goes back to the earliest times of Islam, some Muslims feel they are entitled to enforce the death penalty themselves.
    • Sookhdeo, A People Betrayed, p. 241. in Bostom, A. G. (2015). Sharia versus freedom: The legacy of Islamic totalitarianism. Ch 2
  • Tahira Abdullah, a human rights activist situated in Pakistan, said that “The lack of political will and commitment has always stood as the biggest obstacle to prevent the abuse, misuse, and exploitation of blasphemy laws.” She further said, “Mr. Khan’s government is no different from its predecessors in promising to tackle the menace of religious violence. But it is too cowardly to confront influential religious parties in Parliament and the rampaging militant extremist groups outside Parliament.”
  • Instances of mob violence, and state-enforced criminal blasphemy cases, are more frequent in Pakistan than anywhere else, according to a report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
  • Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are often used against religious minorities and others who are the target of false accusations, while emboldening vigilantes prepared to threaten or kill the accused.
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