Pakistan Blasphemy Laws Increasingly Misused to Settle Petty Disputes against Christians

Pakistan Blasphemy Laws Increasingly Misused to Settle Petty Disputes against Christians

 

By Jeremy Reynalds, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service (jeremyreynalds@gmail.com )  

 

LAHORE, PAKISTAN (ANS-Dec 11, 2015) -- When Shafiq Masih visits his relatives, he risks running into a mob. A Christian, convicted and acquitted under Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws after a dispute with a neighbor, Masih lives in fear.

 

According to a story by Rizwan Syed for The Independent, he fled his home in Faisalabad, where he said he was almost lynched by a crowd that was whipped into a murderous frenzy by a local imam. 

 

He now lives in Lahore with his wife and seven children in Youhanabad, an impoverished district home to many of the city’s Christians. 

 

Blasphemy laws which can punish insulting Islam with death are now regarded as sacrosanct in Pakistan. They are, critics claim, a means to persecute minority faiths and settle petty grievances, over how much butter was sold at a shop or, as in Masih’s case, an electric bill. 

 

“The people who knew me, they (often) come from Faisalabad to Lahore,”  Masih said. “They are drivers and laborers. They can be dangerous for me.”

 

Sewage and stacks of trash are strewn across the street where Masih has a welding business, a 10-minute drive from the family home. 

 

According to The Independent, Masih said he was accused of blasphemy in Faisalabad in 1998 after his Muslim neighbor refused to contribute to the electricity bill charged on their shared meter. 

 

After an altercation, Masih said a local imam accused him of blasphemy. The accusation was relayed, Masid said, by the mosque’s speakers. He was then arrested by police and charged with blasphemy. He claims his neighbor was responsible. 

 

“They beat me with (their) hands; they beat me (with) the things that they found on the spot,” Masih said of the mob that had almost lynched  him. “I don’t want to think about them.”

 

According to The Independent, he was convicted by Faisalabad’s district court, spending three years in jail before being acquitted by the same court in 2001. He said he does not allow his children to play with other children in case his story is revealed. 

 

“If they mix up with other children it is quite likely that someone would know about our hideout,” The Independent reported he said. 

 

“In that case, they we will be in danger,” added Masih’s wife, Najma Shafiq.

 

Until 1986 only 15 blasphemy cases had been prosecuted in Pakistan, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) figures. 

 

But after the legal definition of blasphemy was broadened to include offences such as insulting the Prophet Mohamed – for which the death penalty was introduced under the military ruler Zia-ul-Haq – cases surged. So, too, argue campaign groups, did the misuse of the law. 

 

In October, The Independent said, Pakistan’s highest court upheld a death sentence for the killer of the governor of Punjab, who had called for reform of the blasphemy law. 

 

Salman Taseer was shot dead by a bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, in 2011, after he had sought a presidential pardon for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. 

 

Since 1990, The Independent reported, at least 65 people have died in cases linked to blasphemy in Pakistan.

 

Photo captions: 1) Christian villagers protest against blasphemy laws (AFP/Getty). 2) Jeremy and Elma Reynalds.

 

About the writer: Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, www.joyjunction.org. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "From Destitute to Ph.D." Additional details on "From Destitute to Ph.D." are available at www.myhomelessjourney.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Elma. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@gmail.com . 

 

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