Punished for being

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, under Article 2, declares Islam the religion of the state. Article 31 of the constitution further delineates the duty to foster the ‘Islamic way of life’.
Equally important is the fundamental provision made via Article 8(1) for any law ‘inconsistent’ with fundamental rights, guaranteed under Chapter 1, to be made void.
Ironically, allegations and cases of blasphemy typically involve violations of these fundamental rights, including security of person (Article 9), safeguards pertaining to arrest and detention (Article 10), right to fair trial (Article 10A), freedom of movement (Article 15), freedom of speech (Article 19), freedom to profess religion and to manage religious institutions (Article 20) and equality of all citizens before the law (Article 25).
Yet, the blasphemy law remains a topic very few have the courage to discuss, understandably so considering the last few people that spoke about it ended up a hundred feet beneath the ground. However, the time has come to engage in an open dialogue – too many innocent lives have been lost, too much blood has been spilt.
There is a common misperception that the blasphemy law is not man-made because it is religious and, therefore, there is, or should be, no room for debate on the issue. Unless the people making these claims believe that the British (and later, General Zia) were divine, it is rather difficult to substantiate this thinking .
The blasphemy law Pakistan inherited was Chapter 15 of the Indian Penal Code, which is markedly different from the blasphemy law as it currently stands. Chapter 15 not only afforded protection to all religions but also required a ‘deliberate or malicious’ intent in order for an individual to be charged with the offence of blasphemy.
By abolishing the intent requirement in Section 295C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), General Zia managed to transform blasphemy into

a strict liability offence. Additionally, the scope of liability was expanded to include ‘words, either spoken or written’, ‘visible representation’ and ‘any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly’.
Liability for such a wide scope of actions reduces the evidentiary threshold: the fact that mere insinuation is enough to commit blasphemy virtually places individuals in a ‘my word against his’ scenario. Put simply, if you don’t like my face, all you need to do is say I committed blasphemy and there goes my life along with all your worries of having to see my face.
Till 2010, there have been around 1,274 people charged under the blasphemy provisions in the PPC. As of the statistics in 2013, 51 of those accused under the law were killed before judgements could be given in their trials. In fact, due to stigmatisation resulting from a mere accusation of blasphemy, not only is the life of the accused under threat, because of which he/she must remain in police custody, but the trial courts also convict without sufficient evidence out of fear that they might suffer at the hands of religious fundamentalists. Moreover, remaining in police custody does not guarantee the alleged blasphemer’s protection from violent mobs.
The fact that a woman in this country was once charged with blasphemy when a copy of the Quran accidentally fell from her shopping bag to the ground only demonstrates how dangerous an environment this law operates in. The treatment of Ahmadis and other minority groups, then, is not something we need to pretend to be horrified about when it is in fact legitimised through provisions of the PPC.
Remember the Zaheeruddin case of 1993? And what do religious extremists do except targeting different sects and minorities on the basis of who they are and what they believe?
Like Ayub Masih in 1996, many other minorities are constantly targeted through application of the blasphemy law when there is an underlying property dispute. If you think you can escape the injustice this law results in, you must think again – even celebrities and media groups have come under fire. Victim typology may be consistent in that it is usually the poor and uninfluential who are targeted – but don’t fool yourself because Salmaan Taseer was neither.
The battle we must fight is against a radical mindset. Only education and awareness, complemented by political will to amend the law, can fight against intolerance in due time. In the meantime, however, the government should focus its attention towards reforming the lower judiciary, improving police efficiency, enforcing stringent punitive action for making false allegations and managing awareness and education campaigns in this sensitive field.
While these recommendations do not address the inherent design flaws within the law itself, they serve to prevent abuse of the law by establishing safeguards.
This piece is one component of her undergraduate dissertation on the blasphemy law.
The writer is a research associate at the Research Society of International Law Pakistan.
Email: imaanmazarirsilpak.org