rights of Pakistani systems because of the holes in the “procedural system”.
“We cannot completely eradicate the law from our constitution. It was approved by the national lawmaking body and implemented accordingly but there is a no doubting that the law needs tools alongside that prevent its misuse. The problem lies in our system. Its misuse can be prevented if only honest officer above the superintendent position recommends the registration of a case after having consulted two religious scholars, including a religious scholar from the non-Islamic faith. The case should be registered only after a strict scrutiny,” Maulana Albazi argued. Peter Jacob Gill, Justice and Peace Commission, Roman Catholic Church of Pakistan, said that Pakistan needed to get rid of “all discriminatory laws, which make preferences on the basis of religions amongst citizens”. “Blasphemy law comes as a spike in this scheme of things and any healing of the situation of demands that all law and policies are made to comply with the fundamental rule of international human rights and rules on non-discrimination of citizens. The law needs to review by a competent body. Even the Federal Shariat Court has said that this law is against non-Muslims,” Gill said.
Baseer Naweed of the Asian Human Rights Commission said that the misuse of the law was harming Pakistani society a great deal. “It’s harmful for the society. The bigots in our society have taken it upon themselves to implement this law on the streets as shown by recent cases that how easy it is to abuse this law,” he said, highlighting the cases of religious minority groups who have to relocate when accused, especially the failure of the state to protect them.
During the question and answer session, the participants were told that the law had led to false imprisonment, mob killings, compulsory conversion to Islam and its vague formulation made it possible for everyone to interpret it according to their wishes and then harass and persecute.