Misuse of blasphemy law: Tahir Ashrafi reacts to Shireen Mazari’s letter

ISLAMABAD: Reacting to former human rights minister Shireen Mazari’s letter about "misusing" the blasphemy law to the United Nations special rapporteurs, religious scholar Maulana Hafiz Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi on Wednesday said nobody should be allowed to misuse the law in the country.

In a video statement, Ashrafi categorically stated, “The misuse of blasphemy law will not be permitted on the basis of personal and political grudges against anyone at all costs.”

He said he had already assured about it in his earlier media talk after discussing the issue in detail with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.

Ashrafi — who is also the chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council — proposed Mazari raise the issue, if any, at the national forums like the court of law, Muttahida Ulema Board (MUB) and Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) keeping in view the sensitivity of the subject as an international drive against the blasphemy law was already in progress.

He said blasphemy cases lodged by the people against the PTI leadership would be decided in the light of the Quran and Sunnah and the Constitution when they would come to MUB and CII through courts.

Lamenting Mazari’s letter, he said it would help provide a platform to the international conspirators for making propaganda in a bid to weaken the existing law.

Ashrafi expressed the hope that the PTI leadership and Shireen Mazari would withdraw from it as it was not in the national interest.

Ashrafi said it was a collective responsibility of both the treasury and Opposition benches in the parliament to keep it alive and further strengthen it.

He said when the PTI was in power, it was also its stance to desist from all sorts of malicious campaigns against this law.

The chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council said instead of seeking national institutions' assistance, Mazari had launched an international drive against the blasphemy law which was not acceptable in any way.

Ashrafi assured the national and international stakeholders that neither the misuse of blasphemy law occurred in the last two years, nor would be in the future and the cases pertaining to blasphemy law would be treated on merit.