Right-wing efforts to paint missing activists as blasphemers

ISLAMABAD: A virulent social media campaign to paint five disappeared Pakistani activists as blasphemers deserving execution has spotlighted how right-wing efforts to muzzle liberal voices using the country’s laws have found a powerful new platform online.

The five men had stood against religious intolerance and at times criticised Pakistan’s establishment, with several of them running progressive Facebook pages. They vanished within days of each other earlier this month, sparking fears of a government crackdown. No group has claimed responsibility. Security sources denied being involved. As publicity surrounding their disappearances grew, with protests in major cities, observers such as Digital Rights Foundation founder Nighat Dad began to notice a worrying trend online. "There are people trying to label these missing bloggers blasphemers. And the people supporting...(them) are being labelled blasphemers," Dad told AFP.

The allegation can be fatal in Pakistan where at least 17 people remain on death row for blasphemy. Rights groups have long criticised the colonial-era legislation as a vehicle for personal vendettas. Even unproven allegations can result in mob lynching. And now such accusations targeting the disappeared activists are multiplying on Facebook and Twitter.

"The group of atheists committing blasphemy on Facebook... has been defeated," said a recent post by Pakistan Defence, a Facebook page run by anonymous right-wing elements, which has 7.5 million likes. The post, liked more than 5,400 times, triggered a flood of threats. 

The attacks are perpetuated by right-wing trolls such as 25-year-old Farhan Virk who admits he has few real friends but has 54,000 followers on his verified Twitter account. By re-tweeting the blasphemy charges against the activists, Virk gives them a prominence on social media that can influence the mainstream news agenda. A number of NGOs and observers believe the campaigns to silence progressive voices are carefully coordinated.

Digital rights activist Dad points to what she says is a periodic surge of new right-wing Twitter accounts with just a handful of followers whose "only purpose is to attack us".

Journalist Rabia Mehmood criticised Pakistan online after human rights activist Sabeen Mahmood was assassinated in 2015. Mehmood received a barrage of death and rape threats on Twitter and Facebook, including many from newly-created accounts, accusing her of being anti-state and an enemy of Islam.

The new wave of blasphemy charges that followed the activist disappearances prompted a number of liberal online commentators to close their accounts completely.

Pakistan used its legal agreements with Facebook and Twitter to temporarily remove a slew of left-wing accounts in 2014, and enacted a cybercrime law last year that critics say will stifle genuine dissent. Meanwhile, pages such as Pakistan Defence appear to operate freely, despite content that would appear to contravene basic community standards.

A Twitter spokesman said support teams had been retrained on enforcement policies, "including special sessions on cultural and historical contextualisation of hateful conduct". Facebook said it routinely worked to "prohibit hateful content and remove credible threats of physical harm". Observers say the blasphemy allegations against the missing activists have already put their lives in danger of vigilante attack.

In 2011, a liberal governor who criticised the laws was gunned down in Islamabad, while in 2014, a Christian couple accused of desecrating the Quran was killed by a mob and their bodies were burned in a brick kiln. "If they come back, I don’t think they have a life in this country," said Shahzad Ahmed, director of campaign group Bytes For All. "They will have to leave."