A year after the burning of Joseph Colony in Lahore, the blasphemy accused Sawan Masih has been handed a death sentence. The blasphemy accused are resilient people. Somehow, their names stay alive in people’s collective memory.
A year ago, Joseph Colony presented a chaotic scene -- of charred and looted houses. The one-room churches were vandalised like nobody’s business. The smart chief executive of the province, who is a stickler for speed, ordered the entire colony to be rebuilt in a matter of weeks and not months. The wailing and the reconstruction came together in Joseph Colony a year ago.
A year later, people, media and courts only remember the name of Sawan Masih. The chaos at Joseph Colony is now part of collective amnesia. There is no sentence of any kind for those who burnt the colony. Those who may have ordered this insanity are not even behind the bars.
Such is the history of blasphemy in this country. It has become the foremost of religious causes which allows the religious leaders to "pull crowds and show their strength". Here is an issue which unites the faithful across sectarian divide. But such is our history that institution of blasphemy cases has become a profession.
Interestingly, with the punishments for blasphemers becoming more stringent (295-C and B), the number of blasphemy cases started to rise -- defeating the purpose of the law as a deterrent. Clearly, the blasphemy laws are being misused to settle personal and petty scores for many years now.
But this is one area where any discussion and debate is not allowed. Everybody -- from state to lawyers to judges to minorities of all kinds -- steps into a realm of fear the moment one utters the term blasphemy or suggests a reform in the law or procedures.
A poor woman Aasia Bibi still languishes in jail on flimsy charges of blasphemy, even after her case led to the murder of a sitting governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer. And there are scores of people who are spending their pre-trial or under-trial period in jails. The misery of blasphemy accused does not end even after they are acquitted. In most cases, they have to stay in hiding or move away from Pakistan.
This is the subject of today’s Special Report. A bad history can and must be revised and corrected.