By: Haroon Baloch
January 21, 2011
In India, Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code punishes hate speech, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of any citizen with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage their religious feelings.
In Finland, section 10 of chapter 17 of the Criminal Code relate to blasphemy. Unsuccessful attempts were made to rescind the section in 1914, 1917, 1965, 1970, and 1998. And there are more than dozen countries where blasphemy is felony and is actionable as manmade laws that are practiced on earth, but are derived from divine teachings.
Rationale behind these manmade laws is to discourage sacrilege of religious personas, holy books etc. Blasphemy Law in Pakistan is a bone of contention between fundamentalists and liberalists. Rule of law, after the assassination of for Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, again seems loosing its grip on the society, and extremist tendencies are on the rise.
Today, majority of the society leans to support the assassin of slain Taseer, but they don’t realize that taking the law into one’s hand is tantamount to mutiny against the state, which is strictly prohibited in Islam and in Sharia, and called Sharr. The last stage suggested by Sharia to resort to mutiny against state is when state does not even allow Muslims to offer their prayers (Salaah).
Ground realities suggest that circumstances are not only perfect for practicing religion here in Pakistan, rather freedom to practice everyone’s own religion is ensured by the state. Skeptically analyzing the scenario of Taseer’s killing, one can deduce that killing committed by a citizen is unlawful.
Liberalists’ stance is that Salmaan Taseer was of the view that blasphemy law is part of Pakistan Penal Code, which is manmade, and hence needs to be revisited so as to prevent its wrong implementations and its misuse. Pakistan is a place where everyone enjoys the freedom of expression, but unfortunately our society lacks tolerance. If someone wishes to revisit the law, then let it come into the parliament where representatives of our own choice are sitting and in democracies, majority is the authority. How can one consider that a representative will vote against the aspirations of those who have sent him or her to devise laws?
Religions are not the sole property of their clerics, but it is for all their followers. This concept is absolutely erroneous that religions are owned by the members of the clergy. On the other hand, it is also very often that verdicts of courts are not implemented by the administrative bodies from local to national level. That’s why often people prefer to punish the culprits themselves. This is something very threatening. Here one can’t help recall the Sialkot incident where two brothers were brutally killed by area people in the presence of police.
In another incident in Muzaffargarh, a father and son, who were religious leaders belonging to Deoband sect, were handed down life sentence along with Rs.0.2 million fine by the civil court on the charges of blasphemy leveled by the Maulanas of opposite sect. They were allegedly involved in tearing an advertisement poster detailing the date and venue of a religious program. The accused denied having done so, but the claimant produced enough witnesses whose credibility is questioned by the locals.
In this case, impression is that court seems pressurized by the fundamentalists because of a sensitive religious matter, especially when just a few days back, nation has observed the assassination of Punjab’s Governor Salmaan Taseer and afterwards the reaction of religious groups.
It is also quite evident that no one dared to came forward and condemn the killing of Salmaan Taseer committed by one of his guards after the decree issued by the religious leaders of some sect. Statement of Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik in this regard was encouraging for the religious groups where he said, “I would also shoot down anyone who committed blasphemy in front of me.”
Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousaf Raza Gilani has also not yet uttered a single word pertaining to this issue, which that gives an impression of surrendering before the pressure groups. In democracies, holding opposite viewpoints are encouraged and for using this privilege, Salmaan Taseer was killed because of intolerant behavior of our society this time. One wonders, who is next?
(For original publication, please visit: http://www.weeklypulse.org/details.aspx?contentID=113&storylist=2)
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