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| A Pakistani police official and a Christian volunteer escort a young Christian girl accused of blasphemy, towards a helicopter following her release from central prison on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Saturday. The apparent collapse of a case against a Christian girl accused of burning pages of a Koran has given a dim ray of hope to critics of Pakistan?s blasphemy laws, some of the harshest in the Muslim world. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed,file) |
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Islamabad.
The apparent collapse of a case against a Christian girl accused of burning
pages of a Quran has given a dim ray of hope to critics of Pakistan’s blasphemy
laws, some of the harshest in the Muslim world.
The girl
was believed to be mentally impaired, and a Muslim cleric from her neighborhood
was eventually arrested for planting evidence to incriminate her. As the tables
turned on her accusers, the girl was recently released on bail and whisked away
in a military helicopter with her family to safety.
It was a
remarkable turn of events in a country where people accused in even the
flimsiest of cases of defiling Islam’s holy book or the Prophet Muhammad have
few defenders. Those accused of blasphemy can be sentenced to death if
convicted — assuming they are not killed first by vigilantes.
Human
rights activists and others hope the girl’s case will, at the very least, help
prevent further abuses of laws designed to punish people for maligning Islam.
Some Islamic religious figures came to her defense, bail was granted and an
accuser arrested. All steps are extremely rare, but the question is whether
that will translate into deeper change.
“We need to
build on that,” said Mustafa Qadri, a Pakistan researcher with Amnesty
International.
Nevertheless,
there is little appetite to repeal or amend the blasphemy laws, which remain
very popular among Pakistanis. A coming election and fear of assassination will
likely scuttle any attempt at meaningful change, experts said. Instead, the
case may remain the lone exception.
“The great
concern is that once this case dies down the real concrete steps that need to
be taken, won’t be taken,” Qadri said.
The girl
was arrested Aug. 16 when an angry mob surrounded her house in a poor section
of Islamabad after word rapidly traveled through the neighborhood that she had
burned pages of the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Christians left the neighborhood
en masse, fearing they would be targeted as has happened in other parts of
Pakistan when minorities are accused of committing blasphemy.
The case
immediately struck a chord in Pakistan and abroad, partly because of the girl’s
age and questions about her faculties. A medical report listed her as 14 and
said her mental age didn’t match her physical age. Her lawyers said she has Down
syndrome.
Among
Pakistanis, cleric Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi was one of the first to come to her
defense outside of the small group of liberals who have long advocated against
the abuse of the blasphemy laws.
Ashrafi
said he was moved to defend the girl partly because he has a son who also has
Down syndrome. He said he would like to see steps to prevent the misuse of the
blasphemy laws, such as having a senior level police officer investigate cases
and authorities punish people who falsely accuse others of blasphemy. But he
contended there was no need to change the laws themselves.
Paul
Bhatti, an adviser to the prime minister, said the arrest of the cleric would
discourage other people from bringing false blasphemy claims. The cleric is
accused of planting pages of the Quran in a bag of burned material the girl was
carrying and then bringing it to police, allegedly to drive Christians from the
neighborhood.
Bhatti said
he would be holding a seminar with religious and political leaders to discuss
how to prevent misuse of the blasphemy laws.
“I think
this is a test case,” said Bhatti. “We hope that the misuse of the law will be
prevented.”
But so far
there’s been no push to submit legislation amending the laws. That’s in part
because of the violent repercussions for people who have suggested changes.
Bhatti’s own brother, the sole Christian minister in the government and an
opponent of the blasphemy laws, was assassinated last year for suggesting they
be amended to prevent misuse.
A report by
the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies said that since
1990, 52 people have been killed by vigilantes after being implicated in
blasphemy cases.
Among many
Pakistani clerics, there is still a great deal of suspicion about the apparent
outcome of the case and about the considerable international attention it
received. Tayyab Farooqi, the head of the Islamabad chapter for the Council for
Protection of the Finality of the Prophet, questioned whether the imam actually
played a role in planting evidence and why Western countries take such an
interest in blasphemy cases but not murders or other heinous crimes.
Another
cleric said after seeing photos of the girl upon her release that he doubted
she was a minor.
A lawyer
for the girl says she has been largely unaware of the furor her case has
caused. Tahir Naveed Chaudhry said the legal team will now push for the case to
be dropped entirely. The girl is staying at a secure, undisclosed location with
her parents and five siblings, he said.
“She is
happy that she is back to her family,” he said.
Pakistan
has some of the roughest blasphemy laws in the world. People found guilty of
defiling the Quran get life in prison. Those convicted of maligning the Muslim
prophet are sentenced to death, a punishment brought about under the rule of
U.S.-backed Pakistani army dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.
In other
countries blasphemy laws tend to carry lesser punishments or are designed to
protect all religions. In few countries do such accusations elicit the popular
outrage they do in Pakistan:
— In
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, people can be sentenced to
up to five years in prison for “distorting” the central tenets of the six
officially recognized religions.
— In Iran,
the Islamic penal law offers considerable latitude, as offenders can be given
anything from one year in prison to the death penalty.
— In
Kuwait, Islamists in the opposition this year tried to make blasphemy a capital
crime. The emir later dissolved parliament but it remains a prominent issue in
the oil-rich kingdom.
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