Strong condemnation of blasphemy death sentence

A Pakistani court ruling sentencing a teacher to death on charges of blasphemy has drawn harsh criticism from international and local observers alike. Human rights organisations say the verdict highlights a dangerous trend, and have called on the government to curb what they describe as a misuse of the legal system by certain groups within the country. “Dr Mohammad Younus is a prisoner of conscience, and was imprisoned for expressing his peaceful beliefs,” a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in London, Maya Catsanis, told IRIN on Monday. Calling for his immediate release, the watchdog group expressed serious concern to the government of President General Pervez Musharraf regarding the application of the death penalty, as well as the blasphemy laws currently on Pakistan’s legal books. Amnesty was not alone in its concern. “This is a travesty of justice,” the secretary general of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, Hina Jilani, told IRIN. “Such judgments are made to appease particular lobbies in the country and reflect a misuse in the process of law,” she asserted. The condemnation follows the court ruling in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on 18 August, under which Younus, a teacher at a local homoeopathic college, was convicted under section 295-C of the Pakistani penal code, which prescribes the death sentence and a fine if charges of blasphemy are proved. Younus was accused of making derogatory remarks last year in front of his students about the Prophet Mohammad by suggesting he had not become a Muslim until he was 40 years old, and that his parents were not Muslim either. Following a complaint lodged by students to a religious leader, he was arrested by police and has been incarcerated ever since. Fearing a violent reaction by religious extremists, the judge issued the sentence, accompanied by a fine of US $1,500, inside the prison where Younus was jailed. While Jilani was not surprised by the court’s ruling, she said she was concerned over what she described as a significant increase in the number of blasphemy cases filed. “With this law, anything you say can be misunderstood as blasphemy, as there is no definition of what constitutes the crime,” the activist said. Jilani maintained that it would be very difficult for the judge not to give the death sentence. “The judges do this more for their own security than because of the defendant, due to outside pressure groups,” she said. Citing a similar case two years ago in which a judge was killed for acquitting a defendant sentenced to death in the eastern city of Lahore, she said: “The government does very little to guarantee the security of the judges to exercise any degree of independence in their decision making.” Such sentiment was echoed by others. “Fearing for his own security, the safest thing for the judge to do was to convict,” a professor of Islamic law and a consultant to Pakistan’s federal Shari’ah court, Dr Mohammad Aslam Khaki, told IRIN. “But had I been the judge, I would have acquitted this person,” he said. He argued what Younus had said was not blasphemy at all, but rather a critical review of the customs of Arabs during that time. Like Jilani, he cited a dramatic rise in blasphemy cases being registered in Pakistan today. According to Khaki, from 1948 to 1986, only 14 cases were filed. From 1987 to 1999, 44 cases were filed, while in 2000, the figure rose to 52 in one year. Working with the government, he has proposed the establishment of a committee to scrutinise every blasphemy charge in terms of truth and whether it constitutes blasphemy or not. Secondly, he maintained that the plea of the accused should be given priority. In other words, what was the motivating factor in his making the statement, or whether it was made inadvertently. According to the law enacted in 1986, whoever makes derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammad “by words either spoken, or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation directly, defies the sacred name of the Holy Prophet, shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine”. While most blasphemy verdicts are overturned on appeal, and no one has actually been executed, Jilani says the decision instils a sense of fear in her. “Giving a death sentence really traumatises the people,” she said. She added that many people who have been acquitted are killed extrajudicially or during the actual trial, with the perpetrator never prosecuted by the police. Asked what the government is doing, Jilani asserted: “The government is doing absolutely nothing, nor is it interested in eliminating this trend.” She blamed the former military government of General Zia ul-Haq for instituting a mandatory death penalty for blasphemy in 1986, and said the problem was now out of hand. “We are at the end of our resources on what to do on this issue,” Jilani said. “We have repeatedly asked the government to review the law, and they have failed to do so,” she complained. Jilani said the government was afraid of extremist groups, and that the military had always had a vested interest in sponsoring such groups. “Now they are trying to clean up their international image by clamping down on some of these people,” she said. “But this is a half-hearted approach - too little, too late,” she added. According to a BBC report on Monday, the government, in an attempt to curb false blasphemy charges, tried last year to alter the law to allow for an inquiry before any arrest, but failed after intense pressure from religious hardliners.