UA001103(16)

Dr. Younus Shaikh is founder-President of 'Enlightenment', a Pakistan-based organization which is a member of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (www.iheu.org). Dr. Shaikh is a doctor and a teacher at a medical college in Islamabad. He lived and worked in the UK before returning to Pakistan. If you were at the IHEU's 1999 World Humanist Congress in Mumbai you would remember his amusing speech; or you may have received his numerous e-mails about Humanism, about his collaboration with liberal minded Pakistanis to promote Human Rights, or about his other passion - the South Asian Peace Movement.

General Pervez Musharraf's recent attempts to improve the law have been met with vehement opposition from the clerics, and he immediately climbed down, in deference to the Islamic fundamentalists. The law remains as barbaric as it was. And so does the mob.

Blasphemy in Pakistan is a cognizable offence, punishable mandatorily by death, but Section 295-C does not even precisely define the crime it is meant to punish. This law has a history of abuse : it is a convenient means to settle personal scores. In this case, it is a disgruntled student Mr. Muhammad Asghar Khan who complained to the fundamentalists. Even those not present at the time of the alleged 'offence' can file a complaint - this is the case as regards Dr. Shaikh. A cleric, Maulana Abdur Rafoof, registered the case in Islamabad's Margalla police station. Despite the severity of punishment, Section 295-C empowers a police officer to arrest, without obtaining a warrant from a judicial magistrate. Dr. Shaikh has been in custody since 4 October 2000.

The Blasphemy law in Pakistan is a shameful relic of the British Raj's 1860 Criminal Law. It was modified in 1926 before Pakistan was born, and again as recently as in 1986 and in 1991 when criminal law was Islamicised by the then dictatorship. Now, under the regime of Islamic punishments, the evidence required is 'at least two Muslim adult male witnesses who are supposed to be truthful persons who abstain from major sins'. It is required at the trial that the Presiding officer must be a Muslim. Islamic law of evidence declares that the evidence recorded by minorities and women has a status inferior to that of Muslim men.

* Section 295-B	Defiling etc., of Holy Quran; whoever willfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.
* Section 295-C	"Use of derogatory remarks in respect of the Holy Prophet, whoever by the words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad shall be punished with the death sentence or imprisonment for life and shall be liable to fine". The condition for imprisonment for life came to an end in 1990, and the death sentence was made mandatory for blaspheming the name of the Holy Prophet.
*Sections 298-B & C	In 1984, legislation was passed as section 298-B & C which makes it a criminal offences for Ahmadis (a religious minority) to call themselves Muslims, to employ nomenclature appellation associated with Islam, to use Muslim practices of worship and to propagate their worship. " Persons who call themselves Ahmadis or any other name ... in manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.

3% of Pakistan's 140 million citizens are non-Muslims; and there are at least 20 million Shiites, a minority Islamic sect in Pakistan. The situation for these minorities is desperate. The main victims of Pakistan's discriminatory and repressive legislation so far have been the Ahmadias, the Christians and the Hindus - and the most victimized are the Christians and Ahmadias. Their evidence is not accepted, their rights to freedom of religion or belief are not protected, they are not allowed high-positions in the Army or in the bureaucracy, and they are forced to vote under the separate electorate system, where non-Muslims vote for non-Muslims.

But the main concern of Pakistan's Human Rights activists are the Blasphemy laws. Blasphemy of Islam is punished differently and much more severley than Blasphemy of other religions. There is no Freedom of Religion or Belief in Pakistan. Bishop John Joseph, Roman Catholic Bishop of Faizalabad even killed himself in protest in front of the sessions court of Sahiwal, on May 5, 1998. But even this ultimate sacrifice did not move the administration or the legislature.

On 21 April 2000, during a human rights convention sponsored by the military government ruler General Pervez Musharraf, who came to power after the 1999 October coup, promised to 'end abuses of the controversial Blasphemy Laws'. It was intended that the law would be changed in order to make the process more official and harder to abuse. Under the law change, anyone with a blasphemy grievance had to register a complaint, called a first information report, with the area administrator or district commissioner, instead of with the local police chief. A month later, it was reported that the General withdrew a key change to the controversial Blasphemy Laws to appease Islamic religious parties.