Mahfooz Kanwar, Calgary Herald, Canada
I am halfway through writing my next book entitled: Addiction to Religion, which discusses four organized religions: Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This book will discuss further the issue of blasphemy in all religions. In this column, I am writing on what the blasphemy law in Pakistan is doing to those who practice other faiths in this majority Muslim country.
In Pakistan recently, almost two dozen people were killed in riots to protest an obscure, independent Internet film that led to the murder of four U.S. diplomatic staff in Libya, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. On Friday, violence was worse than ever after a Pakistani minister established “Day of Love for Muhammad.” Instead of a day of love, it turned into a day of violence, murder and mayhem. Ironically, one man has been charged with blasphemy for refusing to take part in the anti-American, “day of love” protests. The blasphemy law is clearly a very blunt and effective tool used to destroy the lives of one’s enemies and is used often.
The blasphemy law was first introduced by the most ruthless and vile military dictator, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, in the 1980s. This law stipulates that, “Whoever by word, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by imputation, innuendo or insinuation directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) or holy book of the Qur’an, or God shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable for fine.”
This punishment is as cruel, arbitrary and illogical as was its imposer, Zia, the semi-literate fundamentalist president who was addicted to Islam.
Some years ago, I read a news item from Pakistan about a young Christian boy who was accused of defiling the Qur’an. He was tied by a mob behind a car and dragged through the streets until he died.
Recently, a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, a mother of five children, was alleged to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad. She was sentenced to death in November 2010, but she has not yet been hanged. The former governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, and a federal cabinet minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Roman Catholic, were trying to help Bibi, who was in jail. The result? The governor was gunned down by his own body guard on Jan. 4, 2011. His murderer, Mumtaz Qadri, was treated like a hero by thousands of people.
Bhatti was murdered a few months after Taseer by a mob on March 2, 2011. According to the Qur’an, those Muslims who kill or commit suicide will burn in a lake of fire in hell. Therefore, Muslims such as the Taliban, al-Qaida, suicide bombers and those who kill for blasphemy are going to rot in hell. It is a justifiable hope that the imposer of that law, Zia, is doing just that. All of these killers are the trash of Islam.
On Aug. 16, a 14-year-old Christian girl named Rimsha Masih, who has Down syndrome, was charged and arrested allegedly for burning some pages of the Qur’an. She was jailed and was waiting for her death penalty. In the meantime, a semi-literate mosque imam was found to have conspired against Rimsha to get rid of Christians from his village near Islamabad.
It was revealed that it was he who ripped off pages of the Qur’an and put those pages in Rimsha’s bag of ashes. He has been charged with defiling the Qur’an and put in jail. It is hoped this ignorant mullah, who is addicted to Islam, gets the death penalty to send the message to other mullahs as well as to the emotionally charged public to think before they accuse anybody of blasphemy.
Our Prophet Muhammad was abused emotionally, physically and once escaped assassination. He never accused anybody of blasphemy. Instead, he always tried to approach his attackers and console them with reason. His followers, especially illiterate and semi-literate mullahs, seem to go further than his ways of dealing with blasphemers.
Some of the illiterate mullahs ignore the due process and deal with blasphemers and hurt them or even kill them. I have a video showing Taliban beheading 33 Muslims one by one in northern Pakistan because those victims were assumed to have disrespected the Qur’an.
Pakistani Allama Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the All Pakistan Ullema Council, was quoted by the BBC on Aug. 28, saying that the blasphemy law was uncivilized. “The law of jungle is taking over now and anybody can be accused of anything.”
Currently, Pakistan is not the Islamic republic; it is the republic of corruption, chaos and social disorder.
The entire Muslim world, not just Pakistan, is agitating for the United Nations to pass an anti blasphemy law. The rest of the civilized world must oppose this at every turn.
Mahfooz Kanwar is a professor emeritus at Mount Royal University.
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