{"id":120980,"date":"2021-12-08T16:46:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T23:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=120980"},"modified":"2021-12-08T16:46:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T23:46:19","slug":"how-islamic-fundamentalists-get-away-with-murder-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/12\/08\/how-islamic-fundamentalists-get-away-with-murder-in-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"How Islamic Fundamentalists Get Away With Murder in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Kunwar Khuldune Shahid<\/strong><\/a>, a Pakistan-based journalist and a correspondent for The Diplomat. Courtesy foreignpolicy.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

If Imran Khan cares about foreign investment and economic growth, he must abolish the country\u2019s blasphemy law.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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A member of the Human Rights Council of Pakistan places an earthen oil lamp to pay tribute to late Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha Kumara in Karachi, Pakistan, on Dec. 5.\u00a0RIZWAN TABASSUM\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priyantha Kumara, the Sri Lankan general manager of a garment factory in Pakistan\u2019s eastern city of Sialkot, was bludgeoned to death<\/a> by an Islamist mob on Friday. The crowds that gathered to carry out the murder then burned Kumara\u2019s corpse on a main road, with graphic videos going viral on the same day. The police personnel were either bystanders, or arrived too late, before eventually arresting<\/a> members of the mob, who proudly owned<\/a> their act, which they claimed was a tribute to the Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kumara was lynched over allegations of blasphemy, after reportedly removing posters<\/a> that had sections from the Quran written on them. Many people, including the president<\/a> of the local chamber of commerce, maintain that Kumara was targeted by his factory\u2019s workers over a personal vendetta and hadn\u2019t actually done anything blasphemous. However, legal requirements notwithstanding, probing whether a victim of murder committed an intangible, victimless crime, inevitably bolsters the barbaric idea that sacrilege merits death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This homicidal idea, which is at the core of Kumara\u2019s ghastly murder, is codified in Pakistan\u2019s penal code<\/a>, which punishes blasphemy against Islam by death. Therefore, this law, that is often accused of being misused<\/a>\u201d when mobs take it upon themselves to enforce it, is in fact regularly used to send individuals to the gallows for ideas that some people deem offensive, and to silence free thinkers and skeptics of Islam<\/a> through murderous intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, while Pakistan has never come close to approaching the blasphemy law from the free speech perspective, Kumara\u2019s horrific murder might reopen the debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pakistan is one of 12 Muslim-majority countries<\/a> that allows capital punishment for blasphemy against Islam. However, while overt theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran regularly top<\/a> the lists for supposedly religiously mandated executions, Pakistan hasn\u2019t judicially sentenced anyone to death for blasphemy. This is largely owing to its claims of being a democracy and its reliance on Western aid conditioned on human rights commitments; indeed, this encouraged Pakistan\u2019s death penalty moratorium<\/a> between 2008 and 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But upholding capital punishment for blasphemy while refraining from state-sanctioned executions has emboldened mobs to carry out vigilante justice in Pakistan. A similar trend can also be witnessed in Nigeria, another flailing democracy struggling to rein in mob violence<\/a>, which upholds capital punishment for blasphemy. (Since 1999, the state has executed only one person<\/a> convicted of a death sentence by its Sharia courts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Imran Khan might lack the self-awareness to connect his narrative or politics with Islamist radicalism, he might be able to see the diplomatic cost.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is no coincidence that some of the goriest mob lynching incidents in Pakistan overlapped with the country\u2019s moratorium on the death penalty, and the initiation of its longest sustained period as an official democracy 13 years ago. In 2009<\/a>, a Christian locality was torched and six people burned alive in the city of Gojra; the minority community was similarly targeted in Lahore\u2019s Joseph Colony<\/a> four years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobs have regularly vandalized churches<\/a>, temples<\/a>, and even mosques<\/a> belonging to the Ahmadiyya sect. Ahmadi Muslims, constitutionally excommunicated<\/a> in Pakistan, are deemed sacrilegious by virtue of their existence, and are hence frequent targets of mob attacks, with even the government-affiliated Council of Islamic Ideology pushing for the community\u2019s elimination<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 260 Ahmadis<\/a> and 78 people accused of blasphemy<\/a> have been killed extrajudicially since 1984; hundreds have also been arrested over accusations of sacrilege against Islam. This was a natural corollary of Pakistan Islamizing its penal code under military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That meant that the blasphemy law (sections 295 and 295-A of the Pakistan Penal Code<\/a>, rooted in the Indian Penal Code of 1860), which had hitherto been equally applicable to all religions, saw the insertion of Islam-specific clauses 295-B and C, in 1982 and 1986 respectively. These two clauses imposed harsher penalties for desecration of the Quran and defiling the name of the Prophet Muhammad; for the latter, death is an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The causal relation between Islamization of the penal code and persecution of minorities can be seen in the jump in blasphemy accusations. Seven<\/a> blasphemy cases had been registered in the country between 1927 and 1986, whereas at least 1,855 people<\/a> have been accused of sacrilege since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even as students are being lynched<\/a>, acclaimed academics sentenced to death<\/a>, and Nobel laureates disowned<\/a> as a direct result of the state\u2019s endorsement of murder for supposed sacrilege against Islam, even those ostensibly seeking solutions to Islamist mob violence have preferred to circumvent the actual problem: the Islam-specific clauses of the blasphemy law and the capital punishment associated with them. The reluctance to address this cause is rooted in fear that criticism of the blasphemy law itself could be deemed blasphemous in Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When Punjab governor Salman Taseer<\/a> dared to confront Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy law head-on, dubbing it a black law<\/a>,\u201d he was gunned down by his bodyguard in 2011; he remains the law\u2019s most high-profile victim. Taseer\u2019s murderer, hanged on terrorism charges in 2016, now has a shrine<\/a> devoted to him in Islamabad and has motivated the rise of the latest in a long line of radical Islamist groups to hold the country hostage: the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formed as a pressure group against the execution of Taseer\u2019s killer, the TLP has equipped itself with the already weaponized blasphemy law, frequently choking off the capital with massive crowds or instigating mob violence in the name of love for Prophet Muhammad<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past four years, the TLP has forced the government to retract bills<\/a>, remove an economic advisor<\/a>, ban an award-winning film<\/a>, and has even claimed credit for the cancellation of a cartoon contest in the Netherlands<\/a>\u2014the latter expanding the TLP\u2019s global ambitions. And so, when French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo<\/em> republished its caricatures of Muhammad in September 2020, a TLP-inspired immigrant<\/a> launched a terrorist attack in Paris, while the group itself demanded the Pakistani government drop a nuclear bomb<\/a> on France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past 15 months, France has been at the heart of the TLP\u2019s tussle with the Pakistani government, which agreed, among other things<\/a>, to consider the expulsion of the French ambassador last year. When the TLP\u2019s violent protests resurfaced in April, the group was proscribed<\/a> as a terror organization, but the ban was revoked<\/a> last month. The volte-face was hardly surprising given Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan\u2019s vocal ideological support for the outfit that his government had denounced for terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the TLP\u2019s banning, Khan reassured the group that he shared<\/a> their goals. Instead of addressing the blasphemy laws in his own country, Khan maintained he wanted to export<\/a> them globally, saying days after banning the TLP that he wanted people in the West to be scared of blaspheming against our prophet.\u201d Khan has similarly looked to woo the Ahle Sunnat, or Barelvi, Islamic sect by setting up spiritual science<\/a>\u201d centers and announcing extravagant celebrations<\/a> for festivities associated with the sect. Barelvi Islam, of which the TLP is a radical manifestation<\/a>, is followed by a majority of Muslims across South Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, Kumara\u2019s murder prompted a strong reaction from Khan, who called<\/a> it a day of shame for Pakistan,\u201d a term he hasn\u2019t used when discussing any of the country\u2019s own victims of Islamist mob violence. While Khan might lack the self-awareness to connect his narrative or politics with Islamist radicalism, he might be able to see the diplomatic cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Islamic World Has a Blasphemy Problem<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have such bad laws gotten on the books in Muslim countries? It’s complicated.DISPATCH <\/a>| KRITHIKA VARAGUR<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afghan Refugees Get Cold Welcome in Pakistan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taliban takeover has pushed many Afghans over the border and into another kind of limbo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, days after Khan had expressed hope to intimidate the West into embracing Islamic blasphemy laws, the European Union passed a joint motion<\/a> asking Pakistan to repeal certain sections of its blasphemy law to continue to benefit from the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) status. The GSP+ status gives Pakistan tax relief and a cost advantage by allowing the country to sell its goods with lower tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EU parliamentarians have since continued<\/a> to criticize Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy laws, with many demanding the removal of Pakistan\u2019s GSP+ status, in one instance citing 47 then-current cases<\/a> of people held on blasphemy charges in the country. The case of Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel, the Christian couple on death row for sending blasphemous texts<\/a>,\u201d became the focus of the EU parliament\u2019s motion, and the couple was duly released<\/a> a month after the resolution was passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan and his government may have initially hoped that they could stoke hatred against France and still receive over 500 million euros<\/a> in aid from Paris, and hundreds of millions<\/a> more from the EU, as they have managed<\/a> to do with the United States. But whereas the European Union\u2019s resolution might have given Islamabad financial jitters, especially amid the country\u2019s growing<\/a> economic crisis, Kumara\u2019s killing could lead to a graver reality check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is Sri Lanka one of the few countries in the region with which Islamabad enjoys warm ties<\/a> (meaning the murder\u2019s consequences may be felt more deeply), the killing of a foreign national over blasphemy could significantly harm Pakistan\u2019s investment climate, which had only recently begun to recover<\/a> from decades of terrorism-inflicted economic crises. Although terrorist attacks had been ravaging the country for years, it was the jihadist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 that isolated Pakistan<\/a> in sport, entertainment, tourism, and most forms of people-to-people exchanges for over a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Sialkot murder doesn\u2019t enlighten Pakistan\u2019s rulers, a call to action from China likely will.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Sialkot murder doesn\u2019t enlighten Pakistan\u2019s rulers, a call to action from China likely will. Beijing is already concerned<\/a> about a wide array of militants targeting its investments and workers in Pakistan, with attacks on the Chinese ambassador<\/a> and a fatal bus explosion killing a group of Chinese engineers<\/a> occuring this year. Jihadists angered by China\u2019s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, and Baloch militants who see Beijing as the latest colonial master<\/a> in Pakistan\u2019s Balochistan province, are now targeting China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of Chinese workers in Pakistan is expected to reach 5 million<\/a> by 2025, largely in connection with bilateral projects between the two countries spearheaded by the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor<\/a> (CPEC), Beijing\u2019s highest ever overseas investment and Islamabad\u2019s self-touted lifeline<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Pakistan can crack down<\/a> on individual Uyghurs on China\u2019s orders, it would need a more comprehensive strategy to rein in Islamist mobs. It was in anticipation of the CPEC\u2019s inauguration that Pakistan launched its Zarb-e-Azb military operation<\/a> in 2014, significantly reducing jihadist terror attacks<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pakistani military, the effective ruler<\/a> of the country, also has much at stake. With the erstwhile guaranteed billions<\/a> from Washington no longer available following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the military now needs a domestic economy strong enough to generate resources to be appropriated<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The military also controls the Islamist groups, sustaining them as tools<\/a> to exercise domestic and regional clout, and can hence regulate radical backlash to unpopular moves. (Potential moves already in the pipeline include establishing diplomatic ties with Israel<\/a> and formally incorporating<\/a> the Pakistan-administered section of the disputed Kashmir region, thereby effectively abandoning Pakistan\u2019s formal claim to the Indian-controlled parts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the blasphemy front, although it might not necessarily mean repealing the law itself, some legal reform coupled with the already mulled-over<\/a> clampdown on vigilantism might provide some cover to halt Islamist mobs, even if temporarily. However, jihadist ideology and the radical Islamism it has spawned is unlikely to be uprooted altogether\u2014for it is the sole source of domestic and regional leverage for Pakistan\u2019s rulers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, a Pakistan-based journalist and a correspondent for The Diplomat. Courtesy foreignpolicy.com If Imran Khan cares about foreign investment and economic growth, he must abolish the country\u2019s blasphemy law. A member of the Human Rights Council of Pakistan places an earthen oil lamp to pay tribute to late Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}