Pakistan: Human Rights Violations

Junaid Hafeez has been sentenced to death for blasphemy by the sessions court of Multan, a city in the Province of Punjab, Pakistan. The death sentence was awarded on December 21, 2019 in the Central Jail of Multan where the court proceedings were held because of security reasons. Junaid, a 33 year old young scholar of English Language and Literature, was working as a lecturer at Bahuddin Zakariah University in Multan. He has been accused of insulting Islam and its Prophet. He has been in prison for the past seven years. His first lawyer, Rashid Rehman, a human rights activist, was assassinated by religious extremists while the lawyer was sitting in his law chamber in Multan courts. During Rashid Rehman’s last appearance in session court’s hearing of Junaid’s case, another lawyer together with a local politician, threatened Rashid Rehman, in front of the session’s judge, saying that he would not be alive to represent Junaid in the next hearing. When Rashid drew the attention of the session’s judge towards the death threat, the judge just kept his silence. The murder of Rashid Rehman terrorized the lawyer community so much that no lawyer was ready to take up his case. With great difficulty and after a long wait, Junaid found a lawyer who took up courage to advocate Junaid’s case. Junaid’s lawyer has submitted an appeal in the High Court, Lahore, Pakistan against the session’s court verdict.

Junaid Hafeez is a young scholar with a brilliant academic career. After completing his senior high school, Junaid got admission in a college of medicines. Admission in medicines and engineering colleges in Pakistan is not an easy business. After studying medicines for a year, Junaid felt that his taste for knowledge was not in medicines but in art and literature. He left medicines and instead studied humanities, art and literature. After completing his studies of art and American literature, Junaid came to Pakistan to work for the growth and development of his own country but alas, the religious extremists did not allow him to accomplish his goal. What is going to be the future of Junaid Hafeez’ life in not known. His survival is in the hands of the High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan. But more than that, his survival depends upon the safety and security provided to him by the Pakistan’s security agencies in the prison. His life is at risk because the Islamic extremists are looking for the opportunity to kill the accused blasphemer in order to gain an honourable position in ‘Jannat’ (the heavens above).

Junaid Hafeez is not the only one who the religious fundamentalists want to annihilate.

The religious jihadists do not spare any moment to silence any voice that is raised for secular, liberal thought or philosophy.  They did this with Professor Khalid Hameed, Head of the Department of English Language & Literature of Government College, Bahawalpur, Pakistan. Professor Hameed was stabbed and killed in his college office by a student, Khateeb Hussain, who did not agree with his secular and liberal philosophy. The killer was the follower of the Islamic school of thought known as Tehreek Labbek Ya Rasool Allah (TLYRA). The murderer of the professor had no remorse for the barbaric act that he committed. He felt satisfied that he had completed a moral and religious obligation. Mishal Khan, a student of Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, Pakistan, was killed by a mob of religious extremists on allegations of posting anti-Islamic material online. Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, was murdered by his radical security guard. Taseer’s only mistake was that he visited and sympathized with Asiya Bibi, a Christian woman who spent eight years in prison for alleged blasphemy against Islam and its Prophet. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Federal Minister for Minorities, was gunned down in the capital city of Islamabad, Pakistan. Bhatti had the courage to raise his voice against the notorious Blasphemy Law of Pakistan. Naimat Ahmer, a Christian educationist of the Government of Punjab, was shot dead in the office of the Regional District Education Officer. Mob attacks, bombings, shootings and burning of churches and localities/villages of Christians, Ahmediya’s mosques and minority communities’ festivals, abduction, rape and forceful conversion of girls and women of minority Christian and Hindu communities are some of the examples of oppression and persecution of vulnerable minorities of Pakistan. The list of incidents of persecution and oppression of religious minorities in Pakistan is unending.

The recent verdict of the Lahore High Court against General Parvez Musharraf reflects the attitude of Pakistan’s judiciary. The court has awarded death sentence to Parvez Musharraf. The court ruling says that, in case the convict dies before the punishment is implemented, his dead body should be dragged to the Parliament’s Square and hanged there for three days. What does this verdict of the High Court of the country reflect?

On December 25, 2019, Aljazeera, a news media of international repute, reported in its story titled as: ‘Arbitrary’: Pakistan rejects US religious freedom designation, a brief summary of human rights’ violations in Pakistan.

Aljazeera reports that:

“The US State Department announced last week that it was re-designating Pakistan as a “country of particular concern” for “having engaged in or tolerated ‘systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom'”.

Aljazeera further reports that:

“Pakistan is home to roughly 207 million people, of whom the vast majority are Muslim. About 1.6 percent of the population is Hindu, with a further 1.59 percent Christians, according to a 1998 government census.

Crimes targeting members of minority groups – including non-majority Muslim sects – occur sporadically, including targeted attacks against Christians, Shia Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims and others, and the disproportionate application of the country’s strict blasphemy laws, which can carry a death sentence”.

Aljazeera reports that

“The US designation is based on an evaluation carried out by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent body funded by Washington.

In its 2019 report, the USCIRF said Pakistan had failed to adequately protect its minorities and failed to ensure religious freedom for all, including members of the majority”.

“The government of Pakistan failed to adequately protect these groups, and it perpetrated systematic, ongoing, egregious religious freedom violations,” reads the report.

According to Aljazeera:

“The report makes special mention of the blasphemy laws, which criminalize insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad or its holy book, the Quran. Those crimes carry punishments of a mandatory death sentence and life imprisonment respectively”.

Blasphemy laws

“Increasingly, those accused of blasphemy have been killed in targeted attacks or by violent mobs. Since 1990, at least 75 people have been killed in such attacks, according to an Al Jazeera tally.

At least 40 people remain on death row or serving life sentences for committing blasphemy in Pakistan, according to USCIRF”.

Pakistan needs to come out of the clutches of the religious extremists to overcome its non-democratic status. The entire state is at the mercy of the Islamic fundamentalists who keep hounding and terrorizing the state at every level. The parliamentarians, the judiciary, the security agencies and even the armed forces are scared of the religious fundamentalists. Pakistan needs to design an educational and social media plan that pulls the nation out of the bog of mullahism. The country needs to free itself of the shackles of religion and become a secular democracy in which every citizen enjoys equal rights and opportunities.

Mumtaz Shah