Hundreds languish in Pakistan prisons on blasphemy charges
By Uzay Bulut
As a high-level European Union monitoring mission is expected to visit Pakistan on November 24, hundreds are in jail in the country on charges of blaspheming Islam.
Blasphemy is an offense officially punishable by death in Pakistan. In the past decade, vigilantes have murdered dozens of people in mob violence following blasphemy accusations. And the trend of use of those laws to target Christians, as well as other religious minorities, is increasing.
A 49-year-old blind Pakistani Christian, Nadeem Masih, for instance, has been arrested and charged with blasphemy, punishable by death, after a Muslim accused him of insulting Islam’s prophet, as reported by Christian Daily International-Morning Star News on October 31.
Martha Yousaf, the nearly 80-year-old mother of Masih, said that some Muslims at her son’s workplace often harassed him, sometimes extorting money from him and other times throwing water on him or calling him names. Then, they accused him of blasphemy and handed him to police, who booked him under Section 295-C of the harsh laws, which calls for the death sentence for insulting Muhammad. Yousaf told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News,
When I met my son for the first time in jail after his arrest, he cried bitterly as he told me how the police had mercilessly beaten him and forced him to admit to the false charge.
Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws are often used to target minority groups, but Christians are disproportionately affected. Indeed, roughly a quarter of all blasphemy accusations target Christians, a tiny and persecuted minority of the country.
Another Christian in Pakistan, who suffers from mental health issues, has also recently been arrested and charged under blasphemy, terrorism, and sedition laws. Police arrested Rasheed Masih, 48, on August 6, on allegations that he intended to incite religious tensions by recording a video against Islam and the government. His son Nabeel told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News,
He worked as a sanitary worker in a rural health center along with my mother Najma Rasheed, but he was targeted with false accusations when he raised his voice against corruption and theft of government resources by the Muslim staff members. His Muslim colleagues were also opposed to him when he turned down their attempts to convert him to Islam.
Meanwhile, a pastor acquitted of a false blasphemy charge after 13 years of languishing in prison died two days after his release. Pastor Zafar Bhatti, the 62-year-old founder of the Jesus World Mission Church ministry, died of cardiac arrest on October 5 at his home in Rawalpindi, Punjab Province, the British Asian Christian Association (BACA) rights group announced.
Bhatti was released from the Adiala District Jail after the Lahore High Court overturned his blasphemy conviction by a sessions court on October 2. He was arrested in 2012 after an Islamic cleric accused him of sending text messages disrespectful of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.
A trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment in 2017, but his sentence was escalated to the death penalty in 2022. BACA stated that Bhatti’s heart condition had been a serious concern for several years, with underlying issues such as diabetes taking a heavy toll.
The Pakistani population is 96% Muslim, the majority following the Sunni tradition. Pakistan underreports its Christian population, so accurate statistics are unavailable. However, there are roughly four million Pakistani Christians, which is nearly 2% of the nation’s population.
According to the organization the Voice of the Martyrs, which monitors Christian persecution,
Because of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, Christians are at constant risk of being falsely accused of blaspheming Islam, the Quran or Muhammad, and they receive harsh punishments when convicted … Christians have been imprisoned for years under the country’s blasphemy laws, and many of those have been killed or forced to permanently flee the country upon release from prison.
A 2023 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) states:
In Pakistan, blasphemy accusations, whether true or false, often lead to lengthy prison sentences on death row and solitary confinement, foment violence towards religious minorities, and in some cases, the killing of the accused. Many instances illustrate the use of blasphemy allegations to settle personal vendettas, leading to acts of violence before charges can be drafted or presented to a court. In many cases, there is no punishment for those who offer false accusations or perpetrate vigilante violence.
According to advocacy groups, more than 2,100 people have been accused of blasphemy in Pakistan since 1987, with 40 currently on death row and at least 89 killed by mobs for blasphemy accusations. Rather than taking steps to mitigate the violence, however, the Pakistani government has recently undertaken efforts to strengthen the country’s existing blasphemy legislation.”
In 2023, Pakistan’s National Assembly unanimously voted to expand the country’s laws on blasphemy, which already carried the death penalty for insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The new law now extends the punishment to those deemed to have insulted Muhammed’s companions as well, which could include thousands of early Muslims, with 10 years in prison or life imprisonment.
Pakistan has the world’s second-strictest blasphemy laws after Iran. Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer, for instance, was sentenced to death on the charge of insulting Muhammed on Facebook in 2019. His sentence has been under appeal.
In a more recent case, a court in northwestern Pakistan has sentenced four men to death for allegedly posting sacrilegious materials about the Quran and Islamic figures. On January 25, Tariq Ayub, a judge in Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, sentenced the four to death by hanging. They were also fined more than $16,000.
Many extrajudicial killings related to blasphemy have also occurred in Pakistan. In August 2023, for instance, a mob of hundreds of Muslims attacked the Christian community of Jaranwala, destroying dozens of churches and homes following accusations of blasphemy. The attacks erupted after two Christians were accused of desecrating the Quran. The violence caused hundreds to flee their homes. The attacks in Jaranwala represent the most severe attack against Pakistani Christians in recent years.
Yet, hopes for justice for the victims of the Jaranwala violence ostensibly ended when a high court on October 22 rejected all petitions filed by individuals and Christian groups seeking a judicial investigation.
After a delay of two years, Lahore High Court Justice Asim Hafeez wrote in his verdict that the high court did not have the jurisdiction to order the formation of a judicial commission to investigate religiously motivated attacks on Christians in Jaranwala.
Pakistanis thus remain vulnerable to abuse and murder in the face of blasphemy accusations. In May of 2024, a mob in Punjab Province attacked a 72-year-old Christian man after accusing him of desecrating pages of the Quran.
He later died at a hospital after succumbing to his injuries. A month later, a local tourist was dragged from a police station and killed by a mob in northwest Pakistan after being accused of blasphemy. The mob had gathered after the man was accused of desecrating the Quran. Footage shows the man’s body being paraded through the streets and then set alight.
Religious persecution in Pakistan is not limited to imprisonment and murder over blasphemy claims. The Center for the Study of Organized Hate reported this past August:
The state of religious freedom in Pakistan is increasingly more dire. Individuals from religious minority groups face pervasive discrimination and sustained persecution for their beliefs.
They are frequently accused of allegations of blasphemy on the basis of the country’s infamous blasphemy laws, which are now often enforced in tandem with the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) that empowers the state to exert comprehensive control over social media.
Pakistani citizens belonging to the Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Shia, Ahmadi, and Kalash religious communities face systemic discrimination and endure harassment, entrapment in fabricated blasphemy allegations, mob violence, lynchings, targeted killings, forced conversions, arbitrary detention, and destruction of property, including their places of worship and cemeteries.”
Meanwhile, a high-level European Union monitoring mission is expected to visit Pakistan on November 24 to review the implementation of the preferential trade mechanism granted by the bloc to the country. The mission, comprising officials from the European External Action Service and the European Commission’s Directorates General for Trade and for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, will assess Pakistan’s progress on the implementation of 27 international conventions related to human and labor rights, environmental protection, climate change, and good governance.
Pakistan is a major beneficiary of the trading opportunities offered by the EU Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP). Since January 1, 2014, Pakistan has benefited from generous tariff preferences (mostly zero duties on two-thirds of all product categories) under the so-called GSP+ arrangement aiming to support sustainable development and good governance.
The EU monitoring mission would be well advised to assess particularly the cases of blasphemy and other severe religious freedom violations in Pakistan before they proceed to decide whether the government of Pakistan is fit to benefit from EU’s trading and tariff opportunities.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkey-born journalist formerly based in Ankara. She focuses on Turkey, political Islam, and the history of the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
