Pakistan’s Penal Code Section 295-C is today the most controversial and blood-soaked law in the country. It falls under religious offenses and specifically deals with blasphemy against Islamic prophet Muhammad. Its words state that anyone who, by words, writing, speech, pictures, or visible representation, directly or indirectly defiles the name of Islamic prophet Muhammad shall be punished with death, or life imprisonment, and a fine.
The courts have declared it a divine law and reduced the punishment to death only. In 1991, the Federal Shariah Court’s verdict removed the option of life imprisonment. The crime is now unpardonable. This law is used as a weapon for personal vendettas and against religious minorities especially against Christians. The facts also point in the same direction.
Since 1986, cases of blasphemy and desecration of religion have increased dramatically. This law disproportionately targets religious minorities, even though they constitute only three percent of Pakistan’s total population. People also frequently use it to settle personal enmities.
As soon as false allegation is made, the accused is murdered outside the court and the entire area erupts into riots. Mosques’ loudspeakers blare announcements urging, “Come and save the honour of Muhammad.”
For example, in 2023 in Jaranwala’s Christian colony, as soon as a false allegation of Quran desecration was leveled, more than six thousand enraged Muslims set fire to hundreds of Christian homes and several churches.
Similarly, in 2013 in Lahore’s Joseph Colony, when a false blasphemy accusation was made against a Christian man, more than two thousand people burned dozens of Christian homes to ashes.
In 2009 in Gojra (Toba Tek Singh district), on the occasion of a wedding, a false allegation of Quran desecration led a violent mob to attack a Christian settlement, killing eight Christians — including four women, a seven-year-old child named Musa, and others — while nearly a hundred homes were torched.
In 1997 in Shanti Nagar (Khanewal), thousands of Muslims attacked a Christian village, burning more than seven hundred homes, twelve churches, and thousands of Bibles, leaving thousands of Christians homeless.
In all these terrorist, inhuman, and religiously fanatic attacks, not a single Muslim perpetrator received even one minute of punishment.
However, in Sargodha, when a false allegation was leveled against an elderly Christian named Lazar (Nazir) Masih, the furious mob subjected him to brutal torture. He succumbed to his injuries and was martyred — while neither the accusers nor the attackers faced any punishment.
Human rights activists have been making failed and futile attempts for many years to bring changes to this law but have not succeeded. The main reason is that they have failed to connect with the common people. Because ordinary Muslims consider this law a command of the Quran and Hadith, and the Islamic scholars regard it as correct.
In 2010, as soon as a case was registered against Asia Bibi, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer demanded a pardon and criticized the law. Muslims launched massive and fierce protests against him. In December 2010, his own bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri shot him dead. The public gave Qadri a hero’s welcome. When he was hanged, hundreds of thousands attended his funeral, and protests erupted across the country.
This clearly shows that human rights activists still do not understand the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people and are terrified of being labelled enemies of Islam if they speak up.
To change this law, the same courage, boldness, and language is needed that directly confronts the prevailing false teachings and beliefs of Islam. The gap between the people and reformers has widened even further.
If criticism is made only in the name of human rights, nothing will change. In a country like Pakistan, human rights are seen as alien and contradictory to Islam.
The biggest problem in Pakistan is: who should one talk to about amending this law? This question remains unanswered to this day. Everyone values their life, home, wife, children, and family. Anyone who talks about amending this law loses everything — their life, property, and family.
This problem can only be solved by speaking directly to Islam. But unfortunately, according to today’s dominant interpretation, Islam demands blood, not humanity.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Unfortunately, we have yet to get an American president who recognizes Fuckistan as a major enemy! At the levels of the islamic regime in Iran
David Lakatos says
Murdering religious fanatics.
jerry glenn says
Their country their rules. But why do we keep inviting them into ours?
Westman says
Fear is not respect, an understanding that escapes the more oppressive and fundamentalist Muslim nations. Their brutal oppression of religious minorities and clever killing of their own in relgious disputes only places them on the unwanted list of humanity.
They brag of more than 1.5 billion Muslims yet ignore Muslims are not wanted in the nations of 6.8 billion infidel people. That’s 4.5/1 ratio of being unwanted and when considering that many Muslim nations will war with each other, being Muslim on the World Stage is not a positive nor is it even safe around the, “Brothers”.
Pakistan does itself no good with laws allowing the persecution of non-muslims, minorities, or premeditated Muslim targets. Economic opportunities are lost and the best minds leave.
David Lakatos says
Islam has a phobia about anything not Islamic.
somehistory says
Feculent and putrid place to try to live as a moral human.
Troybeam says
Always said: a whisper on the wind leads to death in Islamic countries.
Troybeam says
All a Muslim has to state this person blasphemed the prophet even if it was not spoken, how is one to prove it?
One cannot prove it unless there was numerous people around and even then its a crap shoot.