Re: Pakistan must repeal its blasphemy law
^^ Deedee bhayya! Minorities in Pakistan are not in great shape due to “bad laws”. Read the following editorial before terming everyone a “traitor”.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_29-9-2005_pg3_1
EDITORIAL: How to deal with bad laws
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has recently observed that the law against “meals at weddings” is not being enforced in the provinces. A number of TV documentaries showed how blatantly wedding families were being allowed by local administrations to arrange lavish feasts. The food and catering industry had also found loopholes in the law banning meals at weddings that was legislated by the Nawaz Sharif government and upheld by the Supreme Court in November 2004. For instance, on July 23, 2005, PTV reported on wedding parties and tried to embarrass guests eating dinners in violation of the law. Everyone said that they wanted a feast at weddings. One bridegroom said that he did not want the feast but his bride’s family wanted the feast to reciprocate for the feasts they had enjoyed from others. It was found that in Karachi the police were not raiding wedding halls. But those questioned were not able to give any economic arguments against the law.
Indeed, the PTV documentary did not discuss a bad law. A bad law is that which does not have the support of the people and, therefore, cannot be enforced. Many so-called “Islamic” laws fall in this category, like the one on murder of khataa (manslaughter) and its diyat (blood money) especially in cases of manslaughter in the shape of road accidents. The ban on feasting has been partly inspired by religion, but it has no nexus with the economy. The law has damaged the economy, rendered hundreds of thousands of people unemployed and caused the poultry industry much harm. The Supreme Court may be dismayed by the fact that the anti-meal law is being flouted, but it should take a close look at why this is actually happening.
The Sharia bench of the Supreme Court also ruled in 1999 that banking and insurance and other riba-carrying instruments were unlawful, but the state was unable to enforce the law and the verdict came right back to the Supreme Court in appeal. We are still living in a legal limbo while modern banking grows apace and riba is the moving force of the economy. Repeatedly, special commissions, set up by governments to investigate why women were being legally discriminated against, have recommended the abolition of hudood laws simply because they are abused. Dozens of verdicts of qatt-e-yadd (cutting of hands) and rajm (stoning to death) have been handed down over the years, but the punishment has not been carried out in a single case.
The normal Pakistani reaction to this state of affairs is that the laws are good but we have not been able to mould our society enough for their proper implementation. What about looking at the whole issue from the legal tradition of judging “bad” laws? The laws must conform to the physical circumstances and social conditions of the society they are meant for. Even in the Islamic tradition, we know of instances where the laws were held in abeyance because society was not ready for them or they were too stringent, as in the case of the Quranic conditions to talaq (divorce). If we want to discuss the issue seriously, there is a mountain of “bad laws” that either “wither on the vine” like the one on qatl-e-khataa in the case of traffic accidents and the one on blasphemy. Known as the ‘insult’ law, and embodied in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) Article 295-C, through an Act of Parliament in 1986, it seeks to punish with death individuals who insult the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Called Blasphemy or Gustakhi-e-Rasul Law, it has targeted the minority communities, particularly the Christians. The most dangerous part of the Article 295-C is where it says that the offender shall be punished if he insults the sacred name of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) ‘by words either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly’. The official interpretation of the Article says that insult to any of the Prophets mentioned in the Quran would attract the death penalty.
There are hundreds of cases of blasphemy under which innocent people are rotting in jails. These people have been targeted and they now increasingly include Muslims who are trapped into blasphemy by their rival Muslims. The lower courts are coerced by local religious militias, who can actually cause harm to the judge, into handing down the death sentence. The property of the “blasphemer” is redistributed by the local thugs and the family of the “blasphemer” – in most cases a non-Muslim – is driven out. After being convicted, the accused goes to the death cell. After that, the case drags on for an average of seven years before the Supreme Court finally lets the accused go. So far not a single “blasphemer” has been punished. Is this, then, a “good” law?
The anti-meal law is not being observed and the economy and society is the winner in this case. If the provinces were to become strict, a whole section of economy and society would be harmed by it. By analogy, there should be a law against consumerism in general which brings the middle class under pressure, but there isn’t. On the other hand, there are laws like hudood and blasphemy which are being abused and there are whole sections of society brought under pressure by them. All these are “bad laws” in the legal sense and should be set aside. Meanwhile, since there is no political consensus on them, it is better to wink at their non-observance than insist that they be enforced. Surely the honourable Supreme Court should be seized of more weighty matters than compliance of such a bad law. *