Foe few weeks a serious issue, ‘blasphemy’, was the talk of the town. Pakistan had apparently succeeded in stopping the contest of Blasphemous Caricature which was to be held in Holland organised by Geert Wilders.

Blasphemy law is a law limiting the freedom of speech and expression relating to blasphemy, or irreverence toward holy personages, religious artifacts, customs, or beliefs.

The Pakistan Penal Code prohibits blasphemy against any recognised religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. From 1987 to 2014 over 1300 people have been accused of blasphemy, Muslims constitute the majority of those booked under these laws.

Over 60 people accused of blasphemy have been murdered before their respective trials were over, and prominent figures who opposed the blasphemy law have been assassinated. Since 1990, 62 people have been murdered as a result of blasphemy allegations.

According to one religious minority source, an accusation of blasphemy commonly subjects the accused, police, lawyers, and judges to harassment, threats, attacks and rioting. Critics complain that Pakistan’s blasphemy law “is overwhelmingly being used to persecute religious minorities and settle personal vendettas,” but calls for change in the blasphemy laws have been strongly resisted by Islamic parties. Blasphemy law sometimes has also been used wrongly in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s laws became particularly severe between 1980 and 1986, when a number of clauses were added to the laws by the military government of General Zia-ul Haq, to “Islamicise” the laws and deny the Muslim character of the Ahmadi minority. Prior to 1986, only 14 cases pertaining to blasphemy were reported.

Cases under blasphemy law have also been registered against Muslims who have harassed non-Muslims.

By its constitution, the official name of Pakistan is the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” More than 96% of Pakistanis are Muslims. Among countries with a Muslim majority, Pakistan has the strictest anti-blasphemy laws. The first purpose of those laws is to protect Islamic authority. By the constitution (Article 2), Islam is the state religion. By the constitution’s Article 31, it is the country’s duty to foster the Islamic way of life. By Article 33, it is the country’s duty to discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian, and provincial prejudices among the citizens. Under Article 10A of constitution it is also the state’s duty to provide for the right of fair trial. Section 295 and 298 with its sub sections of Pakistan Penal Code particularly deals with blasphemy.

The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is a religious body which rules on whether any particular law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam.

Pakistan’s opposition to blasphemy has caused Pakistan to be active in the international arena in promoting global limitations on freedom of religion or belief and limitations on freedom of expression. In March 2009, Pakistan presented a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva which calls upon the world to formulate laws against the defamation of religion.

In May 2010, Pakistan blocked access to Facebook because the website hosted a page called Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Pakistan lifted the block after Facebook prevented access to the page. In June 2010, Pakistan blocked seventeen websites for hosting content that the authorities considered offensive to Muslims. At the same time, Pakistan began to monitor the content of Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail, and Bing. There is ban on Facebook in China, Iran and North Korea while Bangladesh and Malaysia has censorship on it. So, it can be done without hurting anyone’s emotions.

On 19 March 2014, Pakistani newspaper, “The Nation”, conducted a poll of its readers that showed 68% of Pakistanis believe the blasphemy law should be repealed.

On the other hand, the International Crisis Group reports that the Islamic parties are most successful in galvanising street power when the goal is narrowly linked to obstructing reforms to discriminatory religious laws that often provoke sectarian violence and conflict and undermine the rule of law and constitutionalism.

Arrests and death sentences issued for blasphemy laws in Pakistan go back to the late 1980s and early 90s. Despite the implementation of these laws, no one has yet been executed by the order of the courts or governments as to date, only imprisoned to await a verdict or killed at the hands of felons who were convinced that the suspects were guilty.

Christians and Muslims in Pakistan condemned Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code as blasphemous. On 3 June 2006, Pakistan banned the film. Culture Minister Ghulam Jamal said: “Islam teaches us to respect all the prophets of God Almighty and degradation of any prophet is tantamount to defamation of the rest.”

The fabricated cases for personal gain are also used sometimes. So, close scrutiny should be conducted so that only culprits are punished. According to Article 19 of 1973 Constitution, freedom of expression is allowed to every Pakistani but not at the cost of derogation of religion, defence and peace of the country.

Some things should be done by state that all religious institutions and mosques of the country should be under state control as in Turkey and Friday Sermons Should also be issued by state. All Imams and Qaris should also be employees of the state. No one should be allowed to take law into his own hands and iron hand should be used in this respect if needed.

During last government’s era, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui compelled the government to take this thing seriously and then Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has rightly addressed the issue of ‘Objectionable Content’ on social media by a move to devise Muslim World plan against blasphemous content.

The present government should also involve OIC and Arab League including sixty Muslim Countries in it and UNO platform should be used to assert on the issue. Moreover, if there is ban even on the talk of Holocaust in the West so the blasphemy should also be considered seriously. West is not aware of the sensitivity of blasphemy issue but we have to make them realise that they thus are playing with the fire which can gulp the peace of the world. .As a Muslim, we all are liable to condemn it and liable to ban it if needed. Moreover, as a Muslim State no compromise should be made on the sanctity of Islam, Prophet(PBUH) or any other prophet and religion.

The writer is medical doctor by profession and a content writer, freelance writer

and a poet. He is a motivational speaker and columnist and has written for a number of English dailies like Dawn, Express Tribune, The Business and The Educationist etc. He is also Alumni of LUMS and doctor at CMH Hospital.

The Nation

I had been considering writing on this topic for a while, but I foolishly believed it to be ‘trivial’ or ‘unimportant’, or even ‘so incredibly stupid that my brain hurt to dwell on it for more than a moment’. But our elected leadership and our guardians of justice have managed to open my stubborn eyes. If they apparently believe it to be the most important stand they will ever take, how can I ignore it?

I commend the powers that be, from all branches of the government. Our detractors may insist that our government has all the efficacy of a wet paper bag at a pillow fight but we have proved them wrong. We have proved that when it matters, when we come down to it, when our future is on the line we do not infight, we do not waver. We are coming up to a year since we have patriotically held firm and held together in that most important of issues: YouTube.

This was a necessary step, of course, in showing western powers that we will not be bullied from without, that we will fight tooth and nail for our people. Yes, we kidnapped and detained people within our borders without due process at the behest of other governments. Yes, we allow drones to bombard civilian areas. Yes, we are constantly being dictated terms due to our coffers being so perennially depleted that we envy countries with a cash flow problem (because it implies that they, in fact, have a cash flow).

But one video among millions (available on many other websites) that can only offend someone if they search for it, view it and keep watching till the end? Now they have pushed us too far.

Showing our defiance, showing we are not ones to shy away from an international tussle, our newly appointed Minister for Information Anusha Rehman said we would unblock YouTube once every website, as in the entire internet, was free from objectionable content and presumably once the Sahara Desert was free from grains of sand. Neither criticism, nor mockery, nor our own staggering ignorance about the way the internet works has stopped our relentless defence.

Such is commitment, in the face of critics like Mina Muhibullah Kakakhel, who insist that students are suffering from missing the literally millions of educational and research oriented videos available on YouTube. If she truly cared about students, she would have realised long ago that no education is worth the risk that some evildoer will come into our schools, hold the children hostage, and force them to search for, open and watch the offending video.

We are a proud nation. We may negotiate with and harbour terrorists, we may have reduced our largest city to a nightmarish perpetual gangland through inaction, we may react to our annual floods with the foresight and reflexes of a man in a coma but by all that is holier than thou, we will not give in on this.

The Ostrich Defence is a time-honoured technique that we have perfected over time. Our ban of YouTube has not removed the videos because if we had the power to impose censorship worldwide I shudder (with delight of course!) to imagine what we’d do. But, like the magnificent ostrich (the most elegant and intelligent of all birds) we drive our heads into the sand with the comfortable knowledge that if we can’t see it, it can’t exist.

We occasionally couple this with our elegant Entitled Auntie Haggling Over Fish defence. Now, we claim with a straight face that would make the most consummate poker player blush, YouTube will suffer the loss of our custom. No more shall the completely free service profit from pious Pakistanis who never buy anything in their targeted ads. Like a shopkeeper who forgets his place, Google (YouTube’s parent company and almost certainly the 2030 owners of the world) will come back to the offended Auntie and grovel until she magnanimously restores them to her good graces.

And they certainly must. Without Pakistan, people will soon ask “Google who?” but will of course be unable to find the answer because no one remembers how to find things out without Google.

There is also a perfectly plausible security-based reason for this ban that can be understood via sufficient wringing of the brain (if it doesn’t hurt, you’re not wringing hard enough). By appeasing those who would have turned violent had YouTube not been banned – by definition, criminals and terrorists – we are embarking on a bold new strategy of pre-emptively surrendering, like a lifelong urban veteran wearily taking out his wallet at every traffic light whether anyone has asked him for it or not.

A more naïve leadership may have considered defending liberties and freedom to information, while punishing violent criminals. But so sagacious have we become that we have skipped over the formalities of attempting to control the situation, pretending the writ of the state can overrule rabble rousers, fighting, losing and negotiating. Indeed, we have skipped all that unnecessary hassle and moved straight to wringing our hands and asking whether aforementioned violent criminals would like some tea while they think of the next ridiculous demand, and the one after that, forever.

A point that has been brought up by weak-willed and unpatriotic Pakistanis is that we should be more thick-skinned, and ignore pathetic attempts at crude mockery by small and hateful people. The very idea! If our eyes offend us, we will cast them out. YouTube is a good start – but only a start.

We will ban every other video service that hosts a video uploaded by anyone, anywhere, that offends any Pakistani. We will ban search engines that return blasphemous insults if you search ‘blasphemous insults’. We will ban pens if a pen anywhere has been used to write offensive things because what other choice do we have? To not seek out, acquire and consume these rage-inducing pieces of media that literally anyone anywhere can create at any time? Ridiculous.

We must show we are ready to go back to the Stone Age, and even that only if those cave paintings are pre-approved. If not, back to living in trees, all the better to have a moral high ground while we become a frightening but fascinating spectacle for National Geographic.

We must show we are prepared to riot and murder a score of our own people (that’ll show those filthy westerners) every time an acne-riddled teenager anywhere decides he wants attention. Surely, allowing under-20 trolls the world over a chance to shut down our entire society every time they feel like it cannot possibly backfire.

So next time you feel depressed at the sheer scope of our unaddressed problems, next time you wonder what our government and judiciary – elected and supported by the mandate of the people in a heady rush of democracy – plan to do about extremism, power shortages, natural disasters and education, take heart: at least we’ve banned YouTube.

Zaair Hussain…The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: zaairhussain@gmail.com

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