Author: Ardeshir Cowasjee
Publication: Dawn
Date: March 14, 2004
URL: http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/20040314.htm
In the name of the law, Dr Mohammad
Younus Sheikh was accused in October 2000 of the crime of blasphemy, under
Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. In the name of the law, he was
tried in September 2001, found guilty, sentenced to death. In the name
of the law, he lived on death row in Adiala Jail until, in the name of
the law, his sentence was overturned in November 2003 and he was released,
in great secrecy.
His accusers immediately filed an
appeal against his acquittal and it being impossible for him to live a
normal life in this country as a free man and stay alive, he went into
hiding for a few weeks so as to be able to meet his family, and on the
morning of January 19, he boarded a flight to Dubai on his way to Geneva.
He flew away from his homeland to live in comparative safety, and freedom.
Such is the state of Pakistan, unwilling
or unable to provide protection, and such is the country's society, and
such is law and order, that a man once accused of blasphemy can only flee
his homeland if he is to find freedom and safety. Younus Sheikh had no
choice but to leave, and he did so reluctantly.
The sorry tale of Mohammed Younus
Sheikh is related on the website of the London-based International Humanist
and Ethical Union which led the campaign to free him (www.iheu.org/ younus_shaikh_free.htm).
Sheikh was born in Chishtian in
1952. After high school, he studied medicine in Multan where he qualified
as a doctor of medicine, and did post-graduate studies in Dublin and London.
He worked as a trainee surgeon in the United Kingdom from 1981 until 1988,
when he returned to Pakistan to teach at a medical college in Islamabad.
As with all human rights activists
in Pakistan, he attracted the attention of the fundamentalists. He took
part in the Pakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy, and was a member
of the South Asian Fraternity, South Asian Union and the Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan. In 1990, inspired by the ideas of the European Enlightenment
and Renaissance, he founded an organization known as 'The Enlightenment'.
At a meeting of the South Asian
Union on October 1, 2000, Younus Sheikh suggested that, in the interest
of the people of Kashmir, the Line of Control between the Indian and Pakistani
forces should become the international border. This clearly offended one
of our many dunderheads who informed Dr Shaikh: "I will crush the heads
of those that talk like this." On October 3, without any explanation being
offered, he was suspended by his college.
Later that same evening, one of
his students (with the backing of several of his fellows), an employee
of the Pakistani foreign office, made a complaint to a religious vigilance
group known as Majlis-i- Tahaffuz Khatm-i-Nabuwat, the committee for the
protection of the finality of the prophethood. The allegation was that
on October 2 in a lecture between 12 noon and 12-40 the doctor had made
blasphemous remarks about the Prophet of Islam. The vigilantes filed a
complaint with the police. Younus Sheikh was arrested on the evening of
October 4 and charged with blasphemy.
Those accused of blasphemy under
Article 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code are unable to obtain bail and
are held in custody awaiting trial. If pronounced guilty, they face a mandatory
death sentence. The trial of Dr Sheikh, held throughout the summer of 2001,
took place in a hostile courtroom packed with religious activists who warned
the defence lawyers to "think of your families and children". The final
two sessions were held in-camera with armed members of the Taliban waiting
outside. It was finally established during the trial that the alleged events
had never taken place. Nevertheless, on August 18, 2001, he was found guilty
and sentenced to death. Such injustices are the norm in cases of alleged
blasphemy.
For the next two years, Sheikh was
held in solitary confinement in a death cell in the central gaol in Rawalpindi.
He appealed to the Lahore High Court but the two appeal court judges failed
to agree. On July 15, 2002 the case was referred to a senior judge for
a final decision.
The case lingered for over a year
until the reluctant referee judge took up the case on October 9, 2003.
The judge finally decided that the original judgment was unsound but, playing
safe, as the lives and families of the judges who show leniency in blasphemy
cases are also at risk, rather than acquitting Sheikh he remanded the case
back to a lower court for retrial.
The retrial was held over three
sessions in November 2003 at the Session Court, Islamabad. In the light
of the harassment and intimidation suffered by his lawyers at the earlier
hearings, and much against the advice of the judge, of his colleagues,
his family and the members of the diplomatic community present in the court,
Dr Sheikh decided this time round to conduct his own defence. The prosecuting
counsel tried to exploit the religious feelings of the court but Sheikh
confined his defence to legal arguments and was finally acquitted on November
21.
The brave judge had accepted his
legal arguments, and had found the charges to be baseless: his accusers,
two mullahs and several students, had lied. Many victims of the Pakistani
blasphemy laws have failed to survive prison, and a number of those tried
and acquitted have been murdered following their release. A few recent
examples: Mohammed Yousaf was shot dead inside the central gaol in Lahore
in July 2002 while awaiting his appeal; in February 2003, Mushtaq Zafar,
accused of blasphemy, was shot dead on his way back home from the high
court; in June 2003, 35-year-old Naseem Bibi, who had been the victim of
a gangrape by police, was charged with blasphemy, and was murdered in prison
before her trial could begin.
The legal profession is also not
immune from attack. Defence lawyers are regularly intimidated by religious
bigots and fundamentalists, and one high court judge was murdered after
acquitting an accused in a blasphemy case.
As long as the blasphemy laws are
on the statute book they will continue to be misused. It is estimated that
over 100 innocent victims of Pakistan's mediaeval black laws are currently
in prison either awaiting trial or already under sentence of death, facing
an uncertain future. These victims may not be as fortunate as Dr Sheikh
who had a circle of committed friends inside and outside the country. These
laws, as is well known by the leaders and the led, are widely abused to
make false accusations against both Muslims and members of religious minorities,
as well as innocent business rivals and political opponents.
The blasphemy laws have served manifold
purposes for the ever-changing leadership of Pakistan. The present blasphemy
statutes were crafted in 1986 during the regime of General Ziaul Haq, an
avowed fundamentalist, although earlier laws date to the 19th century and
the time of the British colonial system. They defined blasphemy as anything
which "by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly"
insults Islam and its Prophet. In 1992, the law was amended by then prime
minister Nawaz Sharif to make blasphemy punishable only by death. Many
saw that as a move to placate Pakistan's growing nexus of Islamic extremists
and religious terrorists.
The military government of Chief
Executive General Pervez Musharraf in May 2001 attempted to modify some
of the anti-blasphemy laws, but backed down following threats from religious
leaders. Now President General Pervez Musharraf, with all powers firmly
in his hands, under great international pressure to modify the mindset
of his country, to drag it out of the dark ages and bring it into the world
of the 21st century, preaches moderation, enlightenment, toleration and
the like. If he, through fear of a backlash, insists on retaining the blasphemy
laws, the Hudood Ordinances, the Qisas and Diyat laws, and all other similar
laws that are merely used to bludgeon innocent citizens of his country,
there can be no moderation or enlightenment or tolerance.
The parliament he has put in place
is riddled with the immoderate, the unenlightened and the deeply intolerant,
so little can be expected of it. It is all up to the president. If he so
wishes, if he still has the will, and if he rids himself of his friendly
'advisers' who so ill-advise him, he can clean up the statute book and
free Pakistan of just some of the worldwide odium that haunts it.
Bad news: According to a news item
of March 10 in this newspaper ('Qazi sets terms for cooperation'), Qazi
Hussain Ahmed has announced that Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali has assured
the MMA that "his government will not repeal the Hudood Ordinances or effect
any changes in the law." What price moderation, enlightenment, tolerance?
