Letter to South China Morning Post: [Postscript: this letter was run in the Post, about a week later, uncut -- including the "Prophet" in quotes!)
Aryeh Neier is right to condemn draconian blasphemy laws in places such as Pakistan (“No justification for law on blasphemy”, South China Morning Post, January 18 -- below).
In particular he makes a good point in differentiating between so-called “hate speech” and blasphemy. He is wrong, however, to sheet home the blame for blasphemy laws on “British colonial rule”. Though elements of such laws were a British legacy from the establishment of Pakistan, it was only in later years that they were progressively made harsher.
In the late 1970s Zia ul-Haq made Islamic Sharia laws tougher and introduced harsh penalties for criticism of the “Prophet” Muhammad.
In the late 1970s Zia ul-Haq made Islamic Sharia laws tougher and introduced harsh penalties for criticism of the “Prophet” Muhammad.
In the 1990s Nawaz Sharif made blasphemy punishable by death, in accordance with strictures of Sharia, and Pervez Musharraf enshrined these provisions up to 2007.
In short, it was only as Pakistan hewed more closely to the orthodox laws of Sharia that blasphemy became increasingly punishable, ultimately (and grotesquely) by death. It was these steps, taken by an independent Pakistan that led to the following baleful figures: nearly 1,300 individuals accused of blasphemy between 1986 and 2010, up from only three in the previous fifty years. Lynch mobs have killed many “blasphemers”.
Only by facing core tenets of Sharia will there be any possibility to challenge the “threat to the freedom of expression” by blasphemy laws that Neier correctly identifies.
Yours etc,
Reference: “Pakistan must face up to the enemy within”. Comments on Praveen Swami article in The Daily Telegraph, 6 January. Here.
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No justification for law on blasphemy |
| The assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan and an outspoken critic of religious extremism, has focused attention on his country's draconian blasphemy law. Adopted in its present form by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq's military dictatorship more than 30 years ago, the blasphemy law imposes a mandatory death penalty on anyone convicted of insulting Islam. The police officer who murdered Taseer apparently acted because the governor recently launched a campaign to repeal the law. For a long time, blasphemy laws were considered an unfortunate legacy of efforts in England during the religious struggles of the 16th and 17th centuries to suppress deviant interpretations of scripture among Christians. They were spread in South Asia and elsewhere through British colonial rule. Blasphemy became a global concern in the late 1980s when Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of the writer Salman Rushdie for his novel, The Satanic Verses. More recently, arguments that it is legitimate to make blasphemy a crime have, disturbingly, gathered increasing support. Those who insist that blasphemy does not warrant the protection otherwise given to freedom of expression often claim that it is a form of hate speech. It seems important, therefore, to clarify the differences between hate speech and blasphemy. Inasmuch as hate speech involves incitement of imminent violence, it may be made criminal. It is assumed in such circumstances that the violence will be carried out by those who sympathise with the views of the person inciting hatred. Ordinarily, however, the circumstances in which blasphemy may lead to violence are entirely different. In those circumstances, the violence is not imminent, and it is carried out by those offended by the speaker's views rather than by sympathisers. And, of course, it is typically carried out on the speaker. This makes criminalisation of blasphemy a far greater threat to freedom of expression. After all, while a speaker can reasonably take care not to express views that will lead to imminent violence, if listeners have unlimited discretion in determining what causes offence, the speaker can never know what will so offend some people near or far at some time in the future that they will commit violence. These differences between hate speech and blasphemy are fundamental. It is, therefore, inappropriate to extend the legal restrictions on hate speech to blasphemy. Criminalising blasphemy should be strongly opposed, even by those who believe that there are certain limited circumstances in which it is appropriate to make hate speech a crime. Of course, such distinctions do not matter much to the religious fanatics who rejoice in the murder of Salman Taseer. Yet those who admire his courage in struggling for freedom of expression ought to see to it that efforts to make blasphemy a crime, or to perpetuate it as a criminal offence, are afforded no legitimacy whatsoever. Aryeh Neier is president of the Open Society Institute and a founder of Human Rights Watch |
