At this week’s World Religions Café, Jiou Park, a second year master of theological studies candidate and a CSWR resident, presented an overview of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. For her presentation, Jiou first emphasized that despite the disparate importance given to control of religious speech in Muslim majority countries, regulation of religious speech is far from a uniquely Islamic phenomenon. To support this claim, and show that “blasphemy laws” are not the only ways that a government regulates religious speech, Jiou presented several legal provisions from various countries. Included were laws from Poland, the People’s Republic of China, and Algeria, and cases from the US.
Before turning to the more specific context of Pakistan, Jiou then briefly discussed the complexity of defining “blasphemy” in pre-modern Islamic tradition. For example, it is impossible to find a single and neatly defined category in Islamic law that could be translated into “blasphemy” or “heresy.” Moreover, understanding pre-modern Islamic law on speech regulation requires one to consider not only various categories of laws including determination of citizenship, laws of war, and political speech, but also the practical applications of evidentiary rules and legal maxims. As a result, discussing “blasphemy law” in the Islamic tradition is both a highly complex and context dependent endeavor.
Turning specifically to Pakistan, Jiou first commented in the colonial legacy of the existing provisions on blasphemy in Pakistan, Articles 295 and 298, which originated from the Indian Penal Code as adopted and amended during the British occupation. In addition, the amendments that resulted in particularly harsh penalties were adopted during the regime of general Zia ul-Huq in the 1980s, who pushed an agenda of Islamicization in order to obtain the support of the Islamists and the middle class. The blasphemy provisions were actively used in the decades following the amendments, resulting in more than 4000 cases. Jiou noted that blasphemy allegations are often brought due to political or property grievances, and extra-legal violence surrounding blasphemy allegations presented another serious problem.
Following the presentation, residents engaged in a lively discussion. The first comment was raised by the Center Director, Professor Francis Clooney. Professor Clooney noted that considering the concept of “rights of the divine” in addition to human rights could be a valuable in the context of blasphemy in particular and also speech regulation in a multi-religious society. Also emphasized by residents were several other issues including: the issue of context in interpreting Qur’anic verses or speeches and acts attributed to the Prophet and His companions, and the need to further examine the impact of modernism in the evolving world religions.