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07284
May 16, 2007
Pakistan’s Christians dismayed at failure to amend blasphemy law
by Anto Akkara
Ecumenical News International
BANGALORE, India — Churches in Pakistan say they are dismayed that the country’s parliament has rejected amendments to a law on blasphemy against Islam that includes a mandatory death sentence.
"We are disappointed once again,” said Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, which groups four Protestant churches.
Blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed is punishable by death under the law of Pakistan, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, although nobody has been executed for it. Critics of the law say it is often misused to settle property and personal disputes, and that it affects Christians disproportionately.
Azariah was speaking to Ecumenical News International following a special meeting of the church council in Lahore on May 14 to discuss last week’s rejection by parliament of the amendments to the blasphemy law.
M. P. Bhandara, a member of the minority Parsi community, introduced the amendments in parliament. He said they were necessary to make the legislation “non-discriminatory and equally protective of all citizens and their religious beliefs according to the constitution.”
Pakistan’s minister for parliamentary affairs, Sher Afgan Niazi, urged lawmakers to reject the proposals, and described them as “repugnant to the injunctions of Islam.” He said, “This is not a secular state but the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”
On taking power in 1999, Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, said he would amend the blasphemy law but subsequently changed his mind.
Courts have acquitted those accused of blasphemy in more than 100 cases after overruling lower tribunals. However, 20 people facing blasphemy charges, and who included six Christians, have been killed during their trials. Most Christians acquitted of blasphemy flee Pakistan, and Christians in the country note that a judge who ruled for an acquittal in a blasphemy case was murdered.
Muslims make up about 97 percent of Pakistan’s 164.7 million people. Christians account for fewer than 3 percent. |
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