The hostage state

The Supreme Court on Thursday, October 13, adjourned the final appeal of Aasia Bibi, a mother of five convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death. The adjournment is effectively sine die and no date has been fixed for a new hearing. The case was adjourned after Justice Iqbal Hameed recused himself on the grounds that he was a part of the bench that heard the case against Salman Taseer and that the Aasia Bibi case was related to that. Doubtless the Honourable Justice is on firm legal ground in his decision, but to the laypersons eye this is something of a fig leaf, allowing the state to avoid making a difficult decision and postponing that decision indefinitely.

Threats have been made as to the consequences were Aasia Bibi to have been acquitted; and these were of sufficient gravity for the government to deploy a heavy security presence in Islamabad against that eventuality. There was a sense of fear in the Christian minority community likewise, engendered also by what might happen if Aasia Bibi was set free. Again this fear is entirely justified. It is not for this newspaper to argue the rights and wrongs of the case here, but it is appropriate to observe that once again the blasphemy laws have led Pakistan to the forefront of the world stage — the case has been closely followed internationally — where it has been roundly criticised, indeed condemned.

In the matter of blasphemy the state is held hostage by a cadre of extremists who have the capacity to unleash violence and destruction if they feel they are being challenged. They threaten the judiciary, lawyers and defendants in any blasphemy case. Defendants have been murdered on the very steps of courts. Minority groups and not only Christians live in terror at what might befall them if they are accused of blaspheming. It is six years ago that Aasia Bibi was first sentenced to death by hanging and were the sentence to be carried out she would be the first to die at a ropes-end for blasphemy in the history of the state. And all for a dispute over a cup of water. Not only is the state held hostage it is manifestly spineless too.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2016.

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