Pakistani Families Demand End To ‘Blasphemy Business’

(UCA News) — Hundreds of Pakistani people marched on the streets of the national capital Islamabad calling for an end to abuses by Muslim hardliners who allegedly exploited the repressive blasphemy law to file fake cases for extorting money.

The marchers were mostly from some 80 families whose members had been victimized by an alleged “blasphemy gang” across the Islamic republic. They also held a press conference at the National Press Club and a silent protest on Oct. 2.

The protesters called on the government to form an independent commission to probe fake cases of blasphemy and ensure justice for the victims.

Lawyer Usman Waraich, a legal counsel for some of the families, said that the gang entraps young people, mostly Muslims, in fake cases to extort money from their families.

More than 450 young Muslims are currently languishing in jails across Pakistan due to fake blasphemy cases, he said, adding that five accused including a 22-year-old woman died in prison due to torture.

The protest followed a report from the police in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province where most blasphemy cases are registered annually, which revealed the presence of a “blasphemy gang.”

Released in January but made public in July, the report said the gang members were complainants in about “90 percent cases” reported to and registered with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The report said the youth are lured into social media groups where controversial content is shared. They are then tricked into saving the blasphemous content on their phones and sharing it with others.

This serves as a pretext for filing blasphemy cases by the gang members in connivance with “some elements” in the agency (FIA), the report added.

Before a case is filed, the accused youth is called up to reach a settlement by paying money. If the person refused the case is filed with the agency, according to the report.

The gang members work in an “organized” manner and this is part of their “full time activities,” the report said, adding that their funding sources are still unknown.

They also publish and distribute leaflets and hold meetings to urge people to act against blasphemers, it added.

The report cited the case of Muslim lawyer Rao Abdur Rahman, who represented an imam of a mosque who accused a 14-year-old Christian girl Rimsha Masih of committing blasphemy by alleged Quran desecration in a predominantly Christian slum on the outskirts of Islamabad in 2012.

The case was dismissed in the court following an international backlash and Masih was acquitted. She and her family fled to Canada the next year.

Shia Muslim Nabeela Yasir, a mother of two from Lahore, Punjab, joined the Islamabad protest to demand the release of her husband arrested for allegedly sharing a blasphemous post on Facebook in December 2022.

She claimed her husband was tricked by a young Muslim girl who offered him a driver’s job in a “Spanish restaurant” in Islamabad. 

Her husband had no idea how he ended up an accused in a blasphemy case.

“He was abducted, given electric shocks, forced to drink gutter water and repeatedly slapped,” Yasir told UCA News.

“His right eye and right ear were seriously hurt due to the beatings. My children are unable to see him in the jail,” she lamented.

To pay for the blasphemy case the family sold 50 square meters of their land, she said, adding that the first time she visited her husband was in Jan. 2023, more than a year after his arrest.

An official of the FIA Zonal Office in Islamabad, who refused to give his name, told UCA News that “they are working on taking action against the group.”

Lahore-based activist Saleem Iqbal who offers legal support to 12 blasphemy-accused Muslims, claimed at least six Christians have been targeted by the blasphemy gang.

They include Shagufta Kiran, a Christian mother of four, sentenced to death last month by FIA court for sharing derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammed on social media three years ago, he added.

Blasphemy is a highly contentious issue in deeply conservative Pakistan. The state punishes blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad with life and death sentences.

Hundreds of Muslims and many religious minorities have been arrested and jailed for alleged blasphemy and some were handed death sentences since the 1980s. None has been executed.

However, deadly riots sparked by blasphemy allegations left dozens lynched and injured in the past decades.