October 31, 2018

A legal milestone by not bowing to religious hardliners

located:	Pakistan
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

Pakistan made a major legal milestone by not bowing to religious hardliners this week and freeing a Christian woman falsely charged with blasphemy, which could have claimed her life.

Asia Bibi, a wife and mother of two children and three stepchildren was sentenced to death in November 2010 after she was convicted with charges of committing blasphemy during an argument with two Muslim women. In response she challenged the verdict in October 2014, however, the Lahore High Court upheld the death sentence. The Supreme Court had stayed the execution in July 2015.

On Wednesday, October 31, the apex court set aside Bibi's death sentence, noting the prosecution on the evidence had failed to satisfy the court beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the offence.

As expected, the verdict has sparked robust protest, largely from the supporters of the Islamist party – the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) – who took to the streets in several parts of the country following a Supreme Court verdict acquitting and ordering the release of Asia Bibi. The hardliner party has called for the death of the court's chief justice and two other judges who overturned the conviction. The party also called for the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Finally, the Supreme Court of the country has set the records straight in a case that was contradictory in the first place: the witnesses gave explicitly contradictory statements, the report was registered suspiciously late, the complainant was unsure about the date of the alleged crime, and above all, lied about having a fight with the accused. There is no justifications for trying to score political points with such agitations. The far-right groups are clearly playing with the peoples’ sentiments in a bid to stay relevant in the political arena after electoral defeat earlier this year.

It would have been much better had the political leadership – and for that matter, the government – gone after the reasons that are causing social constraints, especially among the poor, resulting in such extreme measures of false accusations that could lead to someone’s unjustified death. In this particular case, the women who blamed Asia Bibi for the alleged blasphemy fought with her over water.

Pakistan’s water woes are evolving into a grim crisis. For example, the country’s biggest city, Karachi, needs 1.1 billion gallons daily, but it is only receiving roughly half of that. This has been going on for years as the impacts of climate change and staggering population growth (2 percent) have now brought the whole country on the brinks of a famine-like situation.

Still, the government, led by a sportsman-turned-politician, Imran Kha, has delivered a strong and defiant rebuke to religious hardliners by standing with the innocent Asia Bibi, which gives birth to hopes that Pakistan may finally be changing course when it comes to dealing with its religious parties.