Family members of a Pakistani youth were blamed for alleged online blasphemy protests in Islamabad on October 2, 2024. Photo courtesy: AFP
Arusa Khan’s son was chatting on WhatsApp, but suddenly found himself the target of “vigilant” investigators, who accused him of online blasphemy, a crime that carries the death penalty in Pakistan.
The 27-year-old is one of hundreds of youths accused in Pakistani courts of making blasphemous statements online or in WhatsApp groups, leading to arrests in recent years.
Rights groups and police say many cases are being heard by private “vigilante groups” led by lawyers and supported by volunteers who search the Internet for criminals.
Families of young Pakistanis, including doctors, engineers, lawyers and accountants, say their relatives were tricked by strangers into sharing blasphemous material online before they were arrested.
“Our lives have been turned upside down,” Ms Khan said, adding that her son, who has not been named for security reasons, had been tricked into sharing blasphemous material on the messaging app.
He had joined a WhatsApp group for job seekers and was contacted by a woman.
His mother said that he had sent her a photo of women with verses from the Quran printed on their bodies. He further explained that the contactee “refused to send it and asked Ahmed to send it back so he could understand what he was talking about”.
He was later arrested and prosecuted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
A local police report suggests that the vigilantes may have been motivated by financial gain.
One such group was responsible for the conviction of 27 people in the last three years, who have been sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Blasphemy is an inflammatory charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even baseless accusations can provoke public outrage and lead to lynching.
Although they date back to the colonial period, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were enhanced in the 1980s when dictator Zia ul-Haq campaigned to “Islamize” the society.
The most active private investigative group is the Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan (LCBP), which said they are prosecuting over 300 cases. Sheraz Ahmed Farooqui, one of the leaders of the private investigation group, said more than a dozen volunteers monitor online blasphemy, believing that “God has chosen them for this noble cause”.
‘Legal Course’
“We are not beheading anyone; We are taking the legal route,” Mr Farooqui said outside a courtroom where 15 blasphemy cases were heard, all filed by his group.
He said most of the accused were addicted to pornography and were insulting respected Islamic figures by using their names and dubbing voices on pornographic material.
He acknowledged that the women were involved in locating and arresting the men, but that they were not members of his group.
Cases can drag on for years in the courts, although death sentences are often commuted to life imprisonment on appeal to the Supreme Court and Pakistan has never executed anyone for blasphemy.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported that several monitoring groups were working in a “dedicated manner” to “witch-hunt” people for online expression or to fabricate evidence of blasphemy by using social media with “veiled agendas”. Were staying.
“All such groups have been formalized by self-proclaimed defenders of majoritarian Islam,” the group said in a report published in 2023.
published – October 15, 2024 at 10:00 am IST