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Pakistan Human Rights Body Warns Academic Freedom Under 'Grave Threat'

Ayesha Tanzeem

   ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's top human rights body has expressed alarm at
   what it considers recurring attacks on academic freedom of expression
   through use of the country's controversial blasphemy or sedition laws
   that could carry a death sentence.

   "Indeed, it has become frighteningly common to hear of charges of
   sedition and blasphemy being used to intimidate citizens who dare speak
   up," said a press release issued Wednesday by the Human Rights
   Commission of Pakistan, titled, "Academic Freedom Under Grave Threat."

   The statement followed the arrest of a professor, Sajid Soomro, from
   Shah Abdul Latif University in Sindh province on charges of blasphemy
   and sedition.

   When another professor, Arfana Mallah, who is also a human rights
   activist, raised her voice in solidarity, she was, as per the HRCP
   statement, "immediately subjected to a vicious campaign led by clerics
   with political associations, calling for her to be charged with
   blasphemy."

   According to Mallah, she never mentioned any religion or religious
   figure. She did, however, criticize Pakistan's blasphemy measure,
   calling it a "black law."

   "This law has been widely misused, and people are hit with blasphemy
   charges to deal with personal disputes," she said.

   Death threat

   Mallah added followers of a religio-political party, Jamiat e Ulema e
   Islam Fazal (JUI-F), took aim at her on social media and local
   representatives of the party tried to file a police report against her.

   While the police refused to accept a complaint, Mallah said the social
   media campaign continued.

   "They've started a campaign on social media that this woman committed
   blasphemy and she should be killed and that we would not rest until she
   is arrested," she told VOA.

   A senior JUI-F official from Sindh, Rashid Soomro, denied that his
   party workers called for her death, adding that if anyone did, "I
   strongly condemn it."

   "No one is allowed to call for another's death," he said, adding that
   it was a job best left to the state and courts.

   'Sensitive issue'

   He also said that blasphemy was a sensitive issue in Pakistan and by
   going to the police and using the legal option, his party was trying to
   keep the emotions of hundreds of thousands of people under control.

   "Party workers did not go to her house, block roads, or protest.
   Rather, they took the legal route, which is our constitutional right.
   Whatever the court decides, the party will accept," he said.

   An accusation of blasphemy in Pakistan is considered tantamount to a
   death sentence. People in the past have been killed by mobs, shot by
   their own guards, or sentenced to death by the courts. Prime Minister
   Imran Khan has voiced his support for the blasphemy law.

   Rights activists have long demanded either an abolition of the laws or
   major amendments to them, citing their widespread misuse.

   In 2018, Pakistan's Supreme Court overturned a blasphemy conviction
   against a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, after she had already spent at
   least eight years in prison. Court documents showed Bibi had an
   argument with other women over drinking water.

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