The case of Rimsha Masih, the Christian girl accused under Pakistan's blasphemy law, could be a turning point in Islamic thought and improve relations between religious communities, says Paul Bhatti. He is an advisor to the Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, on minority affairs. He says he feels "encouraged" because the majority of Pakistan's Muslim leaders "have personally told me that they intend to work to stop the abuse" of Pakistan's blasphemy law. He was speaking at an interfaith meeting in Sarajevo.
Rimsha was accused by the imam of the area where she lived in Islamabad. He was later arrested on suspicion that he had fabricated evidence against her by placing pages from the Quran in a bag containing the pages she had allegedly burned. Rimsha was released on bail on September 7 and was flown to an undisclosed location. Bhatti said during a meeting organized by the Sant'Egidio Community that Pakistan's imams and jurists are "determined to ensure that such incidents of innocent people being victimized in the name of Islam will not happen in future".
He added that it was the "first time in Pakistan's history" that this type of consideration is on the agenda. Bhatti, a Christian and brother of late minister Shahbaz Bhatti, said he has personally approached prominent Muslim leaders to ease tensions and prevent clashes between Christians and Muslims. "They understood immediately and stopped all calls for violence and retaliation against the Christians," he said.
Bhatti says he wants to reveal the "whole truth" about Rimsha's case to ensure Pakistani society "understands that this law can be abused for personal gain".
Reportedly, Rimsha was accused with the intention of clearing the area where she lived of Christians to make way for a new center for Islamic theology.
Azad Muhammad Abdul Khabir, Grand Imam of the Lahore mosque, was also at the Saint'Egidio meeting and said he hoped the culprits in the case against Rimsha would be punished. "We want a positive solution to this case," he said. He added that abuse of the blasphemy law is "prohibited" and that "all religious communities unanimously condemn all forms of abuse of the law".
Secretary General Henrik Ertner Rasmussen, Danish European Mission, says
We at the Danish European Mission of course welcome any steps to prevent abuse of the Pakistani blasphemy law, and we understand why Paul Bhatti speaks out as he does. The very fact that Muslim leaders called for violence and retaliation against Christians and only stopped these after learning of the recent developments in Rimsha's case shows how inflamed Pakistani society's relationship with law and order is. Not only was Rimsha and her immediate family in mortal danger, but the entire Christian community in the district where she lived was found guilty of blasphemy even before any judgment had been made in the case. Furthermore, Rimsha is still charged in the case until the court has decided whether the imam in question was actually guilty of blasphemy by planting burnt pages of the Quran in the girl's home. A society governed by the rule of law is characterized by the people firstly leaving it to the judicial authority to decide the question of guilt, and secondly, an accused is innocent until proven guilty.
In Pakistan, the general public consciousness is that Muslims have both the right and the duty to defend the religion in case of even the slightest suspicion that its honor is at stake, and those accused of blasphemy are automatically considered guilty. Furthermore, a judge must be very careful not to acquit a blasphemy accused as the judge himself is subjected to inhuman pressure in the form of death threats from Muslim extremists who will not hesitate to make good on their threats if a blasphemy accused is acquitted. Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab province, paid with his life for speaking out in favor of relaxing blasphemy laws when he was shot by his own bodyguard, now considered a hero by much of the Muslim population. One has to wonder what is heroic about shooting an unarmed man at point blank range without warning.
If Rimsha's case has the effect of waking up the Muslim population of Pakistan from this delusion and beginning to realize that society must move towards a true rule of law, it will be gratifying. For now, we can only pray that the spiral of violence stops and, in particular, that Rimsha and her family are able to return to a normal life and put this extremely traumatic episode behind them.
