Violence brings Pakistan’s women advocates to aid religious minorities

WNN Features

Christian woman Asia Bibi makes public statement

Death row inmate Christian minority Asia Bibi talks to assassinated Governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer's wife Mrs. Aamna Taseer and daughter Shehrbano Taseer at a press conference appearance. Image: Salmaan Taseer collection

(WNN) ISLAMABAD: In spite of real dangers for those working as advocates with Pakistan’s religious minorities, a number of people have been speaking out against religious discrimination and the misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws inside the country.

As internal divisions, casualties and conflict on the northern border and a growing hatred and distrust of ‘the West’ expands, a dedicated group of Pakistani women and men are leading the way on issues of human rights and religious freedom inside the country.

Acts of heroism for women have been happening in Pakistan despite the fact that the country is one of the worst places in the world to be a woman. A recent 2011 “Education Emergency Report” by the PETF – Pakistan Education Task Force has revealed that only “one in three” women have attended school in rural regions.

Pakistan has “one of the lowest literacy rates in the world,” says another recent report, “Because You’re a Girl,” by PlanUK and the Royal Commonwealth Society. Newest statistics now show that nation-wide the average Pakistani woman gets only 5.89 years of school attendance in both primary and secondary school.

Given the statistics it is not surprising that women want to pick up the mantle for change in Pakistan.

While two members of Pakistan’s legislature were brutally gunned down, a third fears for her life every day. Emerging as a human rights icon, former Information Minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) legislator Sherry Rehman has received death threats, but she remains steadfast.

In spite of policy setbacks and a withdrawal under pressure with her recent parliamentary bill to remove the death penalty from Pakistan’s blasphemy law, Rehman holds her goal to stay in public office to eventually help bring tangible human rights change to Pakistan.

Rehman is not alone in her quest. Numerous other women are taking a similar stand. As Rehman sets her hopes on the women of Pakistan she says: “It’s women who always tackle the difficult, head-on-challenges – always the women.”

Religious rights as human rights in Pakistan is not a new topic. Progressives have been working for many years to bring this to the attention of the legislation. But the push is uphill. The conservative push for laws that prevent diverse belief inside Pakistan is centered in Pakistan’s controversial Blasphemy Laws, which currently require the death penalty in certain cases.

It is considered any action that results in speaking or using “any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation” that insults the Prophet Muhammad.

“There’s all this focus on the ‘shrinking space for Pakistan’s moderates’ – how about focusing on the fierce determination of so many Pakistanis, against the odds and despite the risks, to consolidate and expand democratic spaces in Pakistan?” says Pakistani filmmaker, human rights activist and investigative journalist Beena Sarwar.

An individual country’s “capacity and willingness to guarantee and protect de jure and de facto freedom of religion of all individuals within its jurisdiction is often the key to developing an appropriate framework for the protection of all human rights, including women’s rights,” says the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. “It ensures that individuals can express themselves fully and dissent, even within their own religion; or, indeed, that they can choose not to have any religion at all.”

Another Pakistani woman working to bring the voice and needs of religious minorities to Pakistan’s legislators is Christian member of the Pakistan National Assembly, Asiya Nasir, who made waves with her March 4, 2011 impassioned speech in the Parliament.

“Today, I address Muhammad Ali Jinnah (the 1947 founding leader of Pakistan),” said Nasir. “When you needed us Christians to create Pakistan, you brought us along. Once Pakistan was made, you labeled us a minority, and pushed our backs up against a wall.”

Tearing the fabric of Pakistan society into polar extremes, the issue of religious freedom and misuse of laws outlining religious expression is causing Muslim progressives and cleric based hardliners to line-up on opposite sides on the issue.

“Since the introduction of 295-C to the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) by a military dictator in 1986, dozens of persons from religious minority groups have been killed or lynched by mobs,” says the AHRC – Asian Human Rights Commission. “Pakistan’s courts have also proved themselves biased on blasphemy law.”

When Aasia Noreen, also known in the media as Asia Bibi, became embroiled in the center of a heated dispute involving the Blasphemy Law in June 2009 in the village of Ittan Wali, inside Pakistan’s most populated Nankana District in Punjab, she had no idea she would end up on death row.

According to eye-witness reports, Bibi was taken to a police station for protective custody after violence broke out from enraged fellow women field-workers who had refused to drink water Bibi had shared while they were working in the fields. During the dispute a discussion about Bibi’s Christian religion became the focus. Five days following her arrest, a growing and angry crowd, encouraged by a local cleric, pressured the police to file Bibi’s case as a special indictment under Pakistan’s blasphemy codes.

Bibi’s June 2009 arrest and the ensuing November 2010 death sentence by hanging was made under selective charges of blasphemy. The charges have now left her with few legal options.

“The sentence against Asia is inhumane,” said former Governor of Pakistan’s Punjab Province, Salmaan Taseer, speaking publicly against all religious intolerance in Pakistan before he was killed by one of his own bodyguards who disagreed with Taseer’s views. “I have handed over the appeal (for Aisa Bibi) for a presidential pardon, which I will take to the president and soon Asia will be pardoned,” said Taseer following her imprisonment.

When Taseer sent a formal message asking for clemency for Bibi there was no change in the case. He did not live to see any pardon. “One must be determined and brave in standing up for human rights,” said Taseer during a December 2010 meeting with Bibi’s legal counsel.

Today Bibi is in detention at the Multan prison where she was transferred after increased public threats were made to the local Sheikhupura jail in Punjab Province where she was previously held.

Bibi’s family is now in hiding as many questions and dangers for Bibi’s family still remain. What are the true reasons the women field-workers had rejected Bibi’s offer of water? Was discrimination based only because of her religion? And most important – why had this incident become an ‘arrestable’ offense?

It was public knowledge that Bibi had refused to convert to Islam. Her former legal councilor, Raza Anjum from the U.K., knows much more about the details of a case that has infringed on Bibi’s dignity since 2009.