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BFF-24
PAKISTAN-POLITICS-RELIGION-EXTREMISM
Unease as Imran Khan invokes blasphemy in Pakistan election
ISLAMABAD, July 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Pakistan’s politicians, including PM
hopeful Imran Khan, are mainstreaming extremism by invoking hardline issues
like blasphemy to get votes, analysts say, warning the tactic could deepen
sectarian fractures and potentially spill into violence.
The warnings come as Pakistan confronts anger over a new wave of militant
attacks which have killed 175 people at campaign events ahead of nationwide
polls on July 25.
The country’s long-persecuted religious minorities are on their guard as a
result.
“Previously it was only a bunch of extremists spreading hatred against
Ahmadis,” said Amir Mehmood, a member of a community which has long been
targeted by extremists in Pakistan, particularly over blasphemy.
“Now mainstream parties like the PTI (Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) are
doing it.”
Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, but their beliefs are seen as
blasphemous in most mainstream Islamic schools of thought. They are
designated non-Muslims in Pakistan’s constitution.
Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician who is the main challenger in the
election, has caused concern in recent weeks with his full-throated defence
of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, which carry a maximum penalty of
death.
It is a hugely inflammatory charge in Pakistan. The state has never
executed a blasphemy convict, but mere accusations of insulting Islam have
sparked mob lynchings and murders.
International rights groups have long criticised the colonial-era
legislation as a tool of oppression and abuse, particularly against
minorities. In recent years, it has also been weaponised to smear dissenters
and even politicians.
The topic is so incendiary that mere calls to reform the law have provoked
violence, most notably the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of
Pakistan’s most populous province, by his own bodyguard in 2011.
The assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was angered by Taseer’s reformist stance on
blasphemy. Feted as a hero by hardliners, he was executed by the incumbent
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in 2016, provoking Islamist
fury.
– ‘There is a shift’ –
Now Qadri’s image is being used on election banners, and some of Khan’s
candidates are asking Pakistanis if they plan to vote for “the party who
executed him”, placing themselves firmly on the side of Islamists.
At one rally in Islamabad this month, Khan told clerics in televised
comments that the PTI “fully” supports the blasphemy law “and will defend
it”.
“No Muslim can call himself a Muslim unless he believes that the Prophet
Mohammed is the last prophet,” he said — a statement that raised alarm among
Ahmadis, who are persecuted for their belief in a prophet after Mohammed.
Analyst Amir Rana says “there is a shift” in this election: “The mainstream
political parties are also exploiting the religious narrative.”
He predicts this change would deepen sectarian divides, empower radical
groups, and could provoke violence.
Khan may simply be trying to target the PML-N with his comments on
blasphemy, says minority activist Kapil Dev.
But when the potential next prime minister of the country shares an
inflammatory stance with extremists, “people take it seriously”, Dev warned.
Jibran Nasir, a prominent human rights activist running as an independent
candidate in the southern city of Karachi, is already facing threats over the
issue.
Islamist hardliners stormed his election events and warned him not to
campaign in the area over his refusal to denounce Ahmadis.
In a video posted online, one cleric in Nasir’s constituency is seen
referencing the assassin Qadri in a threatening speech.
– ‘Heretics’ –
Organisations like Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), which blockaded the
capital Islamabad for weeks last year over blasphemy, are widely contesting
the polls.
The party’s chief, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, reportedly told journalists in
Karachi that if he took power in the nuclear-armed country he would “wipe
Holland off the face of the earth” over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Other radical groups contesting the vote include Sunni sectarian extremists
Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), and the Milli Muslim League, linked to Hafiz
Saeed, the man accused of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
“If we get power in the evening and if a single Shia is alive by the
morning in Pakistan then change my name,” ASWJ leader Muhammad Ahmed
Ludhianvi told an election rally.
Both groups have been banned from the election but their candidates are
contesting under the banner of other, lesser-known parties.
The analyst Rana suggested PTI and Khan may also be trying to weaken the
appeal of radical religious groups by co-opting their rhetoric.
But if he really is seeking to cut support for these parties, it will only
increase the appeal of extremism, warns the Ahmadi activist Mehmood.
In his town of Rabwah in central Pakistan, a hub of the Ahmadi community,
residents say not one politician has visited its 40,000 registered voters
this campaign season.
“Nobody dares to come here,” Mehmood says. “They will be considered
heretics.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/1049 hrs