Pakistan is in the news again with horrifyingly brutal murders of people over allegations of “blasphemy.”
A Pakistani man who was visiting the country’s Swat Valley as a tourist on June 20 was accused of blasphemy. On such hearsay, he was beaten to death, then his body was set on fire by an angry Muslim mob.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported:
The mob severely beat the man, identified as a resident of Punjab Province, and dragged his burning naked body through the streets… Swat police chief Zahid Ullah said police officers initially rescued the man from the people who attacked him and sheltered him at a police station in Madian.
…[T]he mob broke down the gate of the police station and entered the building. They then poured gasoline on the man and set him on fire before dragging his lifeless body as they continued to beat him.
The rioters also burned three police cars and set fire to the police station, the journalist said. The incident started when a number of people accused the man of having burned pages of the Koran in his bag and started a fight with him. When it was announced through mosque loudspeakers that a “blasphemer” had been rescued by police, a crowd converged on the police station.
Another horrific lynching captured on camera took place on a university campus in Pakistan. The victim was Mashal Khan, a university student who described himself as a “humanist” and “liberal.” He was lynched by an angry Muslim mob on the premises of his university, the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, in 2017 over allegations of “posting blasphemous content online.” His attackers were his classmates and university employees.
Khan was a successful student of journalism and debated observant Muslims at university over Islam and religion. The debates, however, were increasingly followed by threats. A friend of Khan’s who spoke to the BBC said that Muslims at the university threatened Khan because they thought he was an atheist or agnostic and they thought he could influence other students. In televised comments, Khan criticized his university for its alleged corruption. After the murder, Pakistani police confirmed that Khan did not commit any “blasphemous offense.”
The victim was Mashal Khan, a university student who described himself as a “humanist” and “liberal.” He was lynched by an angry Muslim mob on the premises of his university.
A retired Pakistani professor, whose son incited violence against Khan by accusing him of blasphemy, told the BBC:
“Mashal was committing blasphemy. According to the law, nobody should commit blasphemy. Otherwise, he will be hanged… Mashal is responsible for his own death. If my son commits blasphemy and somebody kills him, he is responsible for this too.”
Fahim Alam Khan, a journalism student, told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal:
“When I reached the dorm, I saw Mashal had been badly beaten. They had ripped his clothes off and were hitting him with stones, clay pots, sticks, rods—anything they could get their hands on,” he recalled. “Then they kicked his bloodied, lifeless body down the stairs.”
Nirma Khan, a student, said her peers wouldn’t dare report any teacher for misconduct or incompetence.
“Any kind of criticism, particularly questions about what happened to Mashal Khan, are off-limits,” she said. “The families of many of my female friends refused to let them return to the campus after the killing.”
Nazia Khan, another student, said the attack brought an end to freedom of expression.
“Everyone is afraid of being accused of blasphemy,” she told Radio Mashaal. “The narrative some religious fanatics constructed was so effective that even some of Mashal Khan’s supporters distanced themselves from him.”
Ziaullah Hamdarad, a professor of journalism, paid a price for standing up for the truth. Court testimony would absolve Khan of the blasphemy charges, but the threats that followed forced Hamdarad to leave Pakistan. He moved to the United Kingdom and continued his career there.
“Khan’s brutal murder stirred up so much fear that 99 percent of teachers remained silent after his murder,” he told Radio Mashaal. “They should have denounced his murder and gone to his house to offer their condolences.”
The fear was so pervasive that scores of students and faculty members refused to talk with Radio Mashaal, citing concerns they would be targeted. Interviews with parents, students, and faculty have suggested that any mention of Khan’s murder—along with any debate, discussion, or freedom of expression over sensitive issues—remains off-limits even years after Khan was absolved of blasphemy.
Ahsanullah Zaryan, a poet and former student, said religion could not be discussed in any form at the university. He said that while studying Pashto literature, he faced a backlash after writing a verse that criticized those who utilized religion for personal gain.
“The pushback forced me to remove the verse from my poem,” he said. “It takes a great deal of courage to discuss any controversy after Khan’s killing. Most of us just keep silent when we sense our views might be labeled as controversial.”
According to Islamic scriptures, both blasphemy and apostasy are crimes punishable by death. The website “The Religion of Peace” explains:
When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. There is no indemnity for killing an apostate (since it is killing someone who deserves to die). Acts that define “leaving Islam” and being subject to execution include:
- to intend to commit unbelief, even if in the future
- to deny the existence of Allah… or any of his attributes
- to be sarcastic about Allah’s name, his command, his interdiction… or his threat
- to deny any verse of the Quran
- to mockingly say, “I don’t know what faith is”
- to believe that things in themselves or by their own nature have any causal influence independent of the will of Allah.
The deadly, Islamic teachings regarding “blasphemy” and apostasy are also threatening the security and free speech of Western nations.
In 2006, for instance, tens of thousands gathered throughout the Muslim world—burning European embassies, issuing threats, and taking hostages—in protest over 12 caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper.
Author Sam Harris writes:
It is time we recognized—and obliged the Muslim world to recognize—that “Muslim extremism” is not extreme among Muslims. Mainstream Islam itself represents an extremist rejection of intellectual honesty, gender equality, secular politics and genuine pluralism. The truth about Islam is as politically incorrect as it is terrifying: Islam is all fringe and no center…
Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. Throughout the E.U., Muslim immigrants often show little inclination to acquire the secular and civil values of their host countries, and yet exploit these values to the utmost—demanding tolerance for their backwardness, their misogyny, their anti-Semitism, and the genocidal hatred that is regularly preached in their mosques. Political correctness and fears of racism have rendered many secular Europeans incapable of opposing the terrifying religious commitments of the extremists in their midst.
In an effort to appease the lunatic furor arising in the Muslim world in response to the publication of the Danish cartoons, many Western leaders have offered apologies for exercising the very freedoms that are constitutive of civil society in the 21st century. The U.S. and British governments have chastised Denmark and the other countries that published the cartoons for privileging freedom of speech over religious sensitivity. It is not often that one sees the most powerful countries on Earth achieve new depths of weakness, moral exhaustion and geopolitical stupidity with a single gesture. This was appeasement at its most abject.
The same people who burn down streets and kill people over a few cartoons are silent or even supportive when their Muslim brothers elsewhere kidnap, rape, and beheaded innocent victims. There are almost no Muslim objections to these atrocities because they are committed to advance the cause of Islam.
“That Islam is a ‘peaceful religion hijacked by extremists, is a dangerous fallacy,” writes Harris and asks a significant question that urgently awaits an answer: “How should the West proceed its dialogue with the Muslim world?”
There are almost no Muslim objections to these atrocities because they are committed to advance the cause of Islam.
Euphemisms, political correctness, cowardice, silence, or appeasement have proven ineffective. Instead, they empower Islamic fanatics not only in Pakistan, but also in Europe.
Despite Pakistan committing barbaric crimes, the country remains the EU’s second biggest trading partner and enjoys a smooth diplomatic relationship with the EU executive without sanctions or boycotts.
The West’s confusion over Islam, as well as the weakening of its own Judeo-Christian faith and heritage is naturally playing into the hands of Islamists. Islamic fanaticism is constantly strengthening worldwide. It’s high time Western nations put values and principles first over misguided strategic interests to protect themselves from the barbarity that the world often witnesses in Pakistan and other Islamic nations.
