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| July 26, 2005 | Tuesday | Jumadi-us-Sani 18, 1426 |
‘Hasba law assault on basic rights’
ISLAMABAD, July 25: A seminar held here on Monday warned that the Hasba Bill passed by the NWFP Assembly could ignite sectarian strife in the country. Speakers at the seminar, organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) said the definition of good and bad in the bill would cause confusion among Muslims and called on the civil society, political parties and intellectuals to oppose the implementation of the controversial bill.
Already, the federal government has referred the bill to the Supreme Court which put off hearing of arguments from both sides to August 1 at the request of the NWFP government.
Senator Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) told the seminar that the bill was “an assault on the fundamental freedoms of citizens and an attempt to impose a particular school of thought on the people in the name of religion” which he said the civil society must resist.
If implemented, the Hasba law would make Islam and Islamic teaching controversial and sow the seeds of dissension in the society, he said.
“Islam cannot be implemented by force through a politically appointed Mohtasib aided by a brigade of Hasba police force against whose verdict the appeal would also lie with a political chief minister. “Any attempt by the state to enforce religion through force would endanger the state and federation itself. There are lessons to be learnt from the demise of the Muslim empire in Spain centuries ago,” he said.
Senator Babar said the bill was not only against the Constitution but was also a blatant attempt at Talibanization which would push the people back into the dark ages in the name of Islam.
It empowers the provincial government to set up a chain of offices of religious ombudsmen in province at the provincial, district and tehsil levels and raise a brigade of new Hasba police to impose on the citizens a partisan world view in the name of propagation of virtue and preventing vice (Amr bil-maroof wa nahi anil munkar).
Sen Babar alleged that the religious parties behind the Hasba Bill, in collusion with undemocratic forces, first undermined the Parliament through the 17th Amendment and now have mounted another assault on the Parliament in the form of Hasba Bill. “The refrain of ‘amr bil maroof wa nahi anil munkar’ ominously brings to mind the Taliban’s era in Afghanistan and the summary shaving of heads of Pakistani football players in Kandahar for wearing shorts,” the PPP legislator said.
He asked the people not to remain silent spectators of what was happening in NWFP and warned that the onslaught by the religious extremists if not checked now would soon cross the Indus and devour the rest of the country as well. He recalled the lament of German intellectuals and writers soon after the second World War for not raising voice against the tyranny of Nazis against the oppressed segments of society. As a result of this apathy the writers and intellectuals found themselves alone when it was their turn to be assaulted by the Nazis because by that time no one was left to speak for them, he said.
Khurshid Nadeem, head of Organization for Research and Education, said there was a fallacy in Pakistan from the day one that the laws would bring in the desired Islamization in the country.
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