WITH 14 individuals on death row, 19 others serving life sentences and countless others awaiting sentences for blasphemy, “Pakistan’s blasphemy law is used at a level incomparable to others”. This is the most recent indictment against the country and the deeply problematic Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. It comes from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in its report Prisoners of Belief: Individuals Jailed under Blasphemy Laws that was released in Washington on Thursday. Whether the country is actually the worst in the world may be somewhat difficult to judge, given that the closed nature of countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran — for whom strong criticism is also reserved in the report — can mean that information is obfuscated or kept under wraps. Nevertheless, it is difficult to argue that the misinterpretation of the law is not common in Pakistan — and that this needs to change.

As has been argued in this space before, the so-called blasphemy law as it currently exists on Pakistan’s law books is open to misuse. There is more than enough evidence of this, from it being used as a tool to settle personal rivalries to being invoked to create panic in communities so that people with malicious intentions may seize their land or properties. There have been horrifying cases where, even before the law enforcers got involved or at times despite their intervention, suspicions of blasphemy have led to lynch mobs and violence, as seen in Larkana on Saturday. One incident that comes immediately to mind is that involving Junaid Ahmed in 2011, a Chakwal seminary student whose actions were misunderstood by a passer-by and who was severely beaten by the angry mob that tends to gather whenever such an allegation is made, before being arrested. In point of technicality, the law serves to protect all religions, but is actually invoked only by the majority, not just against non-Muslims but against Muslims too. The fact of the matter is that the existence of this law in its open-to-abuse form lends legitimacy to the actions of those who would take the law into their own hands. It is time for parliament to examine Section 295-C, and take whatever steps are necessary to stop its misuse.