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This week’s Unbelief Brief examines a rare resolution to a new blasphemy case in Pakistan and the ever increasing paranoia of the Taliban

EXMNA Updates: EXMNA, alongside the American Humanist Association and Jubilee Campaign, is hosting a panel on preventing extrajudicial killings fueled by anti-apostasy and anti-blasphemy laws, featuring voices of advocates, activists, and survivors.

Unbelief Brief

In Pakistan, a two-month-old blasphemy case has been resolved with a relatively rare positive result for the accused. Two sisters, Saima and Sonia, had previously been accused of damaging and desecrating “sacred writings,” allegations they both denied. Just last week, both were acquitted of the “crime.” While this must surely come as a relief to them, the sad reality is that in Pakistan, the threat of vigilante violence hangs over accused blasphemers’ heads just as much, if not more than, the threat of legal reprisal. Members of an angry mob don’t often care about legal exonerations such as these. The sisters will likely have to take additional precautions to keep themselves safe from here on.

Indeed, the problem of extrajudicial violence against blasphemy suspects is so pervasive in Pakistan that it is now an act that police engage in as well. Previous editions of this newsletter have discussed the police killing of a Pakistani doctor accused of blasphemy and its subsequent coverup, as well as some of the protests that have followed. Those protests seem to have ballooned—enough to trigger far-right counter-protests, which turned violent in Karachi over the weekend as police deployed tear gas to stop members of the militant Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party from breaking through security barricades. The TLP protestors reportedly “hurled rocks” at officers and burned a police vehicle—all this to stop the protest of an extrajudicial killing. In the Islamist worldview, immediate death is simply the appropriate punishment for a blasphemer, and the murderer is a righteous man to be celebrated. There are plenty of religious sources to make them confident in this view: it is what Islam demands of its adherents.

Finally, in Afghanistan, it seems that for the Taliban it was not enough to totally ban women from appearing in public: the extremity of their religious vision must encompass every sphere of life. Their latest prescription to make this a reality: a total ban on “images of all living things.” But not to worry! The Taliban will not sacrifice their famously nonviolent posture, and they have assured us that “coercion has no place in the implementation of the law,” which is “only advice” (despite also being law which “applies to everyone”).

EXMNA Updates

EXMNA, in collaboration with the American Humanist Association and Jubilee Campaign, presents a powerful panel on extrajudicial killings driven by anti-apostasy and anti-blasphemy laws. Hear from advocates, activists, and survivors on what UN Member States can do to protect those at risk. Tickets are free—register now!

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America