When he faced in 2013, the man who said that academics agreed to the death penalty for blasphemy, told his interrogators that he really couldn’t read Arabic.
This man, lawyer Ismail Qureshi, is in the center of a new documentary of the Alliance against Pakistan political blasphemy (AEBP). Organized an early projection of The inevitable misuse of blasphemy policy (2024) and a new episode entitled Blasphymia like Biddat: intra-musulmana difference in the era of empires On Sunday, August 17, at Kitab Ghar. A small group of students, teachers and journalists gathered to see the documentaries and have an Q&A with the team of the modest public library of Karachi.
Read: the minister highlights the response to misuse of blasphemy laws
The documentaries are in section 295-C of the Pakistan Criminal Code or the Blasphemia Law of the country that occurred in 1986 and were reinforced by the Federal Court of the Shariat in 1991. Section 295-C says what the authorities describe as the “misuse” of the law is, in fact, its only possible correct application. The unlimited definitions of the legislation transform any action into potential blasphemy.
It is estimated that 767 people are currently in custody of blasphemy positions (in mid -2024), according to the National Human Rights Commission.
People accused of blasphemy have an extremely high risk of extrajudicial violence. The Social Justice Center recorded that at least 104 people were killed by mobs and in custody between 1994 and 2024. Rights groups say that these numbers reflect not only the legal application but a broader climate in which accusations are made to solve personal scores, confiscate property or cause the action of the mafia.
On April 13, 2017, Mashal Khan, a 23 -year -old student at Abdul Wali Khan University, was attacked and killed by a mafia after the online accusations of blasphemy. A research team concluded that the accusations were manufactured. An anti -terrorist court judged 57 suspects in the lynching: one was sentenced to death, five to life imprisonment, 25 received shorter prison periods and 26 were acquitted, with more sentences issued later.
The law affirms legitimacy through the centennial Islamic tradition and academic consensus (IJMA). However, this alleged continuity of the divine command has produced a surprising statistical anomaly: while blasphemy accusations have increased by 20,000% since 1986, the Supreme Court has not been deposited by a single conviction. Perhaps the best known case is that of Asia Noreen, a Christian agricultural worker, who was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death. After eight years of custody, he was acquitted by the Supreme Court on October 31, 2018 and left Pakistan for Canada.
The 13 -minute animated Blasphemy like Biddat Challenges the idea that these laws are based on the timeless Islamic tradition. The thesis of the films is that the most defended legislation of Pakistan is actually erected on colonial legal foundations and the Islamic erudition manufactured. His “sacred” language was copied from the old British legal documents, cases of Australian defamation and US demands.
One of the most surprising revelations was the linguistic origins of the law. Through a meticulous textual analysis, the team tracked terms such as “insinuations”, “insinuation” and “imputation” not to Islamic jurisprudence, but to the Australian defamation law, US defamation legislation and the statutes of Indian hate discourse.
And the man who claimed the religious authority about these sanctions has admitted that he could not even read Arabic and did not understand the texts he said. “When we started reading the books of Islamist legal activists from the 1980s to the 90s, including Ismail Qureshi’s, it was evident that these sources were missing badly,” said a member of the AEBP team while talking about The express trustee In the projection. “We met Qureshi almost a decade ago and that is where he recognized his lack of training for us.”
The Ismail Qureshi scholarship had transformed the position of the VIII century of Abu Hanifa, that a non-Muslim blasphemus is not punishable by death, in the opposite, forming the basis of the federal decision of the Shariat Court of Pakistan in 1991 became a punishment (fixed) without understanding the sources he cited. “
Jurists, Islamic law scholars, historians and legal experts argue that Pakistan blasphemy laws diverge from the “fiqhi” lineage of Islamic jurisprudence and are innovations (biddat) born of colonial and postcolonial statistics. This change was not organic, but formed the colonial interventions aimed at controlling the “passions” of the subject populations.
The classical Islamic jurisprudence, on the other hand, required a strict categorization of crimes, attention to intention and context. This framework allowed more flexibility than today’s rigid interpretations, which impose hard punishments without taking into account intention or circumstances. Therefore, these laws conflict with the fundamental Islamic legal principles of evidence, intention and proportionality.
Read more: IHC orders probe in blasphemy online spike
Given the tense nature of the subject, the AEBP decided to use a flat 2D symbolic animation instead of conventional documentary images. This aesthetic choice created an intellectual distance of what is an extremely emotionally charged material, which makes room for rational analysis instead of only reactions. “The animation offers abstraction and security,” said a team member. “It allows us to avoid family tropes and charged images that often cause defensive around the blasphemy policy.”
Then, instead of real faces or locations, the animation of trembling shapes and fuses of boxes established in a quiet voice keeps the spectator concentrated in the ideas behind the blasphemy policy. “In a context where blasphemy policy thrives in shows and names,” added another member, “the animation becomes a powerful medium to recent speech about the drama.” Complex legal concepts break down with changing lines, drops that swell, shrink and forms that bleed with each other. The use of real -life television or the video of amateur social networks would have risked convert the documentary into trauma voyeurism.
Also: blasphemy probe
The documentaries analyze a meticulous scholarship to distinguish the authentic tradition of their colonial and contemporary distortions. “The first step is to demystify the law to demonstrate that 295-C is not sacred, or divine, and not rooted in the Islamic legal consensus,” said the team member. “It is a very modern law based on cultural wars in the 80s.”
For this team member, causing the film to deepen its respect for the Islamic legal tradition. “I saw how careful, nuanced and ethically aware were classic jurists, especially in contrast to hypermodern and unique stature laws approved in the name of Islam.”
