If there was anybody who was still in any doubt as to what would be the final outcome, if Free Nations succumb to the demands of Muslim groups for criticism of Islam to be criminalised, then a look at the situation in Pakistan should dispel those doubts. The Pakistani blasphemy laws are used there in a similar way to accusations of witchcraft were used hundreds of years ago in the West. Such laws are used to threaten people, to shut them up, and to make them comply.

The Pakistan Tribune reports that blasphemy suspects are held in appalling conditions, with potential legal representatives scared off by threats, and they have to live with the constant fear of attack by other inmates.

The Pakistan tribune said:

“Hamid Hussain, 25, lives in a state of constant fear. Life before last March, the month when everything turned upside down, now seems a distant dream.

Hussain was considered a blasphemy suspect, and straight away flung into a cell exclusively for militants and terrorists. He spent several days and nights in solitary confinement – a five-by-five room, a dim light bulb, an overflowing toilet.

The words ‘Tauheen-e-Risalat’ were stamped outside the cell door.

“Inmates would kick and shout, ‘Kafir, we will kill you!’” the bulky, unshaved prisoner recalls in a low voice, speaking through the intercom at Malir Jail, where he was eventually transferred after receiving unending threats in the Karachi Central Jail. “I would lay awake the entire night, waiting for the time that they [the inmates] would slip into my room and slit my throat.”

Rampant abuse behind locked doors

In the dark, shackled world of jails, life for blasphemy prisoners is harsh. They are abused by officials, threatened by inmates, and shunned by family. Many are placed in isolated rooms, a treatment usually reserved for high-profile prisoners.

And yet, despite these accounts, jail officials deny mistreatment of such prisoners and defend the decision to isolate them.

“These cases are sensitive and need to be kept alone to avoid attacks,” states Inspector General Prisons Nusrat Mangan.

He refuses to share details of how many blasphemy accused are currently in Karachi jails”

It appears from what Mr Hussain said that the blasphemy laws are being used by the Pakistani police as a method of shaking down people for bribes, even when like in this case there is little evidence of the accused being involved in the alleged ‘blasphemy’ or even having anything to do with the distribution of the allegedly offending pamphlets.

Mr Hussain told the Pakistan Tribune:

“The allegations are absurd. I have nothing to do with the circulation of the pamphlets. I don’t know the printer or the distributer or the men involved,” says Hussain, discreetly glancing at the Ferrari watch on his wrist. “One police inspector who knew my family lodged a false case against me. He then asked me to pay Rs25 lakh for dropping it.”

The situation in Pakistan appears to be more like a protection racket than anything that we in free countries would recognise as justice. The fear of being accused of ‘blasphemy’ is so great that people will pay the bribe to the police and others to avoid being cast into a similar nightmarish situation to that faced by Mr Hussain.

Cases such as this show why it is absolutely vital to stand up to the Islamic bullies. They are now active in places such as Britain and elsewhere and people must resist the imposition of Islamic blasphemy laws through the ‘back door’ by the application of Labour’s ill thought out and damaging ‘hate speech’ legislation.

Speaking out about the utter wrongness of much of Islamic ideology and the disasterous effects of it on a people, or a nation should not be a crime, it should instead be considered as a moral and ethical duty.

If we do not speak up now about the evil of Islamic ideology, then we may find ourselves unable to speak up in the future. We will have been silenced by a coalition of Islamic ideologues, lying appeasing politicians and those groups on the political Left for whom the concept of free speech is anathema.

Those people who do not speak up today against the evil of Islam, for fear of being called ‘racist’, are condemning their children and grandchildren to lives of oppression and silence, enforced by the sort of Islamic violence that we now see too often on our streets already.

It is imperative to speak up against ideologies that would oppress us, not just on special days of protest such the ‘Speak Your Mind About Islam Day’ on 6^th June 2013, but every day.

Do not let the censors and the clerical fascists win. The power is in your hands, and in your voices, to make them lose.

Links

The appalling plight of those accused of ‘blasphemy’ who are being held in Pakistani jails

http://tribune.com.pk/story/556883/shackled-guilty-until-proven-innocent/

‘Speak your mind about Islam day’ 6^th June 2013

https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2013/06/04/speak-your-mind-about-islam-day-thursday-june-6-2013/