Pakistan in Media

The World Council of Churches, which speaks on behalf of churches in 110 countries, has raised the issue of the blasphemy law in Pakistan. It is concerned that all minorities in Pakistan live in fear of persecution, discrimination, murder and, above all, prosecution on trumped-up charges of blasphemy under the 1986 blasphemy laws. The WCC has called on our legislators to change the law which among other things prescribes the death penalty for blaspheming Islam. This piece of legislation has been used time and time again to harass and intimidate members of the minorities – and cases where Muslims have been prosecuted for blaspheming against other faiths, defiling their holy books or desecrating their places of worship appear nowhere in the legal record. The blasphemy laws, it seems, work only in one direction.

Intolerance is spreading wide and deep across our society. There is no sign of the so-called 'moderate majority' either finding a voice or the political strength and influence to counter it, and we sleepwalk towards a time when extremism is the underpinning of the normative values that shape our lives. Politicians are fond of invoking this invisible 'moderate majority' from time to time, and there is an assumption which appears entirely without foundation that this group actually exists within our society. There is certainly a moderate minority, and we see and hear them in the media daily but we should not extrapolate from that a presumption that they are in any way representative. The extremists have a hand on the media as well, and have little difficulty in speaking to their constituency – one which is far more easily mobilized, has political clout and any number of mouthpieces. The WCC call for changes to the blasphemy laws will be heard by the moderate minority and ignored by everybody else; the minorities will continue to live in fear and extremism will once again have tightened its grip on the national throat.
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