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Human Rights Only Death Will Do A college professor is accused of blasphemy by his students, and the fundamentalist lobby demands the death penalty – irrespective of the court verdict.
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Adding yet another chilling chapter to the country’s ignominious track record vis á vis religious bigotry is the case of a college professor accused of blasphemy by his students and on trial for a charge which could, if he is convicted, cost him his life. The incident which triggered the charge occurred on October 2, 2000, in a private homeopathy college in a lower middle class locality of the Islamabad-based Karachi Company, and has engendered the interest of the capital’s diplomatic community and ignited the sentiments of the city’s fundamentalist groups. According to the statement signed by 11 students, a teacher in their college, Dr. Younas Sheikh, had, in the course of a lecture, made certain blasphemous statements about the Prophet Muhammed [PBUH]. This led to a criminal case against the doctor, but interestingly, the FIR (First Information Report) on the basis of which the case was lodged was filed not by the students, but by local religious leaders whom the students had contacted. The FIR states that on October 3, 2000 Maulana Abdur Rauf, the amir of the Almi Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwwat (a religious outfit), was approached by 11 students and informed that their teacher had uttered certain sacrilegious remarks about the Holy prophet (PBUH) during a lecture the previous day. The “offensive” statements attributed to Dr. Younas were uttered during a physiology lecture in which he discussed certain practices prevalent in pre-Islam, seventh-century Arabia. According to the FIR, the Professor had stated that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was non-Muslim till the age of 40; that he was not circumcised till the age of 40; that he was married for the first time at the age of 25, but since he had not yet been ordained the Prophet of Islam, there was no nikah; and that the parents of the Holy Prophet were non-Muslims. He is also said to have made reference to certain customs of the day such as circumcision, and the removal of underarm hair. On October 4, Maulana Rauf in the company of two colleagues went to the local police station and had a case registered against the doctor. Under the law the maximum punishment for an offence of the nature the doctor is charged with is the death penalty. Since than Prof Dr. Younas Sheikh has been in jail while his trial proceeds in a local court. Whatever the outcome of the trial, it is undoubtedly going to create waves. There is apprehension that if Dr. Younas is acquitted, the verdict will not be accepted by the fundamentalist lobby, which is demanding that the government publicly hang Dr. Younus. An intelligence officer told Newsline that religious leaders have, in fact, vowed to take the law into their own hands and kill Dr. Younas if the court acquits him. Conversely, a conviction will not go down well with the country’s liberal intelligentsia or the diplomatic corps stationed in Islamabad. Sources in Islamad-based western embassies are monitoring the situation closely. A large number of diplomats and newspaper correspondents from western countries have been attending the court hearings regularly. Some of the them disclosed to Newsline that the only pragmatic solution in this case would be to whisk Dr. Younas away to a European country. This, however, may not be the best option for Pakistan’s authorities who find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Whether the professor is convicted or acquitted and spirited away to western shores, it will give Pakistan’s detractors yet another stick to beat it with. Furthermore, unless some method is devised to stem the increasingly strident demands of the fundamentalist lobby, incidents such as these are only too likely to recur. So far the state has failed to either curb the obscurantist onslaught, or ensure an environment where the judiciary can operate independent of external influences. Dr. Younas Sheikh is an MBBS doctor and has practiced medicine in Ireland and Pakistan. He is an active member of the South Asia Peace Movement and the international Humanist and Ethical Union. He also runs the NGO, ‘Englightenment’ in Islamabad. Due to his outstanding professional and humanitarian service record, Dr. Sheikh was asked by Nasir Ahmed Chaudhry, the principal of the Capital Homeopathy Medical College, to come on board as a part-time lecturer. A visit to the college indicates that it does not offer much by way of intellectual discourse. Most of the students at the college have a limited agenda – i.e. to acquire a degree in homeopathy and open a clinic or medical store, or do some part-time business along with a government job. According to Nasir Chaudhry, the college principal, the incident with Dr. Younas had already acquired an alarming dimension by the time it came to his knowledge. Thus, he maintains, he was left with no option but to dismiss the professor. He also contends that he could not mediate between the students and the professor because the situation had spun out of control. Chaudhry conceded that this was the first complaint he had received against the doctor, and this was reiterated by other college students and members of the faculty, who added that Dr. Younas Shaikh is a devout Muslim who prays five time a day and has a thorough knowledge of the Quran. Dr. Younas himself reaffirmed as much in an interview with The New York Times in which he said, “Please understand, I am a deeply religious man, I cannot even imagine blaspheming against our Holy Prophet, (PBUH)… My statements about the Holy Prophet (PBUH), were made in his praise only, and these have now been twisted out of context.” He added, “My students asked me about the shaving of pubic and armpit hair, and I, in describing the glory of Allah’s revelations, said that before the arrival of Islam, the Arabs did not have these practices – and truly they did not.” Ironically, the staff and students also disclosed that the main complainant against Dr. Younas, Muhammad Asghar Khan, a lower division clerk in the Foreign Office who had enrolled in the college to obtain a homeopathy degree, is far from a model student. The senior-most student in class, in his late 20s, Asghar Khan allegedly instigated his younger classmates to take such extreme action. When this incident occurred, the college was already in the middle of a controversy fuelled by local Urdu press reports on “love affairs” on campus. When news of the Younas story broke, the vernacular press went to town with it, with Khabrain in the forefront. Local journalists were quick to contact religious leaders and elicit outraged statements from them such as demands that Dr. Younas be hanged in public. Interestingly, sources privy to the case disclosed that proof is available to indicate that although Maulana Rauf was himself not entirely convinced of Dr. Younas’ guilt, he nevertheless went ahead with the FIR. According to this information, in his correspondence with some religious leaders in Multan, Maulana Rauf himself expressed some doubts about the veracity of the complaint made to him by the students. Subsequently, in one of the court hearings, Maulana Muhammad Rauf admitted during cross-examination that he had neither inquired into the matter, nor confirmed the event when the matter was brought to his notice on October 2. The Maulana also admitted that he had failed to get the complaint cross-checked from the principal of the college, or from anyone else for that matter. He stated that Muhammad Asghar, an employee of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs, who was studying in the said college, had brought a written complaint to him signed by 11 students and acting upon it he had lodged the FIR against Dr. Younus. Media coverage of the case has engendered the interest of diverse quarters. Letters of support continue to pour in from sympathisers of Dr. Younas from across the globe to Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Silent support for the professor is also growing in Islamabad. The extremist-fundamentalist lobby has, however, not backed down one whit from its original stance: capital punishment for the accused. Around a dozen religious leaders regularly attend the court hearings. According to an eyewitness account, after one hearing when Dr. Younas was being taken back to the lock-up (bakhshi khana), a large number of young wild-eyed seminary students milled around the premises to catch a glimpse of the professor. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened.
The case is now drawing to a conclusion.
Its outcome remains anybody’s guess, but the court and the
government would do well to remember that the eyes of the world
are on them and justice must be served.
Equally also, they should pay heed to the ominous portents
– the increasing ability of the obscurantist lobby to hold country
and every successive government, including a military one, hostage
to its demands. |
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