Armed Islamic zealots kept vigil outside Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail as a hancuffed Doctor Shaikh Mohammed Younus sat waiting in the makeshift court for the verdict.  The judge looked decidedly nervous with the presence of Islamic vigilantes outside the court vociferously demanding that the death penalty be awarded to the accused.  The judge’s own life was in danger if he freed the doctor who he knew was not guilty. “The judge had assured me that  the blasphemy charge was flawed and he was going to acquit the doctor,” said Mohammed Hussain Chotya, Doctor Younus’ lawyer.

            However, the threat to his own life perhaps forced the trial judge, Safdar Hussain, to hand down the death penalty as well as a 100,000 rupee fine. “He deserves to be hanged for making derogatory remarks against the Prophet (PBUH),” the judge declared.  Confined to a small death cell in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, Doctor Younus’s  last hope of escaping the gallows lies with  his review petition to the High Court.

            The 45-year-old medical professor has been sentenced to death on blasphemy charges.  He is the latest victim of the growing fire of religious bigotry and intolerance that is ravaging Pakistani society. Even if he is freed by the High Court, his life will still be in danger.  Islamic fanatics have vowed  to kill him irrespective of the court order.     

            Accused by his students and mullahs  of making sacrilegious remarks about Prophet Muhammed (PBUH), during his lecture, the doctor was arrested by the Islamabad police in October last year under the controversial blasphemy law under which the death sentence is mandatory for those found guilty of defiling the image of the  Prophet (PBUH).  Ostensibly meant to prevent any disrespect to Islam and the Prophet (PBUH), the law is  now increasingly becoming a weapon of persecution in the hands of vested interests and  religious extremists.

            The “offensive” remarks attributed to Dr. Younus were supposedly made during a physiology lecture at Islamabad’s Capital Homeopathic College in which he discussed certain practices prevalent in pre-Islamic, seventh century Arabia. According to the charge framed by the police, the professor had stated that Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), was a non-Muslim till the age of 40; that he was not circumcised till then and that his parents were non-Muslims. He was also said to have made references to certain customs of the day, such as circumcision and removal of under-arm hair.

            Dr Younus, who is  well respected in the medical profession and a devout Muslim, has denied the charge saying his remarks were twisted. “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 follow these practices – and truly they did not,” he said in his court statement.

            Dr. Younus has practiced medicine in Pakistan and Ireland and  has been an active member of the South Asia Peace Movement and the International Human and Ethical Union.  Human rights groups maintain that he was framed because of his liberal views and for being a human rights activist.  His trial was made an emotional issue by Islamic zealots and the local mullahs who routinely held vigil outside the Islamabad court bringing the judge under tremendous pressure. A large number of young madrassa students once actually broke into the court threatening the judge with death, which prompted the authorities to shift the trial to prison to ensure the security of both the accused and the judge.

            “The clerics had generated an atmosphere where it was not possible for the accused to get a fair trial,” said I. A Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan(HRCP). Pressure on the judges has certainly increased after Islamic extremists shot dead a Lahore High Court judge, Arif Iqbal Hussain Bhatti, after he suspended the death sentence handed down to two Christians by a lower court. Two other High Court judges have also received death threats while hearing blasphemy cases.

            Doctor Younus is unmarried but his father and brother, who live in the southern Punjab town of Chistian, fear for their lives.  “I do not want to say anything,” said the professor’s brother, Mohammed Afzal, when contacted by phone in his village.  “Initially they were reluctant even to accept legal help or allow us to publicise the case because of fear that it would antagonise the mullahs further,” said Khadim Hussain, a human rights activist.  Hundreds of people, mostly  Christians and other non-Muslims, are facing trial under the draconian law.  According to the HRCP at least four people, including three Muslims, have been condemned to death row after lower court rulings. Their fate will  now be decided by the superior courts which are hearing their appeals.

            Last month, a Lahore High Court bench endorsed the death penalty awarded by a sessions court to a Christian, Ayub Masih. It is the first time that a blasphemy conviction has been upheld by a High Court.  The case of Ayub Masih is a classic example of how the blasphemy law has become a weapon of oppression, often even used for settling petty disputes, in the hands of unscrupulous men. Masih was reportedly accused of blasphemy following a land dispute with a local Muslim landlord. His conviction by a lower court in May 1998 in Faisalabad invoked despair in the Christian community, leading to the suicide of Roman Catholic bishop, John Joseph, who shot himself in front of the court which had tried Ayub Masih. The bishop’s last words before he died were, “Ayub, I am offering my life for you.”  There could not have been a more tragic comment on the law that has been widely attacked by human rights organisations and religious minority groups as discriminatory and unfair, not to mention one with a dangerous potential of legitimising acts of personal vengeance.

            Most legal experts agree that the blasphemy law, which was enforced in 1981 by the late General Ziaul Haq, is intrinsically vague and defective providing a lethal weapon in the hands of religious extremists. It  has been used for organised witch-hunting by both orthodox mullahs and Islamic extremists.

       There have been many incidents where the accused have been killed by fanatic mobs even after being acquitted by the courts.  Two people charged with blasphemy were murdered even before the court issued a verdict in their case.  Naimat Ahmer was stabbed to death in Faisalabad, while Manzoor Masih was shot dead outside the Lahore High Court.

      It is not just the accused, but even the lawyers who defend them, who have fallen victim to mob attacks.  Human rights activist, Asma Jahangir, has had her car smashed and been threatened with death many times by zealots. She now travels with armed guards.

            So far conservative Islamists have managed to block any move to amend the blasphemy law.  They launched a nation wide agitation last year when General Pervez Musharraf tried to stop its misuse by making some procedural changes in the law. He was forced to backtrack after pressure from  conservative elements within the army.