On the face of it, Friday’s strike call by the religious parties in support of the blasphemy laws was a success, as markets remained closed in major cities throughout the country. However, we must not ignore the caveat that traders in small towns and cities in Punjab still observe Friday as a weekly holiday. These markets would have been closed anyway, regardless of the strike. Moreover, the past experience of traders and businessmen that any defiance of the religious parties’ strike call could have serious consequences may have informed their decision to close their businesses. Whoever dares to open a shop on such days has his business vandalised. In Lahore, as soon as the sun went down and the danger of vandalism passed, markets opened. Even if for the sake of argument we accept that the strike was voluntary, it still represents only the urban areas, which constitute in total only about 36 percent of the entire population (not all of them necessarily supported the strike). Can we assume that the rural population too supported this call? It is more likely that intimidation coupled with the Friday weekly off did the trick at least as far as the markets are concerned. A majority of Pakistanis do not subscribe to the rabid ideology of the mullahs, but are helpless in the face of their street power. Regrettably, the parties in power are following the policy of appeasement of the religious lobby. The federal minister for religious affairs, PPP’s Syed Khursheed Shah, felt compelled to announce that the government would not amend the blasphemy laws, while Punjab law minister, PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah, went a step further and called these laws ‘perfect’. Paradoxically, in the same breath he assured the minorities that the provincial government would not allow anyone to misuse these laws for personal interests. For a law minister, who is expected to understand the law and its implications for society, to make such a statement was very disappointing. If history is any witness, these laws have been repeatedly abused. Where the courts acquitted the accused, mobs killed them in vigilante action. The state failed to stop either the implication of innocent people on blasphemy charges, intimidation of judges to compel them to hand down the maximum punishment in such cases, or arbitrary killings of the accused. These parties can at least exhibit a rational willingness to address the problem by amending these bad laws. Unfortunately, this attitude can be observed across the political spectrum. The opposition parties in the Punjab Assembly staged a token walkout during the session to express solidarity with the religious parties. Who will stand for the rights of the weak falsely implicated on blasphemy charges, incidentally many of them Muslim, when the entire political class is bending over backwards to placate the mullahs? Their politics has nothing to do with religion and their predominant interest is political gain. Experience has shown that if you give them an inch, they will take a mile. Now they are demanding that the prime minister give them an assurance that the blasphemy laws will not be amended. Nothing would be more regrettable than the government too getting intimidated by the pressure tactics of these extremists. Failure to amend these laws will ensure that injustice and the abuse of the law continues. *