Daily Times

The threatening speeches made by far-right clerics leading Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan against the Supreme Court justices hearing Aasia Bibi’s appeal against death sentence is a textbook case of contempt of court. Khadim Rizvi and Pir Afzal Qadri have not just interfered with the court’s work but also scandalised the honourable justices hearing the appeal in the blasphemy case.

The importance of a swift action, meaning initiating contempt proceedings against TLP leadership, cannot be stressed enough. Lack of action on TLP’s threats will send out a message that dispensation of justice is subject to the street power of the parties to the dispute. You can get away with unlawful and unconstitutional conduct if you can manage to bring just enough hoodlums on the streets, who are willing to be violent.

But to say that this kind of bullying [by TLP] undermines the rule of law is to say the least in this instance. The TLP men’s speeches are nothing short of a challenge to the sovereignty of the Pakistani state, judiciary being its integral pillar. If the court does not act swiftly in the matter, it will erode the trust of the (marginalised) social segments in state institutions’ capability of righting the historic wrongs done to them.

Aasia Bibi represents all those citizens who have been wronged by this country’s blasphemy laws. For those who still need to be reminded about the murky, and completely this worldly, origins of these laws, we must recall that the laws originated under colonial rule to manage communal conflict, but in Pakistan they became an instrument to further a politics of hate against religious minorities. Time and again, voices have emerged in our legislatures highlighting the lacuna in these laws, and seeking remedial actions. These attempts have been thwarted by similar threats issued by Islamists and their parties, who refuse to educate themselves about the humanistic aspects of our syncretic religious traditions as well as the dynamic ways in which these traditions are lived by the majority of Pakistanis. Instead, they keep clinging to a narrowly-defined theology.

We request the Supreme Court to not lose this opportunity, and we hope that it will not budge to the extremists’ threats. It must  respond to TLP threats by enforcing its sovereign powers and holding Rizvi, Qadri and all others who have threatened to interfere with judicial process in Aasia Bibi’s case in contempt of court.  *

Published in Daily Times, October 17^th 2018.