LAHORE, Pakistan: Due to the receipt of death threats from Islamists, the Supreme Court of Pakistan found it necessary to modify a portion of a ruling that had initially upheld the religious freedom of Ahmadis on August 22.
This decision is likely to result in severe persecution of the nation’s religious minorities.
The court’s surrender to Islamist demands came in an appeal by Mubarak Sani, a member of the Ahmadi Muslim group that Islamists consider heretical in the Muslim-majority country.
The Punjab Holy Quran (Printing and Recording) (Amendment) Act, which went into effect in 2021, was the basis for Sani’s conviction; however, he maintained that the charge stemmed from an incident in 2019 before the law went into force.
In its verdict, the court noted that Article 20 of Pakistan’s Constitution guaranteed citizens the right to profess, practice, and propagate their religion and that Sani had not committed a crime by publishing religious literature.
The Supreme Court then ordered Sani’s release on bail.
Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s decision infuriated Islamist organizations, particularly the radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), who then started a campaign against Isa.
Some TLP leaders announced bounties of up to 10 million rupees (USD 35,790) for any Muslim who killed the chief justice.
Fearing unrest, the Punjab provincial government filed a review petition under Article 188 of the Constitution, but on July 24, the Supreme Court declared that it had not deviated from the decisions of the Federal Shariat Court and Supreme Court in approving the bail.
The verdict favoring Sani outraged Islamist circles and sparked a debate in the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice. Both the Treasury and opposition benches agreed that the federal government should file a petition in the Supreme Court.
In addition to the Punjab government’s plea seeking the omission of certain portions from the court’s July 24 revised verdict, the federal government filed a miscellaneous plea on August 17 under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s directives.
The Punjab government’s petition maintained that some leading Islamic clerics and members of parliament requested the federal government to approach the top court and highlight some portions of the verdict that they said merited correction.
It further maintained that certain conclusions and observations made in other parts of the judgment seemed to be a mistake and needed to be more consistent with previous rulings of the highest court.
Under immense pressure and threats, the Supreme Court announced that it was ready to review its verdict for a second time, a first in the country’s judicial history.
On Tuesday (August 20), hundreds of activists belonging to Islamic extremist parties, including the TLP and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), breached security and reached the Supreme Court building, where speakers openly threatened judges to withdraw the verdict.
They said the judgment had “hurt the sentiments of the entire nation” and pledged that they were ready to render any sacrifice for the protection and sanctity of Islam and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad.
In response to the Islamists’ demands, the three-judge panel, which consisted of Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Isa, ordered the paragraphs removed from the verdict on August 22.
The judges stated that the sections removed, including the paragraph regarding religious freedom, could not be used as a template for future decisions.
“I don’t want to say [it] but am helpless; I pray in every prayer that may God prevent me from making any wrong decisions,” Isa said during the hearing in Islamabad, according to media reports.
Some veteran reporters who attended the hearing said all three judges were visibly fearful and under immense pressure. Many people in Pakistan, including a former governor and a high court judge, have been murdered for speaking in favor of those falsely charged with blasphemy, they said.
‘No Hope Left’
The Supreme Court’s “second review” of its verdict shocked rights activists and church leaders, who said the surrender to Islamist pressure does not bode well for Christians and other minorities.
“We were not expecting the Supreme Court to capitulate to extremist forces in this manner,” said Church of Pakistan President Bishop Azad Marshall.
“When the highest court of the country neglects to uphold the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom for all citizens, regardless of their faith affiliations, it creates a situation where hope for improvement diminishes.”
The church leader expressed fears of an increase in blasphemy cases and violence against Christians.
“Religious forces have instilled more fear in the judiciary,” he said.
“In such circumstances, I doubt we can expect any justice for those falsely accused of blasphemy,”
Marshall said that by deleting its observations regarding the freedom to profess any religion, the Supreme Court has shown its helplessness in safeguarding the Constitution.
Minorities Alliance Pakistan Chairman Akmal Bhatti termed the court’s decision “a big blow to freedom of religion in Pakistan.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “The extremist forces first successfully harassed trial courts, then high courts, and now the Supreme Court. Who would take the bails of Christians and others charged with blasphemy now?”
Attorney Yasser Latif Hamdani, a progressive Muslim rights activist and author, said he had lost faith in Pakistan.
“Jinnah [the country’s founder] certainly didn’t imagine that one day the same people who called him Kafir-e-Azam [infidel] would be forcing the Supreme Court to change its decision—a simple decision that says that a citizen of Pakistan can pray how he or she likes within the confines of his/her home or place of worship.”
“This country will never advance if it is possible to persuade Qazi Faez Isa to change his decision.” “It seems that Jinnah made a grave mistake in granting these individuals a nation,” Hamdani wrote on his Facebook page.
Like the previous year, Pakistan was ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the most challenging places to be a Christian.