As some readers might know, the months of July and August of 2009 were rough times for Christians (and possibly other religious minorities) in Pakistan.
The violence against Christians by radical extremists was covered by various news agencies such as this report.
This once again triggered campaigns by Pakistanis and international human rights organizations for the Pakistani government to abolish the blasphemy laws.
Like them, I too endorse banning such laws and harsh penalties. But unlike them, I do not underestimate the power of Pakistan's ultra-radical religious Islamist minority.
As I mentioned in my other posts, the ultra-religious right in Pakistan might be a small minority, but they have a strong influence in the country.
Suddenly reversing or abolishing blasphemy or other strict religious laws will not be an easy task for the government, knowing the severe backlash it would bring from the powerful mullahs.
In my opinion the best solution then is to reform these laws. For example, many reports from Pakistan talk of people coming under false accusations of blasphemy mainly from their rivals.
Many of these false accusations are a result of personal feuds and so to settle scores, people throw false accusations of blasphemy at their rivals such as abusing the Quran or cursing the Prophet Muhammad.
And as already stated above, abolishing these blasphemy laws and penalties will trigger a strong reaction, so the best solution would be to reform these laws and prevent people from using them to persecute their rivals.
A good start would be to pass a bill approving the death penalty for anyone who is proven to have thrown a false accusation(s) of blasphemy against another person or people.
In Pakistan, murder is punishable by death under certain conditions. For someone to throw false accusations of blasphemy at another person is literally trying to get them killed, an indirect form of attempted murder.
Enforcing the death penalty on such individuals may discourage them from misusing these blasphemy laws as weapons.
Additionally, people who are accused of blasphemy must be proven to be guilty of the crime.
For instance, when a certain individual(s) is accused of abusing the Quran, a copy of this abused Quran must be recovered with the fingerprints of the accused individual to prove his/her guilt before punishing him/her.
People who also do harm or attempt to do harm on another individual(s) on the basis of blasphemy must be given the death sentence for their actions. Unless anybody is proven guilty of blasphemy, they must be recognized as innocent by the government and any harmful action carried out against the accused must be punished as a harmful act of assault, murder or attempted murder against an innocent victim.
Despite preaching any religion being legal under Pakistani constitutional laws, the ultra-religious right in Pakistan is also known for it's hostility towards those who convert out of Islam or those who preach another religion besides Islam.
To prevent these extremists from harming missionaries or preachers of others faiths, the Pakistani government should pass a law banning public preaching and public conversions all together.
According to Islamic laws, each persons faith is their own private matter. If the Pakistani government can highlight this fact, they can use it as a justification to ban public religious conversion to protect and equalize religious rights amongst all religious groups.
Anyone who preaches or calls for violence against another person or people like some mullahs did in 2009 against Christians, he/she must also face the death sentence by law for inciting hatred, violence and possible destruction of property.
Because of General Zia Ul-Haq's empowering of the mullahs during his dictatorship, he has managed to leave the scars of his scratches on Pakistan.
Healing these scars has come through a long way, but it may take many years or even decades until they are fully healed.
What I mean by all this is that the fanatical religious imprint left by Ul-Haq has declined in strength slightly over two decades after his death. But it will take some time before Pakistani society is free of the influence of radical Islam.
To free itself of this influence, Pakistan can take certain reformist steps as those suggested in this post to weaken the strength of this religious fanaticism.
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