Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws

Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws PDF Author: Shemeem Burney Abbas
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292753071
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Under the guise of Islamic law, the prophet Muhammad’s Islam, and the Qur’an, states such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh are using blasphemy laws to suppress freedom of speech. Yet the Prophet never tried or executed anyone for blasphemy, nor does the Qur’an authorize the practice. Asserting that blasphemy laws are neither Islamic nor Qur‘anic, Shemeem Burney Abbas traces the evolution of these laws from the Islamic empires that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad to the present-day Taliban. Her pathfinding study on the shari’a and gender demonstrates that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are the inventions of a military state that manipulates discourse in the name of Islam to exclude minorities, women, free thinkers, and even children from the rights of citizenship. Abbas herself was persecuted under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, so she writes from both personal experience and years of scholarly study. Her analysis exposes the questionable motives behind Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which were resurrected during General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime of 1977–1988—motives that encompassed gaining geopolitical control of the region, including Afghanistan, in order to weaken the Soviet Union. Abbas argues that these laws created a state-sponsored “infidel” ideology that now affects global security as militant groups such as the Taliban justify violence against all “infidels” who do not subscribe to their interpretation of Islam. She builds a strong case for the suspension of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and for a return to the Prophet’s peaceful vision of social justice.

Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws

Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws PDF Author: Shemeem Burney Abbas
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292753071
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
Under the guise of Islamic law, the prophet Muhammad’s Islam, and the Qur’an, states such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh are using blasphemy laws to suppress freedom of speech. Yet the Prophet never tried or executed anyone for blasphemy, nor does the Qur’an authorize the practice. Asserting that blasphemy laws are neither Islamic nor Qur‘anic, Shemeem Burney Abbas traces the evolution of these laws from the Islamic empires that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad to the present-day Taliban. Her pathfinding study on the shari’a and gender demonstrates that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are the inventions of a military state that manipulates discourse in the name of Islam to exclude minorities, women, free thinkers, and even children from the rights of citizenship. Abbas herself was persecuted under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, so she writes from both personal experience and years of scholarly study. Her analysis exposes the questionable motives behind Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which were resurrected during General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime of 1977–1988—motives that encompassed gaining geopolitical control of the region, including Afghanistan, in order to weaken the Soviet Union. Abbas argues that these laws created a state-sponsored “infidel” ideology that now affects global security as militant groups such as the Taliban justify violence against all “infidels” who do not subscribe to their interpretation of Islam. She builds a strong case for the suspension of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and for a return to the Prophet’s peaceful vision of social justice.

Respecting Rights?

Respecting Rights? PDF Author: U S Commission on International Religious Freedom
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160942938
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
This report examines and compares the content of laws prohibiting blasphemy ("blasphemy laws") worldwide through the lens of international and human rights law principles. The laws examined in this study prohibit or criminalize the expression of opinions deemed "blasphemous," or counter to majority views or religious belief systems, and many impose serious, often criminal, penalties. Blasphemy laws are actively enforced in many states throughout the world. Many governments deem repeal not feasible or desirable and justify the prohibition and criminalization of blasphemy as necessary to promote religious harmony. This study seeks to evaluate the language and content of blasphemy laws to understand what aspects of these laws adhere to--or deviate from--international and human rights law principles. A better understanding of the laws' compliance with these principles may assist in the public policy community in developing clear, specifically-tailored recommendations for areas for reform. Related products: Explore ourFaith-Based Education resources collection Discover ourHuman Rights collection

The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law

The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law PDF Author: P. B. Cliteur
Publisher: Leiden University Press
ISBN: 9789087282684
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In contemporary politics two conflicting trends have influenced freedom of expression. The first confirms that many Western countries have become less strict about sacrilegious expression and repealed their blasphemy laws or withdrew much of their punishment for blasphemy. Yet the second trend manifests in an opposing movement, often couched in terms of religious freedom, which attempts to reconcile free speech with freedom of religion by punishing expressions deemed, for instance, "hate speech." With contributions by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this book offers an examination of topical issues relating to both of these movements, looking at freedom of expression, censorship, and blasphemy in contemporary multicultural democracies.

Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression

Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression PDF Author: Jeroen Temperman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108416918
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 771

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Book Description
This book details the legal ramifications of existing anti-blasphemy laws and debates the legitimacy of such laws in Western liberal democracies.

Encyclopedia Of First Amendment Set

Encyclopedia Of First Amendment Set PDF Author: John Vile
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 9780872893115
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1464

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Book Description
In the first work of its kind, this new and exciting two-volume reference comprehensively examines all the freedoms in the First Amendment, including free speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion. Encyclopedia of the First Amendment covers the political, historical, and cultural significance of the First Amendment. It provides exclusive, singular focus on what most people consider the essential elements of the Bill of Rights and the basic liberties that Americans enjoy.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy PDF Author: Leonard Williams Levy
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 9780807845158
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 708

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Book Description
What society considers blasphemy - a verbal assault against the sacred - is a litmus test of the standards it believes to be necessary to preserve unity, order, and morality. Society has always condemned as blasphemy what it regards as an abuse of liberty

Acts Against God

Acts Against God PDF Author: David Nash
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789142385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Blasphemy is a phenomenon that spans human experience, from the ancient world right up to today’s ferocious religious debates. Acts Against God is the first accessible history of this crime—its prosecution, its impact, and its punishment and suppression. While acknowledging blasphemy as an act of individuals, Acts Against God also considers the act as a widespread and constant presence in cultural, political, and religious life. Beginning in ancient Greece and the genesis of blasphemy’s link with the state, David Nash moves on to explore blasphemy in the medieval world, where it was used both as an accusation against outsiders and as a method of crusading for piety in the West. He considers how the medieval world developed the concept of heresy as a component of disciplining its populations, the first coherent phase in state control of belief. This phenomenon reached its full flowering in the Reformation, where conformity became a fixation of confessional states. The Enlightenment created agendas of individual rights where room for religious doubt pushed blasphemy into the twilight as modern humankind hoped for its demise. But, concluding in the twenty-first century, Nash shows how individuals and the state alike now seek to adopt blasphemy as a cornerstone of identity and as the means to resist the secularization and globalization of culture.

The Blasphemy Law

The Blasphemy Law PDF Author: Salman Shami
Publisher: Salman Shami
ISBN: 9780648230205
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
While working as an environmental engineer in a remote village in Pakistan, Jane Kelly¿s world implodes when she¿s framed for blasphemy. Not satisfied with the mandatory death penalty, her powerful enemies want her dead before the trial. Her two loves, Sergei and Razane, need to find a way to help her, but Razane is fighting her own demons from her troubled past as a Peshmerga fighter. With the feared Pakistani Intelligence breathing down their necks, they¿re running out of time, options, and hope. The Blasphemy Law explores the politics of terror in a rapidly changing country. It is a fast-paced thriller and an intense and unusual love story that takes readers on an unpredictable journey through dangerous but exciting Pakistan.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy PDF Author: Osman Haneef
Publisher: Readomania
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A Christian boy in Pakistan is accused of blasphemy―a crime punishable by death. Haunted by a tragic past, a young lawyer named Sikander Ghaznavi returns to Pakistan after many years abroad, and takes on the defence of the boy. He reaches out to the sharpest human rights lawyer he knows―the woman he has loved for years, but now another man’s wife. As they deal with their unresolved feelings, the lawyers confront a corrupt system, a town turned against them, and a prophecy that predicts their death. Will they save the boy? Or will the city of Quetta, its prejudice inflamed by religious extremists, consume them and deliver them to a deadly fate?

Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan

Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan PDF Author: Adeel Hussain
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
ISBN: 1787388794
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This fascinating book uncovers the hidden stories behind Pakistan’s fixation with blasphemy–tales of revenge, political scheming and sovereign betrayal. Hussain’s account opens in nineteenth-century colonial Punjab and traces blasphemy killings to the present, linking their emergence to polemic encounters between Hindu and Muslim revivalist sects, namely the Arya Samaj and the Ahmadiyya. It offers, for the first time, the arresting backstories to the assassinations of Pandit Lekh Ram, a leading Hindu nationalist; Swami Shraddhanand, an early progenitor of Hindu nationalism and the principal advocate for converting Muslims; and Rajpal, the Hindu publisher of a sensationalist book on the Prophet Muhammad. Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan then maps the curious afterlives of these killings, illuminating the most critical moments in Pakistan’s history: 1953, when outraged protestors smashed stores owned by religious minorities, triggering the country’s first state of emergency; 1974, when Islamist parties pressured Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to put blasphemy on the constitutional agenda; 1984, when Zia-ul-Haq transformed Pakistan according to his Islamist vision, which included more severe punishments for blasphemy; and the twenty-first century, when digital media has dramatically increased the visibility of blasphemy killings, prompting political parties to demonstrate their commitment to the cause.