Pakistan's War on Atheism

[Heddi]

http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/pakistans-war-on-atheism/

On Tuesday a High Court Judge in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad reiterated in a hearing that “blasphemers are terrorists,” as a petitioner sought a ban on social media pages allegedly uploading derogatory posts against Islam and Prophet Muhammad.

During the hearing this week, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge, implied that murder would be inevitable if the pages aren’t blocked. He went on to add that “liberal secular extremism” is a bigger threat than Islamic extremism.

Pakistan’s interior secretary assured Justice Siddiqui that the “entire government machinery would be set in motion” to address the issue. This was followed by the interior minister vowing to block social media completely if the issue isn’t resolved.
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Last year, Pakistan also passed its cybercrime law, which upholds identical punishments for Penal Code violations in the cyber-sphere. This means that “blasphemy” would be punishable by death, even if committed online.

The immediate impact of January’s abductions was a mass exodus of anonymous secular bloggers from the web. Satirical publication Khabaristan Times was also banned by the PTA, while a shift in editorial policies has been visible in many online and mainstream liberal publications.

This is why Justice Siddiqui’s juxtaposition of “liberal secular extremists” and radical Islamists is critical. All state institutions echoing apologia for Islamists, and slamming secularists, is menacing for an already endangered species: the Pakistani atheist.

Delineating the ideological divide, which would result in any liberal ideals being thrown to the wolves, could’ve instigated Bangladesh-like violence had Pakistani freethinkers been a quasi-significant demographic. As it is, a few abductions, and banned web pages, were enough to silence many of us.

Ironically, it is the state’s appeasement of radical Islam that has caused an upsurge in the number of atheists in Pakistan. This is why an official discourse on atheism has been going on in Pakistan, resulting in many expressing non-belief online, most doing so anonymously.

While one still can’t officially register as an atheist, or opt for “No Religion” as identity for the national database, the number of atheists is believed to have increased following the advent of Internet and social media allowing isolated nonbelievers to connect.

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Pakistani atheists – a broad term encompassing agnostics, the irreligious, deists, and humanists alike – have been lazily painted by the Islamists as “liberals and seculars,” despite the fact that many believing and practicing Muslims identify as such as well.

Muslims openly identifying as atheist in Pakistan would be an open invitation to violence, considering the state’s blasphemy laws are interpreted to outlaw apostasy, coupled with the National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) refusal to let citizens officially change Islam as their religion. Hence, the aforementioned “secular liberal” label also provides refuge to the atheists.