Anwaar Ahmad Should be Freed From Imprisonment
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/20
Less religious societies tend to be richer with higher quality of life, less crime, and more stability and equality. More religious societies have the inverse in addition to reduced freedoms and rights for women. Crime and punishment should separate from religion in society, accordingly.
Some of the oddest forms of crime as far as I have found in reading and in life have come from the moral coffers of the religious. This is a huge unacknowledged privilege of the religious over the non-religious, or other individuals who have the ‘wrong’ religion.
When so many societies have such huge populations and enormous religious populations with a willingness to persecute the non-religious for their gods, simply see the Freedom of Thought Report by Humanists International, the point is clear. The only real time some religious people feel this point, underscored, is persecution by other religions.
Blasphemy is such a law felt by the non-religious. It is the context of a religious law used, not only on the religious but, on the non-religious. Specifically, if it is a Christian blasphemy law or an Islamic blasphemy law, then the use of this law to imprison or give the death penalty by a Christian to a Muslim or a Muslim to a Christian is the injustice, respectively.
Yet, both of these styles of blasphemy laws get applied to the non-religious. Even further, it can become a claim of terrorism if the state is religious and unified with the military for additional impact for the theocratic leaders.
An anti-terrorism court in Islamabad in Sec. 295-A PPC charged Anwaar Ahmad, a (former) professor at Islamabad Model College, with “intending to outrage religious feelings” and terrorism under Sec. 7 (g) of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 in Pakistan.
He along with some others were charged. Abdul Waheed, Rana Nouman Rafaqat, Nasir Ahmad, were other cases convicted on January 8, 2021 with the nature of the charges related to blasphemy, hate speech, and terrorism.
Ahmad will be in prison for 15 years with a fine of 100,000 rupees. If someone does not believe in a god, which does not mean angry at a god because it’s a lack of care for the god and more a concern for how the god concept is used for injustice on ‘God’s Earth,’ then they should be free of religious law.
A just modern society is one freed from parochial strictures of a particular dogma of religious theocracy or fundamentalist secular ideologies. In essence, it is a simple argument for a fair and just society as one predicated on independence of governance and dogmas, and law.
Ahmad’s case, as with the cases of Abdul Waheed, Rana Nouman Rafaqat, and Nasir Ahmad, exemplifies an unjust application of religious law against individuals’ freedom of expression. The only real equitable legal game in town is international human rights and law. Its only impediment is enforcement.
This is an open call for work on Ahmad’s case for immediate and unconditional release for a harmless crime. The quality and civility of a society could be furthered by doing so. Otherwise, we have the eternal comparison of the non-religious fundamentalist legal scholar writing a response article to the blasphemous material and the religious dogmatist killing the blasphemer: There is a distinction here; and everyone knows it.
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