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Ayaz Nizami is a blogger and political prisoner in Pakistan known for his arrest on 24 March 2017 for alleged blasphemy, [1] with a possible death penalty for such charges. [2] [3]
He was given the death sentence in January 2021. [4]
Ayaz Nizami is a pseudonem for Abdul Waheed. [4] Waheed is a religious scholar, [5] who primarily specialises in Islamic law such as "tafsir, Hadiths, Fiqh and their principles"; [5] besides this, he is an expert in Arabic language, grammar, terminology, philosophy and rational thinking. [5] He received his religious education after completing the standard education and was admitted to a religious school. [5] [6]
Before his arrest, he allegedly translated materials critical of Islam in English to Urdu for publishing, and was first exposed by Alyan Khan, a Pakistani political author. [3] Nizami founded the website realisticapproach.org, a website in Urdu about irreligion, [7] and allegedly served as the vice president of the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. [8]
On 24 March 2017, Nizami was arrested for alleged blasphemy by the FIA, and agencies in Pakistan. Two other bloggers were arrested along with Nizami in a crackdown on social media content deemed blasphemous by the Pakistani government. [9] After his arrest, the hashtag #hangayaznizami and #FreeAyazNizami was trending on Twitter in Pakistan, [10] and authorities shut down his social media account over material deemed controversial. [8] [11]
The Daily Ummat is a far-right wing and Islamist Urdu-language newspaper published in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Internet censorship in Pakistan is government control of information sent and received using the Internet in Pakistan. There have been significant instances of website access restriction in Pakistan, most notably when YouTube was banned from 2012–2016. Pakistan has asked a number of social media organisations to set up local offices within the country, but this is yet to happen.
In 2022, Freedom House rated Pakistan’s human rights at 37 out 100.
The Pakistan Penal Code, the main criminal code of Pakistan, penalizes blasphemy against any recognized religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. According to human rights groups, blasphemy laws in Pakistan have been exploited not so much for protecting religious sensibilities of Muslims, but for persecuting minorities, and for settling personal rivalries -- often against other Muslims.
In Islam, blasphemy is impious utterance or action concerning God, but is broader than in normal English usage, including not only the mocking or vilifying of attributes of Islam but denying any of the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Examples include denying that the Quran was divinely revealed, the Prophethood of one of the Islamic prophets, insulting an angel, or maintaining God had a son.
Political repression of cyber-dissidents is the oppression or persecution of people for expressing their political views on the Internet.
A blasphemy law is a law prohibiting blasphemy, which is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. According to Pew Research Center, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy laws or policies as of 2014.
The main blasphemy law in Egypt is Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code. It penalizes: "whoever exploits and uses the religion in advocating and propagating by talk or in writing, or by any other method, extremist thoughts with the aim of instigating sedition and division or disdaining and contempting any of the heavenly religions or the sects belonging thereto, or prejudicing national unity or social peace."
The People's Republic of Bangladesh went from being a secular state in 1971 to having Islam as the state religion in 1988. Despite its state religion, Bangladesh uses a secular penal code dating from 1860—the time of the British occupation. The penal code discourages blasphemy by a section that forbids "hurting religious sentiments." Other laws permit the government to confiscate and to ban the publication of blasphemous material. Government officials, police, soldiers, and security forces may have discouraged blasphemy by extrajudicial actions including torture. Schools run by the government have Religious Studies in the curriculum.
Irreligion is present among a minority of mainly young people in Pakistan. Atheists in Pakistan face discrimination, persecution, and prejudice in society. Pakistan is reported by some sources to be among the thirteen countries where atheism can attract capital punishment, but according to the Library of Congress of the United States, "there is no specific statutory law that criminalizes apostasy in Pakistan." On the other hand, the Pakistani government can impose the death penalty for blasphemy.
On 4 April 2013 all Bengali blogs were blacked out for an indefinite time to protest the arrest of four bloggers in Bangladesh. The blackout was to back a demand for the unconditional release of the arrested bloggers. A fundamentalist group named Hefajat-e-Islam Bangladesh started a campaign to hang freethinking bloggers, and demanding tough blasphemy laws. In response, the government started monitoring Bengali blog sites and sending letters to their authorities to terminate the alleged "anti-religious" blogs and provide information about the alleged "anti-religious" bloggers. Individual bloggers showed their solidarity with this blackout by changing their profile photos on Facebook and by tweeting with the #MuzzleMeNot hashtag. Different international organizations expressed deep concern about taking free-thinking bloggers into custody. After 92 hours of blackout, blogs returned online by publishing a press release on their central Facebook page.
Ahmed Rajib Haider was a Bangladeshi atheist blogger. He used to blog in the blogging communities namely Somewhereinblog.net, Amarblog.com and Nagorikblog.com and used the pseudonym Thaba Baba.
The Worldwide Protests for Free Expression in Bangladesh were a series of rallies outside Bangladeshi embassies and consulates to demand the release of four Bangladeshi bloggers who had been arrested on charges of blasphemy. The protests took place on 25 April – 2 May 2013 and were organised by the Center for Inquiry (CFI), American Atheists, and the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Demonstrations were held in Dhaka, New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Ottawa and other cities around the world. Secularists sought to express their solidarity with those jailed for speaking their minds about religion. Protesters drew attention to those who were being persecuted for exercising free speech, seeking to convince the international community to exert influence to have the bloggers set free by the Bangladeshi government.
Qazi Ahmed Yasir is a Kashmiri political leader, the suspended Mirwaiz of southern Kashmir and a renowned scholar.
Asif Mohiuddin is a Bangladeshi atheist and secular activist, religious critic and feminist. In 2012, he won The Bobs-Best of Online Activism award from Deutsche Welle, who stated that "Asif's blog was one of the most read web pages in Bangladesh and is known for its strong criticism of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh's "anti-people politics", his blog was later blocked and banned in Bangladesh by its government. On 15 January 2013, he survived an assassination attempt by Islamic extremists. A few months later, he was imprisoned twice by the Bangladesh Government for posting "offensive comments about Islam and Mohammad". Due to sustained international pressure, Mohiuddin was released, after which he fled from his country to Germany in 2014. In 2015, he received the Anna Politkovskaya Prize for Journalism, awarded by Italian magazine Internazionale.
Mashal Khan was a student at the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Pakistan who was killed by an angry mob in the premises of the university on 13 April 2017, over allegations of posting blasphemous content online. Following investigations, the Inspector General Police later stated "We did not find any concrete evidence under which [a blasphemy] investigation or legal action can be launched against Mashal, Abdullah or Zubair". Mashal's friend Abdullah stated to the police in writing that both Mashal and Abdullah were devout Muslims, but were actively denouncing mismanagement by the university and had previously led protests against it. Following the death of Khan, at least 61 suspects were identified. 57 of the 61 suspected were arrested and sentenced on 7 February 2018. One culprit was awarded the death penalty, five were awarded life-time imprisonment and 25 other culprits were awarded four years jail sentence. 26 suspects were acquitted in the case because of lack of evidence. Four suspects were on the run, who later surrendered to the police in June 2018. Later on 21 March 2019, two more culprits in Mashal Khan case were awarded life imprisonment by the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC). Mashal Khan's father, speaking to media on 21 March 2019, claimed that he was satisfied with Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) verdict.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi was a Pakistani Islamic author and the founder of Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a political-religious organization founded in 2015, known to protest against any change to Pakistan's blasphemy law.
Muhammad Ali Mirza, also known as Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza or Mirza Jhelumi, is a Pakistani Islamic scholar and commentator.He is also known from his famous motto MERE NABI SA HAI HI KOI NAHI,,TERE BABAY TEY SHAYE HI KOI NAHI.
Ahmad Waqass Goraya is a Pakistani-born activist and blogger based in the Netherlands. He is among several Pakistani bloggers and authors overseas who are critics of the Pakistan Army who have been persecuted, tortured and threatened. They include Salman Haider, Gul Bukhari, and others.
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