December issue 2010

Between 1980 and 2009, over 960 people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan. Of these, 479 were Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus, and 10 of miscellaneous faiths. Seventy per cent of these cases under the Blasphemy Law have been in the “settled” areas of Punjab. Since Zia-ul-Haq’s regime in the 1980s, 32 under-trial prisoners or those acquitted on charges of blasphemy have been “extra-judicially” killed by mobs inside prisons or outside courtrooms. At least two judges have been assassinated for acquitting individuals accused of blasphemy.