Yesterday’s news that the chief executive and co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is facing a police investigation in Pakistan for blasphemy is, well, unsurprising.

Boxcrack.net, an initiative of Privacy International,reported the following:

“On May 31st a High Court judge, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, ordered the government to take action in respect to alleged blasphemy on Facebook. On June 11th in consequence of this order, the Deputy Attorney General authorised and initiated the first stage of investigation and prosecution of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. The Deputy Attorney General on June 11th lodged with police a ‘First Information Report (FIR)’ against ‘the owner of Facebook’.”

A report in the Financial Times said, “Police of the Punjab province confirmed on Thursday that they had initiated formal proceedings against the owner of Facebook under section 295 of Pakistan’s penal code, which deals with cases of blasphemy.”

Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code states:

295-C.Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet:
Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.

Was this the most reasonable “action” to take?

No.

Does the Deputy Attorney General think a legal case will gain traction and Zuckerberg will be extradited to Pakistan to face a Pakistani court?

My guess is, again, no.

It seems like an attempt at appeasement. There are some Pakistani Muslims who want blood. So government lawyers and police lodge an FIR as demanded by the religious parties and the fiery mobs they have stoked — the composition of those mobs is likely filled with people who have never used the internet, let alone understand what Facebook is — to show them that the government is going for the jugular under 295-C where, yes, the penalty could be death. When they fail to convict or execute the twenty-something techie millionaire, the government can say, “Well, we tried.”

What the attempt to prosecute Zuckerberg does successfully do (again) is show the world that Pakistanis like violence. Violence and death are the preferred ways of solving problems here.

The Danish-cartoon riots show that. The Taliban blowing up girls’ schools show that. The killing of Christians in Gojra last year shows that. The horrendous attacks on Ahmedis this year show that. The attempt to convict Zuckerberg of blasphemy shows that.

Only time will tell how things will pan out. But one lawyer thinks that in the Facebook case, it is not even a question of section 295-C of the penal code because “the laws of Pakistan don’t apply to the rest of the world.”

Read an interview with Babar Sattar, an Islamabad-based lawyer, who spoke to Newsline’s Farieha Aziz long before the recent FIR was lodged, at a time when many people in Pakistan had become used to life without Facebook.