The Dark World of Pakistan's Blasphemy Hunters

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Pakistan is seeing a rise in online blasphemy cases, where hundreds of young men are standing trial in court for allegedly making blasphemous statements or sharing blasphemous content online or on WhatsApp. 

According to police and human rights organizations, several of these cases are being brought to trial by "vigilante groups,” private organizations led by lawyers, and supported by volunteers who scour the Internet and social media for possible offenders.

The families of young Pakistanis, including doctors, engineers, lawyers, and accountants, say their relatives are being duped into sharing or making content that could be deemed “blasphemous” by strangers online before being arrested.

A local police report suggests that vigilantes may be motivated by financial gain. One such vigilante group was reportedly responsible for convicting 27 people who had been sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty over the past three years.

Blasphemy is a highly controversial issue in Pakistan, an Islamic Republic of over 241 million people, where even mere accusations can lead to public outrage and lynchings.

Multiple court hearings have taken place in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where the country’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and private vigilante groups are prosecuting young men for online blasphemy.

Among them is Aroosa Khan’s son, who joined a WhatsApp group for job-seekers and was contacted by a woman

"Our lives have been turned upside down," Aroosa Khan told the Agence France-Presse (AFP), saying that her son, who was not named for security purposes, had been duped into sharing content that may be deemed blasphemous.

Khan said the woman sent her son an image of women with Quranic verses printed on their bodies, adding that the contact then "denied having sent it and asked Ahmed to send it back to her to understand what he was talking about.” He was later arrested and prosecuted by the FIA.

A special court was formed last September to expedite dozens of pending online blasphemy cases being filed. 

The most active private vigilante group in Pakistan is the Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan (LCBP), which has been responsible for prosecuting more than 300 cases.

Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one of the group’s leaders, said they have more than a dozen volunteers to track online blasphemy, saying, "God has chosen them for this noble cause.”

"We are not beheading anyone; we are following a legal course," Farooqi said outside a courtroom that heard 15 blasphemy cases, all filed by his group.

However, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported that multiple private vigilante groups were working in a "dedicated manner" to "witch-hunt" people for online expression or to fabricate blasphemy evidence using social media with "vested agendas.”

"All such groups are formalized by self-declared defenders of majoritarian Islam," the group said in a report they published in 2023.

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