Paul Keenan
Lawyer Mushtaq Gill risks his life to defend Pakistani Christians. He spoke to Paul Keenan
While it is the more dramatic and violent stories of anti-Christian persecution in Pakistan which frequently garner international attention, the case of Sara Bibi has special resonance as The Irish Catholic sits down with lawyer Mushtaq Gill.
In early November Sara, a primary school pupil from Punjab was beaten and locked in a school bathroom by her headmistress when she was caught using a toilet in the school, which Muslims had claimed for themselves against ‘unclean’ Christians.
It is a story Mushtaq Gill can identify with. The 34-year-old, also from Punjab recalls only too well his first experience of the contempt held in too many quarters for non-Muslims in his home nation.
“When I was in 6th class,” he relates, “A fellow pupil, just one of three Christians in my school, drank from a water cooler. The following day, the three of us were called from class and instructed not to use the particular cooler as it was reserved for Muslims.”
More than 20 years on, and Sara Bibi’s case proves little has changed. Indeed, one of the cases now occupying Gill’s time and attention is another arising within the school system. In October, a Christian teacher in Punjab secured the post of principal at his school, only to be cornered and assaulted by Muslim colleagues enraged that a ‘choora’ (a derogatory term for ‘untouchable’ persons) was given seniority over them.
International attention turned to this particular case following Gill’s intervention, and Pakistani authorities were quick to be seen to deal with the case, which was subsequently raised in the Punjab Assembly. Its solution? The principal’s post was transferred to a partner school where the Christian teacher cannot apply.
This and other cases are the reason Mushtaq Gill has travelled to Dublin. As the National Director of Legal Evangelical Association Development (LEAD), a body providing legal aid to religious minorities in Pakistan, Gill accepted an invitation from the NGO Front Line Defenders to address a capacity audience at Dublin Castle on the challenges faced not only by the Christian community in Pakistan, but by legal representatives like himself within a system clearly stacked against ‘untouchable minorities’.
As Gill explains, in addition to intimidation from fundamentalists for his daring to take cases where Christians find themselves in dire need of representation, he must operate against judicial colleagues who often “call into question my legal credentials to operate at all on behalf of clients”, a tactic to undermine him in court. Gill has studied law since 2006 and held a licence to practise since 2012.
Gill’s knowledge of the law is only part of the skill set he must bring to bear, however. In court it is not unusual for judges and lawyers to reference the Koran and the hadith (quotes attributed to the Prophet Mohammed) in seeking judgements beyond the law of the land, for example, to endorse the killing of blasphemers.
Blasphemy, and Pakistan’s laws on the subject are an area of special focus for Gill, not least because a vast litany of cases annually involve allegations of Koranic desecration and blasphemous utterances by minorities.
Gill explains: “The law in Pakistan, and specifically the Penal Code 295-A on blasphemy – is worded to protect all recognised religions in Pakistan. But it is overwhelmingly used in cases of alleged blasphemy against Islam – along with 295-C, against insulting the name of the Prophet.”
The result is with a massive number of cases before the courts involving members of minority religions burning the Koran, pointing towards a staggeringly high proportion of arsonists in the country.
It would be amusing were the outcomes not so barbaric and tragic.
Readers of The Irish Catholic may recall reports of a Muslim attack on the Lahore neighbourhood of St Joseph in 2013, in which dozens of homes were burned and the predominately Christian inhabitants of the quarter driven out. The spark for Muslim rage on that occasion was the alleged burning, by a Christian, of papers he had gathered during the course of his day’s work; papers which allegedly contained Koranic verses. Though police subsequently judged that the man had been accused in the wrong, they were forced by enraged locals to record the case, which in turn led to ‘official sanction’ in the minds of offended Muslims to attack Christians at will. Gill was involved in providing legal representation, free of charge, to the targeted man.
Another case, one with a strong profile in many Western minds, is that of convicted blasphemer Asia Bibi, still languishing in prison amid repeated postponements of her appeal hearing. This case, more than others, clearly illustrates the challenges faced by representatives like Mushtaq Gill is seeking a measure justice for minorities at the mercy of discriminatory uses of law. (One defender of Bibi, Shahbaz Bhatti, was assassinated in 2011 for speaking up for her, while Punjab’s governor, Salman Taseer, was killed that same year by his own bodyguard for questioning abuses of the blasphemy law.)
Working to have Bibi’s case finally dealt with by a series of reluctant judges, Gill lodged a petition with the courts in 2014 to force matters along, only to face another series of threats for his involvement, including a gun attack on his home (and a burglary there while he was in Dublin). However, matters took a far more sinister turn this past April.
“My brother was instructed by some people to force me to drop the case,” Gill explains. “When he refused to do this, he was shot in the back.”
The shooting of Pervaiz Gill forced Mushtaq to seek improved security arrangements for himself and his family – one of the reasons Front Line Defenders is so involved now, providing logistical back-up and the promise of international headlines should any harm come to the lawyer.
This, more than anything else, Gill says, is the key to helping Pakistan’s Christians and his work on their behalf.
“I have to thank Front Line Defenders for making sure the rest of the world know what is happening in Punjab,” he says, insisting that the very best defence lies in the gaze of the global community on Pakistan.
“International support and attention is very important. Otherwise we have nothing.”