Kasur (AsiaNews) – The campaign to abolish Pakistan's blasphemy law has been gaining new momentum recently as Christians commemorate the seventh anniversary of the death of Mgr John Joseph, Bishop of Faisalabad, who killed himself on May 6, 1998, to protest against blasphemy rules that fuel fundamentalism and cover private vendettas.

Bishop Joseph, who at the time chaired the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Pakistan Catholic Bishop's Conference, took his own life in protest against the death sentence passed on Ayub Masih, a Christian convicted of blasphemy a few weeks earlier.

He had written many letters to the authorities and had organised demonstrations against the rules, and called on the government to repeal what Mgr Lawrence Saldanha, the current Archbishop of Lahore, has called an "anomaly in our legal system".

In the memorial mass for Bishop Joseph, Fr Inayat Bernard, parish priest in Kasur, encouraged the faithful to "continue protesting against this inhuman law which is also contrary to Islam."

The blasphemy law is in fact two subsections—b and c—of article 295 of Pakistan's Penal Code.

It equally affects Christians and Muslims by making any offence against the Qu'ran punishable with life in prison (Section b) and any defamatory statement against the prophet Muhammad (Section C) a capital crime.

During the mass, other people spoke about Bishop Joseph recalling his work on behalf of Muslims.

Sister Victoria Jacob told the congregation about the Bishop's role in the construction of a bridge over a canal in Issa Nagri in Faisalabad district, in founding a leprosy centre and in promoting education.

Margaret Pira, director of Milap, said that Bishop Joseph was a "people's bishop". She recalled how, as the chairman of several Bishops' Commissions for inter-religious dialogue, he fought not only for the rights of Catholics but also for those of Protestants.

According to Anil Raja, president of the Mother Mary Biblical Studies Group, the Bishop taught everyone how to fight peacefully against laws that divide people and promote inter-faith hatred."

The Catholic Church and other minority groups have been demanding for quite some time the repeal of the offensive sections of the Penal Code.

They have also criticised the government for introducing superficial changes to the rules' procedures without touching their content, especially where they call for the death penalty for insulting Muhammad. (IB)