Pakistan releases Chinese man arrested for blasphemy

Pakistan released a Chinese national on bail after he was arrested on blasphemy charges, a rare move in the South Asian country where such cases are often delayed in fear of retaliation from religious groups.

The man, an engineer who worked at a Chinese-built hydropower project in Dasu, a town in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was accused by workers of making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. Local police chief Naseer told The China Project that the man had also admonished two Pakistani workers for spending too much time offering afternoon prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. Police have not identified the man in fear of retribution.

Thousands of angry protesters took to the streets following the accusation, blocking the Karakoram Highway (also known as the China-Pakistan Friendship Highway), the main road linking Pakistan to China. The protestors demanded that authorities arrest the Chinese national on blasphemy charges.

“Thankfully, the police swiftly went and arrested the Chinese man before being harmed or assaulted, because the mob could have physically harmed or lynched the Chinese man for allegedly committing blasphemy,” Muhammad Sabookh, who writes on Pakistan’s religious affairs, told The China Project.

According to the judge’s orders, the Chinese national was released from police custody and transferred to a secret location in exchange for 200,000 rupees ($700).

“The Chinese government always asks Chinese nationals overseas to abide by laws and regulations of the host countries and respect local customs and traditions. If the incident involves Chinese nationals, our embassy will provide consular protection and assistance within the purview of its duty,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wāng Wénbīn 汪文斌 said when asked at a press conference on April 18. The Chinese embassy in Pakistan is verifying the information, he added.

A rise in blasphemy accusations

Those found guilty of blasphemy can be sentenced to death in Pakistan. Although no one has yet been executed by official authorities, cases have increasingly been settled outside the courtroom. Dozens of people have been lynched by outraged mobs after being accused.

Pakistan has some of the world’s harshest blasphemy laws. The country has seen a surge in blasphemy allegations and cases in the last two years. As of 2021, Pakistan’s Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) estimated that 89 people have been extrajudicially killed from around 1,500 accusations and cases, though the actual number is believed to be higher, since not all blasphemy cases are reported. More than 70% of the accused were reported in Punjab, the most populous province in Pakistan.

In 2011, Salman Taseer, the then-governor of Punjab, was fatally shot by his own bodyguard. Taseer had sought to reform blasphemy laws, seeking justice for a young Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for the crime. Two months later, the only Christian minister in the federal cabinet of the former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government, Shahbaz Bhatti, was gunned down in Islamabad. He, too, had been a critic of the blasphemy laws, claiming that they were being misused to target and victimize Pakistan’s religious minorities.

Three years later, a human rights lawyer in the same province was killed just for representing a college teacher who was accused of blasphemy. In 2022, a court sentenced six men to death for the horrific lynching of a Sri Lankan factory manager in Punjab the year prior. He had been linked to the removal of a poster with Islamic holy verses.

In the most extreme blasphemy cases involving murder, many of the perpetrators argue that the victims have committed an unpardonable religious crime, deeming them wajib-ul-qatl — a highly controversial term that loosely translates to “worthy of being killed.”

Farooq Sulehria, a researcher and teacher at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan, told The China Project that religious fundamentalism has deep roots in Pakistan. The Pakistani state has long defined Islam as the ultimate source of sovereignty. Sulehria noted that the trend towards fundamentalism is not being taken seriously, despite the existential dangers it poses to Pakistan.

“Chinese are the most privileged and protected of all foreigners”

The rare release of the Chinese national comes amid strains in the relationship between China and Pakistan. Beijing has ramped up pressure on Islamabad to crack down on a growing number of attacks against Chinese nationals and interests in the country.

The Dasu hydropower project, which is being built by China Gezhouba Group Company in the northwestern district of Kohistan, is part of the $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) investment plan that includes a network of roads, railways, and pipelines linking the two countries.

But numerous Chinese citizens and projects have come under attack in the past few years amid brewing resentment from locals. Nine Chinese nationals were among the 13 workers killed in a bus blast at the Dasu hydropower project in 2021, perpetrated by Muslim religious extremists. The nine workers were also engineers of Gezhouba Group.

“Due to CPEC and Pakistan’s national interests, the Chinese are the most privileged and protected of all foreigners,” Pervez Hoodboy, a regular op-ed contributor to Dawn, Pakistan’s most respected English newspaper, told The China Project. “But even these precautions could not protect the Chinese from religious extremists.”

“A state, which was accused of weakness and of not having the will to confront religious extremism, has surprised everybody,” Hoodboy added.