Government caught between a rock and a hard place with ongoing protests

ISLAMABAD: Stressing on the fact that Pakistan’s government had very few legal and political options to deal with protestors seeking a reversal of the Supreme Court’s verdict acquitting a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, in a blasphemy case, experts said on Friday that the best way forward would be to resolve the issue through dialogue.
Sharafat Ali, a Supreme Court senior advocate, told Arab News that the government is not a complainant in the blasphemy case and therefore it can do little to “legally meet any requirements of the protesters”.
Bibi, a 51-year-old woman and a mother of five, was accused of blasphemy in 2009 in Sheikhupura and was awarded the death sentence by the lower courts. She had been in prison ever since. The country’s top court on Wednesday acquitted Bibi of blasphemy charges, reasoning that the prosecution had categorically failed to prove its case.
Shortly after the verdict, activists of a far-right religious party, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) took to the streets in all major cities of the country, including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore, and blocked the main arteries, thereby disrupting public life. They have also been accused of inciting followers through fiery speeches against members of the army and the judges who passed the verdict.
Ali said that the government should have charged the leaders of the protesting parties with “treason”, specifically the TLP’s wheelchair-bound leader, cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and his associates, for the incitement against state institutions.
“If the government fails to register cases against some key clerics leading the protests under incitement and treason charges, this will further embolden the extremists,” he said.
Talking to media persons outside the Parliament House on Friday, Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi said that the government was negotiating with the party leaders and “there will soon be a positive progress.”
He, however, categorically said that the government will not use force to disperse protesters. “We don’t want any bloodshed,” he said.
Tahir Malik, an academic and a political analyst, said the government is caught in a catch-22 situation as protesters have refused to back down from their demand under the verdict was reversed.
“Dialogue seems to be the only option to resolve the issue peacefully,” he told Arab News.
“If the government uses force against protesters, a considerable segment of the society can move against the authorities and further complicate the issue,” he said.
Malik said that there is a need to devise a long-term strategy to de-radicalize the society through the teachings of Islam. “Entire political leadership should join hands to ostracize extremists and ideology of extremism in the society,” he added.