Police killings worsen crisis of mob violence against Pakistan’s blasphemers

This year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. The previous entry covered criminalization of women’s self-expression in Afghanistan and a slew of internet speech stories from Brazil to India to Iran. 

Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter. 

Blasphemy remains a dangerous issue. Even a deadly one.

Within a single week, Pakistani police officers carried out not one but two extrajudicial executions of accused blasphemers. Pakistan is home to some of the strictest blasphemy laws in the world, and extrajudicial violence in such cases is not uncommon.

In the first incident, an officer shot to death a man held on blasphemy charges in the city of Quetta. He managed to get access to the man by pretending to be his relative. The victim’s family declined to press charges against the officer “in the name of God.”

In the second shooting, police said they killed the accused — a doctor, Shah Nawaz, who had gone into hiding after allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad on social media — in a shootout with Nawaz and another man. After the shooting, a mob burned Nawaz’s body and destroyed his medical clinic.

But Nawaz’s family challenged the police’s story, alleging that officers killed him in cold blood, not out of self-defense. Rather, Nawaz “voluntarily surrendered,” they said, “following assurances that he would be given a chance to prove his innocence.” 

Days later, Pakistan’s government confirmed what the family alleged: Police executed the doctor, and then fabricated the shootout claim.

These killings mark yet another dangerous month for Pakistan’s alleged blasphemers, who risk execution by mobs — or in this case, police — for simply being accused of insulting Islam. Due to the recent violence and fear around blasphemy allegations, “many in Pakistan are posting disclaimers on social media stating that any offensive content on their accounts was not posted by them.”

And it’s not just mobs and vigilantes that mete out pain and punishment. In late September, a judge sentenced a Christian mother of four to death for posting blasphemy about Muhammad on social media.

Meanwhile, Swedish authorities are alleging that the Iranian government is responsible for hacking an SMS system to send around 15,000 text messages within Sweden calling for revenge against those responsible for a series of highly-publicized Quran burnings in the country last year. One of the messages threatened that “those who desecrated the Quran must have their work covered in ashes.” The Iranian Embassy in Sweden said these claims are “baseless.” 

The latest free speech developments, good and bad, in Europe 

• Two separate high-profile speech cases in the U.K. have been resolved, with both women involved facing no further sanction. In the first, a court found Marieha Hussain not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offense in September for her expression at a pro-Palestinian protest last year. Hussain held a sign depicting politicians Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts, an insult implying they are “brown on the outside but white on the inside.” And, days later, Cheshire Police confirmed Bernadette Spofforth would face no charges after initially arresting her in August for posting false information about the accused murderer responsible for a knife attack that set off riots across the U.K.
• Ireland has, at least temporarily, abandoned its pursuit of much-maligned hate speech legislation, with Justice Minister Helen McEntee acknowledging that “we don't currently have” the “consensus” necessary for it. The bill contained a number of worrying provisions, including criminalizing possession of “material that is likely to incite violence or hatred” based on “protected characteristics.” The bill would also criminalize speech if the offender conveyed “intent to incite violence or hatred” or engaged in “reckless” communication that is likely to incite violence or hatred.
• American writer CJ Hopkins, a resident of Germany, may face up to three years in prison for using a swastika in social media posts comparing Germany’s COVID-19 restrictions to Nazism. Hopkins was acquitted in January but on Sept. 30, after a prosecutor appealed, he was found guilty of “disseminating propaganda” and his case will now return to a lower court for sentencing. 

View video

• Thierry Breton, the headline-grabbing European Commissioner known for his aggressive interpretation of the EU’s Digital Services Act, announced his resignation in a terse letter. Breton’s pronouncements regularly raised eyebrows among free speech advocates. Time will tell if Breton’s departure signals a change in European regulation of tech companies and platforms like X. 
• Belarus is reportedly conducting a crackdown against LGBT activism, with up to 20 individuals arrested in recent weeks on charges including “hooliganism” and “dissemination of pornography.” A LGBT rights group in the country suggests that the crackdown is related to a recent resolution “classifying any LGBT expressions as pornography” and an upcoming “LGBT propaganda law.”

New speech regulations looming in Australia and Nicaragua

Nicaragua’s National Assembly certified a law last month that will mete out fines and prison sentences for social media posts that spread “alarm, fear, panic, or distress” and even longer prison terms for posts that promote hatred or violence or endanger “economic and social stability” and “public order.” The law is the latest escalation in President Daniel Ortega’s campaign to silence critics in and outside the country.

Meanwhile, Australia is considering a new bill that would empower the Australian Communications and Media Authority to order tech companies to act on misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms, search results, and other tools, or face penalties including fines. Here, misinformation is defined as “reasonably verifiable as false, misleading, or deceptive” and “likely to cause or contribute to serious harm.” There are a number of reasons for free speech advocates to be concerned about this and other bills meant to govern misinformation and disinformation. Readers may also remember that earlier this year, Australia’s eSafety commissioner initiated — and, fortunately, abandoned — an effort to force X to block content not just within its jurisdiction, but globally. 

To comply or not to comply? 

One of the most pressing free speech questions in recent years, and especially in recent weeks, is how tech companies and social media platforms should handle government requests for user information or orders to take down material. This question is only going to grow more urgent in the coming months and years.

The trend lately has been clear: increased compliance. 

• X appears to have signaled defeat in its battle against Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, taking steps to comply with orders issued by the justice. Those steps include naming a representative in the country and moderating content on X as directed by Moraes. As I covered in last month’s Dispatch, Moraes’ increasingly draconian orders against the company ultimately culminated in his ban of X within Brazil and a disturbing threat to fine VPN users who still accessed the site. In late September, X requested the removal of the ban and Moraes responded by ordering that X must first pay a new fine.
• The company’s changes in Brazil bring X in line with its handling of other governments’ requests, where it has generally been far more cooperative. After largely doing away with transparency reports during and after his takeover, Musk’s X released a mid-year report showing that the company is overall complying more with government takedown orders. Its 68% response rate in Turkey is especially concerning given the extent of the country’s censorship of online political speech.
• In light of the “complicity” charges levied against founder and CEO Paul Durov in France, Telegram announced it will provide user information in response to “valid legal requests” about illegal behavior on the app. Telegram is also working to remove “problematic content” but “did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment about how much content was removed and whether any channels or accounts were banned as a result.” But the company has confirmed that it has already released user data to U.S. police this year.
• Apple, whose acquiescence to authoritarian governments is well documented, reportedly removed 25 virtual private network apps from its Russian App Store on orders of the Russian government and may be “‘silently removing’ dozens more, possibly on its own initiative.” The company appears to have also pulled the protest anthem “This Will Pass” from Apple Music in Russia.

Hong Kong: Sedition edition 

It seems not one month can go by without Hong Kong landing itself in the headlines for serious acts of censorship. In September, a Hong Kong court issued its first conviction under Hong Kong’s new national security law and sentenced a man to 14 months in prison for a “seditious” T-shirt with the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.” Another man was also sentenced to 14 months for seditious social media posts saying the CCP is “synonymous with lies” and calling for resignations from government officials including President Xi Jinping. The magistrate in the case wrote that he “intended to bring others into hatred and contempt against the Hong Kong government and law enforcement agencies, resulting in social rift and division.”

In another first, Hong Kong has also convicted two journalists of sedition for their work editing the now-closed outlet Stand News. Chung Pui-kuen received a sentence of 21 months, nearly the maximum sentence for the offense, while the other editor Patrick Lam received a shorter sentence that allowed for his immediate release given his serious health issues. The judge in their case ruled that articles they edited “could sow ‘hatred’ of the Hong Kong government and authorities.”

Canadian universities face pressure over discussions about India and China

For years, I’ve written about efforts to pressure American universities to tamp down on research, discussion, and protest about foreign governments — with that pressure sometimes emerging from those very same governments. (I’m working on a forthcoming book, “Authoritarians in the Academy,” about exactly that issue. I’ll have more details on that soon!) And that pressure is not limited to American universities. Two recent incidents in Canada show why this is a global problem, too. 

A University of Ottawa professor, Roland Paris, attending a government-sponsored forum in Taiwan this summer reported that the Chinese embassy met with leadership at his university to lodge a complaint about Paris and another academic attending the event. Embassy officials also attempted to reach him personally to pressure him against attending and Paris “learned other international participants had also been targeted with messages from the Chinese diplomatic missions in their respective countries.” The embassy’s efforts didn’t affect Paris’ plans but “not everyone enjoys the job security that I do as a tenured professor,” he said.

And at Concordia University, university security canceled an event the night before it was to be held, claiming they did “not have sufficient time to assess” it. But the coalition of progressive groups putting on the event, a panel addressing “Hindutva fascism in India and in the Diaspora, and its impacts on minorities,” say Concordia called it off after the event provoked ire and calls for cancellation online. Posts on social media accused the panel, and Concordia for allowing it on campus, of being “Blatantly Hinduphobic” and spreading propaganda against the Indian government.

When organizers moved the event to a nearby community center, “dozens of men blocked the entrances to the event, chanting, and tried to force their way into the room.” 

Indictment alleges Turkish official sought to influence mayor’s commentary about the Armenian genocide

In last month’s entry, I discussed Linda Sun, an aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and later deputy chief of staff to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was charged with acting as an undisclosed agent for the Chinese government. On orders from a Chinese official, Sun reportedly successfully pressured a speechwriter to remove mentions of China’s Uyghur population from Hochul’s 2021 Lunar New Year comments.

A similar accusation emerged in the indictment unsealed against New York City mayor Eric Adams late last month. According to the indictment, a Turkish official in communication with Adams’ staff “repeatedly asked the Adams Staffer for assurances” that Adams would not “make any statement about the Armenian Genocide” as its anniversary rememberance day approached. The staffer confirmed Adams would not comment on it. This incident offers yet more evidence that authoritarian foreign governments are attempting to influence what is and isn’t said about their political matters here on U.S. soil.

The indictment also notes that Adams’ alleged relationship with Turkish sources was solidified by 2018. Readers may remember that, in 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security team violently attacked and injured protesters in Washington, D.C., during his visit to the city.