Satire lands a Pakistani YouTuber in exile, pro-hijab protesters quashed in Iran, and executions continue to climb.

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Another Week, Another Blasphemy Charge

This week, we’re watching the cost of satire and the double standards of state power. In Pakistan, a satirical perfume ad riffing on blasphemy laws has forced a popular YouTuber into exile. Meanwhile in Iran, pro-hijab protesters—yes, pro—were broken up by police outside parliament, revealing that the Islamic Republic’s intolerance for dissent runs deeper than ideology. Add to that a massive spike in executions and the rising persecution of Christian converts, and the picture is clear: the repression is only getting worse.

Unbelief Brief

Rajab Butt, a Pakistani YouTuber, has been accused of blasphemy [[link removed]]—something which is not a first for him. It previously occurred last year [[link removed]], when he was accused of making a video that “disrespected prayer” and “hurt the sentiments of Muslims.” This time, the complaint again centers on one of his videos. Since deleted, the video generating controversy introduced a satirical line of men’s perfume, the “295”—a nod to the fact that Pakistan’s blasphemy law is article 295 in its penal code. It seems to have been meant as a light-hearted jab at his and others’ brushes with the law. He has since been forced to apologize, saying he is not against the blasphemy law, and has now left the country [[link removed]] out of fear for his family’s safety.

In Iran: a “makeshift vigilante camp outside the Iranian parliament” has been dispersed by police [[link removed]]. An authoritarian state denying its citizens the right to protest and to freely assemble: nothing new. What is new in this case is who the power of the state has been directed against. These were pro-hijab protesters, incensed that the new “Chastity and Hijab Law” has seen numerous delays in its implementation, including from the president himself. Does this represent the Iranian state attempting to further bury the hijab law issue—or is it simply a show of force over people getting too “rowdy”? Our bet is more on the latter than the former.

In fact, Iran is getting worse on human rights across the board. According to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the Iranian state executed 58 people [[link removed]] in March of this year, a 200% increase from this time last year. It seems the regime has been steadily expanding the scope and frequency of its executions, the impetus for which may have been the police murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Another report from the Center for Human Rights in Iran indicates [[link removed]] that legal “persecution of Christian converts [measured in total prison sentence length for such individuals] … has surged sixfold in the past year.”

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

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