Pakistan’s existing blasphemy laws, made even harsher this year, make insulting the Prophet Muhammed or any of his family in effect a capital crime, often without the necessity of a trial because those accused are abducted and murdered by lynch mobs before the justice system gets anywhere near them.

These forms of legal intolerance are often weaponised to settle political scores or intimidate others by false accusation. And the consequences, when paired with institutional timidity, can be horrific.

France was outraged in 2020 when teacher Samuel Paty was tracked down by an Islamist extremist and beheaded, with the attacker then shot dead by police. His assailant had been mobilised by factually twisted and deliberately inflammatory disinformation from local religious activists about a civics lesson Paty had taught, which featured a cartoon of Muhammed. The school at first caved in to demands that an inspector examine Paty’s behaviour, which lent credence to completely untrue and ultimately lethal allegations that he was deliberately disrespecting Islam. 

While France is convulsed with problems of social and religious cohesion, similar tensions are playing out here, with a similar lack of spine from local and national authorities, not to mention politicians. Three years ago, Batley Grammar school – not a religious school, but a state-funded secondary – was besieged by a mob after a teacher there used an image of the Prophet during an RE lesson. The head teacher condemned the practice, perfectly legal and proper in a liberal democracy, as ‘completely unacceptable’. Three years later the teacher has been given a new identity but is still in hiding, such is his fear of retribution.