Pakistan's Closet Atheists: An Ungodly Pursuit Of Danger

Pakistan's contradictions and absurdities might be giving its fiction an arguably desirable 'manic edge', as Mohammed Hanif, one of Pakistan's best-known writers, says. But when it comes to real life, these oddball difficulties are pushing truth into tightly shut closets, and life into open, grave danger.

Not only are journalists routinely murdered, humiliated or kidnapped in Pakistan. Hanif's own critique of the infamous Pakistani army in the New York Times was replaced in a local publication by a blank space — a mute reminder of the constraints under which free press operates in the country. 

The consequences of speaking out can turn perilous without warning. And there are a few topics more risky than critiquing the powerful military. But the riskiest is certainly talking openly about the country's blasphemy laws.

Blasphemy equals death, and recently, one person was indeed sentenced to death for posting blasphemous content on Facebook. Another, a college student in his early twenties, was lynched to death on campus, tragically, for his humanist views. It is now illegal to post content that could be blasphemous — even in private forums — and the government is scouring and encouraging people to report such content.

In such a scenario, this BBC investigative piece on closet atheists is an astonishing peek into a world of fake identities and genuine belief. These atheists meet in secret in homes or in 'safe' buildings, and they use the social media to comment on Pakistani politics and religious bigotry. The story presents extracts from some of their diaries and weaves in intimate conversations with them about what it means to question the existence of God in a nation where the government is trying to enforce the rule that a good citizen ought to be a devout Muslim.

Apart from the glimpses it provides into a dangerous sub-culture, one that can land its members in a ditch, very dead, the article holds a mirror to a country that is increasingly at war with itself.