Pakistan has a law punishing blasphemy that is quite horrible in practice. Pakistan's tiny "liberal" elite, which is rather disdainful of their traditional systems (as is the Indian "liberal" elite) finds it impossible to change the operation of the law (e.g., do a full investigation instead of arrest first, investigate later), let alone amend it. The Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was gunned down four years ago by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, for committing the blasphemy of criticizing the blasphemy law.
Sherry Rehman got into trouble for proposing legislation about the blasphemy law.
It seems that the political configuration in Pakistan doesn't want to hear about freedom of speech, secularism, etc., etc., it prefers its blasphemy law.
But it seems that the blasphemy law, as it stands, is not in accord with Islamic tradition. This article
by Arafat Mazhar goes into it in some detail, but briefly, Pakistan follows the Hanafi school of Islamic law; and while the Hanafi law makes blasphemy an offense, it makes it a pardonable offense; it certainly does not carry the mandatory death sentence that the Pakistani law has. Why does the Pakistani law carry a death sentence? I think it is because few of the people in charge have seriously engaged with their own tradition.
If the Pakistani liberals want a state that has laws that look like a modern secular European state, they are going to fail; if they want a state that has justice, regardless of what the laws look like, and that has the support of the generally Islamized population, they are going to have to engage seriously with their traditions.
PS:
Part 2 of Arafat Mazhar's article.
There is a similar problem in India; a lot of the intellectuals at the top do not engage seriously with the Indian traditions. Most of the Indic traditions are a embarrassment to them; and they basically engage in exercises of trying to wean people off of them.
Michel Danino points out this failure in an article in the Hindu.
