 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. On September 13th, members of the National Christian Party in Pakistan staged a one-day hunger strike in support of Asif Parvez, a Christian government factory worker. Parvez was recently sentenced to death in a blasphemy case. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are infamous for their harshness and for their misuse. Their controversial use against individuals on political grounds is also driving members of minority communities to leave the country. So what are these blasphemy laws? These laws were imposed during General Zia Ul Haq's military dictatorship. In the 1980s, General Zia Ul Haq expanded the colonial era section 295 of the Pakistan-Pedal Code, which dealt with the offence of injury to religious sentiment. These amendments are today known as the blasphemy laws. The most notorious of these amendments is section 295c, under which anyone found guilty of using derogatory remarks against Islam, the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad is punishable by death. Anyone accused of blasphemy in Pakistan instantly comes under increased risk of facing violence. While no one has so far been executed under the nation's blasphemy laws, dozens of those accused of it have lost their lives to war-plynchings, assassinations and violence by Islamists. According to the National Commission for Justice and Peace, a total of 776 Muslims, 505 Ahmadis, Ahmadiyya is a sect that is considered non-Muslim in many Islamic countries, 229 Christians and 30 Hindus have been accused under various clauses of the blasphemy law from 1987 until 2018. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom estimates that currently there are at least 80 people in Pakistan's prisons for the crime of blasphemy, with almost 40 of them facing life sentences or the death penalty. It is estimated that since 1990 more than 70 people have been killed in Pakistan in cases related to blasphemy. In most cases, there is no need for any kind of evidence before vigilante justice is delivered. For instance, University student Mohammad Mashal Khan was killed in 2017 after rumours started circulating that he has made a blasphemous post on social media. A mob of his fellow students murdered him as police stood and watched outnumbered. In the case of Asif Parvez as well, he was sentenced to death on September 8th after his former work supervisor accused him of sending provocative blasphemous messages. His lawyer Saif al-Maluk denounced the judgment and claimed that there was no forensic investigation to even establish if Asif's phone was used to send these blasphemous messages. These blasphemy laws are often used for targeting religious minorities, especially Christians and Ahmadis. Human rights advocates and legal experts have also long argued that these laws have been used indiscriminately to settle personal feuds. It is also a powerful tool for muscling progressive voices. A statement by UN experts in January this year said, we are seriously concerned that blasphemy charges are still being brought against people legitimately exercising their rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression. The accusation of blasphemy alone ensures some kind of punishment, judicial or extrajudicial. Often those accused languish in prisons for many years before they are acquitted or many times the accused are murdered in prisons itself. The case that brought global attention to Pakistan's blasphemy laws was the one of Asya Noreen, more commonly known as Asya Bibi. Asya is a Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy by one of her neighbors in 2009 over an argument about her having used a Muslim neighbor's mug to drink water. The mother of four was sentenced to death in 2010. While in prison, she had to be put under solitary confinement during her trial by the prison authorities because of the likelihood of her getting murdered in jail by other inmates. The prison authorities also went to the extent of giving her raw rations and had her prepare her own food so as to avoid the possibility of poisoning. After nine years, the Supreme Court acquitted her in 2018. This was after the case claimed the lives of a sitting governor and a federal cabinet minister and whipped up a massive Islamist reaction. Salman Tahsi, then governor of Punjab was assassinated in January of 2011, just a few days after he spoke out against the blasphemy laws and in support of Asya. The case of the governor is a powerful illustration of how dangerous it is to even speak against Pakistan's blasphemy laws. While left and progressive parties, rights groups, and civil society activists have been calling for amendments and revocation of the blasphemy laws, mainstream political parties are mostly remain silent to avoid the risk of offending Pakistan's orthodoxy.