Pakistan prepares to kill for blasphemy as Musharraf surrenders grip to the mullahs

When is a dictator not a dictator? Answer: When he can't get things done.

If Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, had succeeded, Professor Muhammad Yunus would be a free man. Instead, he is on Death Row in Adiala jail, Rawalpindi, for treating his students to a learned discussion on pubic and armpit hair.

Professor Yunus was sentenced to death last month under Pakistan's notorious blasphemy law. His offence was that during a regular physiology lecture to students at Islamabad's Homoeopathic College, he happened to mention some curious facts about the Prophet Mohammed. He told them, for example, that Mohammed was not a Muslim until the age of 40, and that the Islamic practice of shaving pubic and armpit hair was unknown among Arabs until the advent of Islam.

Professor Yunus is himself a Muslim, and at his students' request was merely passing on historical information. But the shadowy mullahs who continue to hold great power in Pakistan decided his remarks denigrated the Prophet, breaking the blasphemy law enacted under Pakistan's previous military dictator, Zia ul-Haq, in 1981, which states that whoever "directly or indirectly defiles the sacred name of the Prophet is punishable by death".

For security reasons, the trial was held inside Rawalpindi jail. The judge, according to the professor's lawyer, Muhammad Hussain Chotiya, said the charges were flawed and told the court he intended to acquit. But religious extremists demonstrating outside the prison threatened the judge with dire consequences if he did not impose the death sentence, and it was duly handed down. (Three years ago, a high court judge was shot dead after suspending the death sentence imposed on two Christians convicted under the law.)

Professor Yunus's only hope now is that a robust judge will hear his appeal. His presence on Death Row speaks volumes for the impotence of Pakistan's latest military dictator to reform a society that is being consumed by the cancer of religious fanaticism.

When General Musharraf, the Army Chief of Staff, ousted the elected Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, in a bloodless coup in October 1999, many in Pakistan ­ to the consternation of the West ­ heaved a sigh of relief. Mr Sharif had been growing more autocratic and paranoid, greedily acquiring new powers and sidelining institutions such as the judiciary that might have checked him.

Unlike Pakistan's previous military ruler, the zealously religious General Zia, General Musharraf appeared sincerely secular: he was said to be fond of the odd drink; he was a bit of a ladies' man and he was happy to be photographed clutching his pekinese dogs (Islam regards dogs as unclean). From the outset he dedicated himself to halting Pakistan's slide into the sort of medieval desperation that has enveloped Afghanistan under the Taliban, and to putting the crippled economy back on the rails.

Nearly two years on, liberal society in Pakistan still likes the general, who now styles himself "President". He is personable and articulate, a master of the extended soliloquy that is a Musharraf press conference. Only flashes of authoritarianism are seen, as when a reporter who recently asked him a rude question found himself rapidly demoted. The desire to rid Pakistan of zealotry is still intact. There is only one problem: it is not getting results.

The blasphemy law that put Professor Yunus on Death Row would have been repealed if General Musharraf had any say ­ earlier this year he tried to abolish it. But the mullahs would not allow it. And this keeps on happening.

Last month, the government tried to clamp down on "jihadi" ("holy war") organisations, the militant religious set-ups that pervade Pakistan. On 20 August the Home Ministry issued a "new written order" banning such organisations from displaying their signboards or collecting funds in public. Three days later, the Home Minister, Moinuddin Haider, said: "All jihadi organisations have agreed to surrender weapons after a nine-hour meeting with the government."

But leaders of the groups flatly denied it. "If we surrender the weapons," one said, "it means the jihad is over." The government blinked and the initiative fizzled out.

No further raids have followed. The groups' collection boxes still stand on shop counters across the country.

Also last month, the government passed a law to regulate the Madaris, the 3,000 primitive schools scattered through Pakistan where the "talibs" (students) are taught to memorise the Koran, to prepare for jihad and little else.

These schools were the breeding ground of the Taliban (hence the name) and the government's well-intentioned aim is to bridge the gap between mainstream schooling and the madaris, so their students do not emerge in complete ignorance of the modern world. But "the decision of the government", a commentator wrote in The Nation, "has not been welcomed by the orthodox clergy". Prepare for another government climbdown, another helping of humble pie.

General Musharraf knows what he has to do, but for all his commando swagger he is unable to do it. It was General Zia who lit the fire of sectarianism in Pakistan, sparking jihad in Kashmir, promoting the fanatics who grew up to become the Taliban, allowing domestic zealots to lay down the law. And General Musharraf has yet to find a way to douse it.