dramatic music
[Isobel VO] Under Pakistan's constitution,
insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad
could be punishable by a death sentence.
[Isobel VO] The conservative extreme has become
mainstream.
You just have to speak and... [snaps]
the life of a person is finished.
[Isobel VO] Is that true?
[Alzo VO] Nearly 90 percent of landlords use criminal
background checks in determining tenant eligibility.
It disproportionately affects people of color.
I was getting denied before I even seen the unit.
[man] Housing is a human right!
[crowd] Fight, fight, fight!
Look, this is not discrimination,
this is reality!
You are punishing entire families!
[Chanel VO] There has to be a cutoff point.
When do people get to redeem themselves?
When?!
dramatic theme music
[shouting]
Hoorah!
[blasts]
-tense music -[crowd chanting]
[chanting continues]
[Isobel VO] All these people have come to the shrine of
Mumtaz Qadri to commemorate his death.
Qadri was found guilty and executed for the murder of
Salman Taseer, the influential governor of Punjab Province in
Pakistan.
Qadri assassinated governor Taseer in 2011 for advocating
for the loosening of Pakistan's strict laws against blasphemy.
Under Pakistan's constitution, insulting Islam or the Prophet
is considered blasphemous,
and could be punishable by a death sentence.
Religious hardliners like these consider blasphemy a legitimate
reason for murder,
and they take the law into their own hands.
Are a lot of people here inspired by Mumtaz Qadri?
[Isobel VO] The assassination of Governor Taseer made Mumtaz
Qadri a hero and a martyr.
His 12-year-old son has become the spokesperson for his
father's legacy.
Why is it that all these people have come to show their respects
to your dad?
Would you do the same thing?
tense music
[Isobel VO] The assassination of Governor Salman Taseer
sparked a far-right political movement known as
Tehreek-e-Labbaik, or TLP.
Founded in 2015, the TLP Party has weaponized blasphemy,
pushed mainstream political parties to the right,
and forced Pakistan's last two governments to accept its more
radical agenda, while threatening to protect Islam
beyond Pakistan's borders.
[Isobel VO] Pakistani extremists have been linked to
the 2020 attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris,
and the former leader of the TLP pledged to use Pakistan's
nuclear arsenal to wipe the Netherlands off the map for
allegedly defaming the Prophet Muhammad.
By encouraging their followers to target anyone they suspect of
blasphemy, the TLP has caused a wave of extrajudicial lynchings
across the country.
tense music
This February, a 35-year-old man named Mohammed Waris was found
in possession of a desecrated Quran.
The TLP made an announcement at a local mosque,
calling on people to come out and condemn the blasphemer.
We met with the man who originally accused Waris.
ominous music
[Isobel] So this is you taking him to the police station?
[Isobel VO] The mob overpowered the police,
dragged Waris to a cricket field,
and set him on fire.
Do you feel guilty, given that if you hadn't accused him of
blasphemy, none of this would have happened?
[Isobel VO] About 50 men from the mob have been arrested in
connection to the brutal lynching.
Even when the accused do have their day in court,
blasphemy laws are often abused to settle personal grudges.
The number of cases have skyrocketed.
Last year alone, there were 175.
Religious minorities make up less than four percent of the
population in Pakistan, and they're especially vulnerable to
being swept up by this law.
So we're just heading towards the family of a guy called
Patras.
Patras has been accused of blasphemy,
and because of the seriousness of that crime,
the whole family are essentially in hiding,
so we're not able to show the location that we're going to.
We're gonna have to sneak in and sneak out for their own
security.
[Isobel VO] Patras and his family, who are Christian,
allege that it all started when he brought his phone into a
repair shop owned by someone Patras recently had an argument
with.
There, they claim, Photoshopped images of a man stepping on a
holy site were posted from his Facebook profile.
Patras denies he ever posted them.
He was thrown in jail, and his family members have allegedly
been harassed by the TLP and tortured by Pakistani
authorities.
After four years in prison, he was released on bail,
and he's now in hiding.
[Isobel] This is Patras?
He looks so young!
How old is he in this picture?
What's it been like visiting Patras in jail?
What are the forces that you're up against?
Do you think you'll ever see your son again?
sparse tense music
[Isobel VO] The justice system itself is stacked against people
like Patras.
Those involved in defending blasphemy cases are also risking
their lives.
Defendants and their families have been assassinated in court.
Aneeqa Maria knew the risks when she took on Patras' case.
Of the many people who are behind bars right now for
allegedly committing blasphemy...
Mm-hm.
What proportion of them do you think have never committed
blasphemy?
There are 99 percent cases who are people who haven't committed
blasphemy.
People started using it more as a tool to satisfy their personal
grudges, and then they come to know that you just have to speak
and... [snaps] the life of a person is finished.
[Isobel] Do you have the evidence?
Do you have what it was -- the picture that he was accused of
posting?
Mm, yes.
Yes, we have.
[Isobel] Can I see it?
Mm, yeah.
This was the picture in question.
-[Isobel] This was the picture? -[Aneeqa] Yes.
[Isobel] And what's happening here,
it's someone stepping on a minaret?
[Aneeqa] Yeah, minaret.
[Isobel] Someone stepping on a dome.
[Aneeqa] Mm-hm.
So what have been the challenges with Patras' case?
Oh... [chuckles] lots of challenges.
The threat is one of the most intriguing challenge that you
have to face all the time in all the blasphemy cases.
You mean security?
Yes.
The opponent lawyers, they're named as Khatm-e-Nubuwwat
Law Firm, which is one of the biggest law firm for TLP.
And in the court, they start shouting and they start
threatening you, and then, they try to grab the victim.
He felt like his life was in danger by showing up to the
-court? -[Aneeqa] Yes, we all felt that.
And it is not a new thing that somebody is killed in the court
or somebody is shot dead in the court premises.
[Isobel VO] The lawyers working against Aneeqa,
the Khatm-e-Nubuwwat Group, are closely aligned with the TLP.
Their sole mission is to bring blasphemy cases through the
courts.
Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry is one of hundreds of lawyers belonging
to this group, and is pressing charges against Patras.
A lot of human rights groups say that most of the cases of
people accused of blasphemy are either people of minority groups
and/or facing the fallout of personal grudges.
Is that true?
Well, I wanna talk, then, about the case of Patras Masih,
who was accused of blasphemy when he was just 16.
You would know this because you're representing--
I don't know where he is, and if I did,
I wouldn't be at liberty to say.
But he doesn't feel like it's even safe to show up to court.
You know, his family are in hiding.
They fear their own lives.
Are your people intimidating and pressuring those who are accused
of blasphemy?
From what I understand, from looking at the case,
it seems like there was just that one post on Facebook.
Do you think for that one post, he should be sentenced to death?
tense music
[Isobel VO] With the forces working against him,
Patras is left running for his life.
I know you can't tell me where you are right now,
but how are you feeling about everything right now?
Your lawyer was able to get you released from jail on bail,
and you're now in hiding.
Why is it you're not facing the justice system?
[Isobel VO] Patras' fears are justified.
Pakistan's political climate has shifted.
The conservative extreme has become mainstream.
In January, the parliament of Pakistan voted to expand the
blasphemy laws even further.
Now, anyone who insults not just the Prophet Muhammad,
but also his wives or his companions,
could face a life sentence.
The conservative MP who brought this law forward faced almost no
opposition.
Is there more personal gain for you to be had from pushing these
laws through, versus actual benefit for the masses?
I mean, it's helped get your name in the headlines,
it's helped you win support...
But, I mean, the fact that you have expanded these laws,
does that not mean that these laws are likely to get abused
more and more?
But can you understand the alternative argument,
which is that it is the laws themselves that are the problem?
That sounds like somewhat of a sweeping generalization to say
that [chuckles] minorities are happy with this law when,
you know, there are a lot of Christians,
a lot of other minorities who I think live in total fear that
they may be the next to be accused of blasphemy.
moody electronic music
sparse tense music
This bill, as it's being presented today,
would allow violent offenders to share the floorspace with
unknowing residents.
There are consequences for breaking the law,
and we need to make public safety a priority once again in
this city.
-[applause] -[man] Quite, please!
You are taking away the rights of the landlords.
Are we talking about murderers that are gonna come and live
next door to us?
Look, this is not discrimination,
this is reality!
[Lizzy] I'm 53 years old.
What can I do to hurt anyone? [inhales sharply, sniffles]
And I'm still being excluded from housing because of
something that happened decades ago.
[Jorge] I've been out of prison for 15 years now.
I can't even be sure of securing rental housing and I could end
up on the streets at any given moment.
This is not just a New York problem.
This is an American crisis.
[man] Housing is a human right!
[crowd] Fight, fight, fight!
[man] Housing is a human right!
[crowd] Fight, fight, fight!
[Alzo VO] New York City is considering legislation that
would prohibit landlords from using criminal background checks
in approving tenants.
According to a report from the National Consumer Law Center,
it's standard practice for nearly 90 percent of landlords.
But these reports are largely automated,
and without federal regulations or industry standards,
background check companies may undergo only minimal -- if any
-- manual review, leading to potentially inaccurate and
unreliable reports.
Set that against a criminal justice system that's pretty
much racist, and you can see the problem:
people of color being gatekept out of the most competitive
neighborhoods.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has twice
cautioned landlords against making wholesale decisions based
on criminal history...
but have yet to make the practice illegal.
Chanel Rhymes is one of countless Americans saying
they're still being denied outright.
In her 20s and 30s, she was convicted of low-level charges
that resulted in two days' jail time,
four months of electronic home monitoring,
and community service.
Today, at 40, she's the director of a non-profit and works
closely with the state of Washington.
[Alzo] In applying for apartments,
you knew that they were gonna look at your criminal record.
Mm-hm.
You say you tried to compensate for that by providing all of
these things -- certificates, awards -- that you've earned
over the past few years.
Yup.
What were some of those things?
[Chanel] Let's see.
I got...
a letter appointing me to the joint legislative task force...
a letter from the Department of Corrections...
So this comes from the Department of Corrections...
[Chanel] Oh, yeah, mm-hm!
Saying that [chuckling] you are a stellar citizen?
[Chanel] Mm-hm, mm-hm.
My degree from Evergreen.
Columbia -- I did the Women Transcending Collective
Leadership Institute.
[Alzo] You presented all of this...
[Chanel] Mm-hm.
[Alzo] With your applications...
[Chanel] Mm-hm.
And they said no?
Yeah.
Right.
How many times have you been denied an apartment?
Eight?
-Eight times? -[Chanel] Mm-hm.
I was getting denied before I even seen the unit.
Do you feel...
locked in with this apartment and this landlord because you
-can't find somewhere else... -Yes!
[Alzo] Because of your criminal record?
Yes.
I don't wanna get in your pockets but...
how much has the rent been raised?
So, I started out at 1325.
I now pay 2600.
And I feel locked into everything.
If I can't lower my rent, I can't pay other things,
I can't improve my credit score, I can't...
It's a circle.
I'm locked in with everything.
How long do people have to do that?
How long do people have to say--
So once you do something, you're...
that's it forever?
There has to be a cutoff point.
When do people get to redeem themselves?
When?!
[Alzo VO] A handful of progressive cities agree.
Oakland, Berkeley, Seattle, and Portland have already passed
their own versions of the Fair Chance Housing ordinances.
[Alzo] Seattle banned criminal background checks back in 2017.
We're here to meet with landlords who say it's bad for
both business and public safety.
[Riz VO] This is crazy; it's totally crazy.
You know, you don't know who's living right next door to you.
Is it a murderer, thief, robber?
You know, I know petty theft, a parking violation,
a speeding ticket, that's very different.
But you need to know who's your neighbor is.
[Alzo VO] Riz Samad couldn't run a background check when he
rented his property in early 2020.
He ended up approving the application of a man with a
lengthy criminal background.
But because of Seattle's strong tenant protections and a
backlogged housing court, Riz hasn't been able to evict him.
[Riz] He's a violent person.
I only begged him to not destroy my property,
do not make noise, do not motorbike in the middle of the
night, do not create fear.
And in a result of that, his friend pulled a gun on us,
you know?
And basically, I wired my house, I got all the,
you know, cameras and all those things,
and he's telling me, "I know where you live."
-[generator whirrs] -It looks like...
somebody just...
came out here and turned a generator on.
[Riz] Oh, yeah!
They start bringing generator, which runs 24/7.
So there's no power in the house except for what these
-generators bring? -No, generator.
So there was the one generator in the back,
which burned all this thing.
This burnt hut right here is a result of a generator?
Yes.
And it's still I can't do anything.
If I had a little money in my pocket,
and I said, "I wanna move to Seattle,
buy some property, and rent it out to tenants...?"
I'll say, "For God's sake, [chuckling] do not invest a
penny in Seattle!"
[Alzo VO] Recent figures show that 14 percent of small
landlord-owned units fell off the market since the Fair Chance
Housing Act was passed.
The dip highlights one of the unintended consequences
of Fair Chance legislation:
by forcing small-scale landlords to sell,
some of the most affordable housing units are being wiped
off the market.
Marilyn Yim and her husband filed a lawsuit against the city
in an attempt to help -- as she puts it --
"the little guys stay in."
Walk me through what made you want to sue the city of Seattle.
It impacts our ability to continue providing housing as
small landlords, and especially with our situation of living in
the same property -- the same home -- as our tenants.
I'm not sure if anyone listening to this would find
what you're saying to be unreasonable.
I think there's also the idea that people will use criminal
background records to discriminate.
Right.
Are you able to understand that side of...
-[Marilyn] Of course. -Of things?
I do think that most of these laws have come from a good
place.
It's trying to correct for systemic racism...
-Mm-hm. -Bias, discrimination.
There are some unfair practices out there,
-absolutely. -[Alzo] Yeah.
I do want people to be protected by the law.
Yeah.
Seattle's law, though, prohibits us from even accessing
public records.
It doesn't matter how violent, how recent,
-how consistent... -[Alzo] Mm-hm.
Escalating, you know, that somebody's criminal record has
been.
[Alzo] Housing discrimination forces limits on
where people can live.
Those limits have significant consequences.
We're here at Harvard to chat with Dr. Raj Chetty about the
work he and his team are doing to show why and how zip codes
actually matter.
There's this idea that, you know,
no matter where you come from, no matter where you live,
you know, you just work hard, pull yourselves by your
bootstraps, and you have just as much chance as anyone else.
What has your research said about this?
Well, that's certainly the myth of the American Dream.
[Alzo VO] Dr. Chetty and his colleagues at Opportunity
Insights have used anonymized tax returns tracked over decades
to prove that the zip code where a person is born all but
determines their life's trajectory.
There seems to be a lot going on here.
There is a lot going on, as you said,
but it's really quite simple; it's kind of showing you where
the opportunity is in America.
Let's go to Seattle.
These red-colored patches that we're seeing here,
what we're seeing here is if you grew up as a kid in a low-income
family -- a family making, say, around $30,000 a year --
you yourself, as an adult, are making something like
$24,000 a year.
But if I go up here to some of these areas,
you know, north of the city, that number jumps up to $42,000.
Let me take you to a very different city:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Here's incarceration.
The fraction of kids that grow up to be incarcerated,
there are some shockingly-high rates in parts of Milwaukee,
like see that one there -- 16 percent of kids growing up in
low-income families there were incarcerated on a single day,
-right? -[Alzo] Wow.
I mean, it's an unbelievable rate.
Throughout history, there's been discrimination when it
comes to housing and where people live -- redlining,
credit checks, background checks.
And so when you look at this research,
do you connect it to discriminatory practices?
What we're finding is that some folks have much less access to
neighborhoods where we see much higher levels of upward
-mobility. -Mm.
And I think what that ends up creating is further
amplification of the divides between Black and white
Americans, between low-income and high-income Americans
because you have this segregation in American cities.
There are many people who won't even rent to folks who have a
criminal background, and so these people who are
incarcerated, once they're released,
they have no choice but to live in the place where they were
living when they were incarcerated.
And that's what creates the generational persistence.
[Alzo VO] That generational impact is massive.
More than five million American children have a parent who's
been locked up.
One of those parents is Yusuf Dahl.
At 18, he was convicted on drug distribution charges in
Milwaukee and served five years in state prison.
In the 25 years since, he's done as much bootstrap pulling as
someone could do.
He's got a Master's from Princeton,
worked in real estate for decades,
and is the CEO of his own non-profit.
But when he and his daughter moved to Allentown,
Pennsylvania, he was denied housing because of his criminal
background.
So the school that you wanted your daughter to attend is in
this community?
[Yusuf] Correct.
I spent the last 25 years working 16 hours a day to have
the resources to put my family in this community.
Yet, because of that decision
from over 25 years ago,
it doesn't matter.
Legally, they can keep me out.
And they have.
[Yusuf] They have.
When I was unable to secure housing in the community that
was gonna support my daughter, it put me in a situation I never
thought that I would be put in.
We live in an area where the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has
designated the high school is failing.
You are punishing entire families
because of something someone has done in the past,
and -- by the way -- has paid that cost to society.
Could you see how a landlord would say,
"I have these other potential tenants lined up that can pay
the same amount without...
the notion of a potential risk?"
First of all, I don't have to imagine 'cause my background is
in housing.
So I operated 200 units of affordable housing in the city
of Milwaukee.
I know the housing business.
And what matters to a landlord in assessing the risk or
predicting the success of a tenant,
it's "Do you have the income to afford the property?"
and "Do you have a track record of paying your bills in the
past?"
But your logic presumes there's some...
equality or fairness around who has been justice-impacted.
[Alzo] Mm-hm.
We know that race, income are predictors
of justice involvement, and so if you take this position,
well, you're perpetuating a system of discrimination and
disadvantage that has plagued this country from the very
beginning.
[shouting, sneakers squeaking on court]
Our family was able to make some sacrifices and sent her to an
independent school.
So you're paying for her to go to school?
Yes, I am.
[Alzo VO] I mean, that in and of itself speaks to this
problem.
And we're fortunate to have the resources to be able to do that.
[Alzo VO] What does success in this fight look like for you?
I know we will be successful when a person who has paid their
debt to society
can live where they want,
not where they're allowed.
moody electronic music