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KARACHI, Pakistan — Administrators at the National College of Arts, Pakistan’s leading arts college based in Lahore, are waiting to find out whether they will be charged with blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. Last summer, the college’s contemporary arts journal reproduced homoerotic paintings by Muhammad Ali depicting clerics alongside seminude young boys.

The controversy is the latest example of Pakistan’s institutions crumbling in the face of extremism and a sign that artistic expression here also is in danger.

The National College of Arts retracted its journal after receiving threats and a demand for both a public apology and the journal’s withdrawal from Jamaat ud Dawa, the charity wing for the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which reportedly carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008. The college pulled all issues of the journal from bookstores and dismissed the editorial board.

But despite the college’s swift response, a court chose to take up a petition calling for blasphemy charges against the institution. During the most recent court hearing, in mid-December, the editorial board’s lawyer said his clients had not wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings and were prepared to apologize.

Free speech advocates can hardly blame the National College of Arts for kowtowing to the demands of Jamaat ud Dawa: Those accused of blasphemy in Pakistan often fall victim to public violence before they can defend themselves in court.

In November, a mob torched the Farooqi Girls’ High School in Lahore after a teacher assigned homework that allegedly contained derogatory references to the prophet Muhammad. The teacher then went into hiding and the school’s principal was held in custody without bail, even though in the meantime the school had published two front-page advertisements in major newspapers denying any knowledge of the teacher’s reported act. Clearly, National College of Arts officials wanted to avoid a similar fate.

The space for free speech and progressive thought in Pakistan is shrinking. Since August, the Supreme Court has been pressuring the media regulatory authority to define “obscenity” more narrowly in order to better censor offensive content from Pakistani airwaves. YouTube has been blocked throughout the country since September for hosting “blasphemous” content, including the anti-Islam film that sparked global protests last year. And last fall the telecommunications authority banned cellphone operators from offering late-night call packages, describing them as “immoral.”

Now the legal proceedings against the National College of Arts are threatening the vibrancy of Pakistani art. The local art market began booming a decade ago, and the value of Pakistani works tripled between 2005 and 2009. Pakistani expatriates and affluent locals began to see art as a worthy investment, and in a recent online poll 20 percent of expats in Pakistan said they invested in art, second only to property. Strolling through Karachi’s galleries last month, I saw triptychs, sculptures and modernist installation pieces, each more provocative and politically relevant than the last.

Pakistani art is also increasingly a source of national pride, offering a different image of Pakistan than the terrorism, sectarianism and political instability typically relayed by the international media. In November, the first auction of Pakistani art — featuring 70 works by 38 modern and contemporary artists — took place in India. There have also been major contemporary art exhibitions in London and at the Asia Society in New York.

But continued pressure from extremist groups could stifle creative expression in Pakistan, denying the country one of its greatest sources of progressivism.