LAHORE, 16 Sept 2017:
A Christian man has been sentenced to death on blasphemy charges by a court in eastern Pakistan after a close friend accused him of sharing anti-Islamic material, the defendant’s lawyer said yesterday.
Blasphemy is a criminal offence in Muslim-majority Pakistan, and insults against the Prophet Mohammad are punishable by death. Most cases are filed against members of minority communities.
Nadeem James, 35, was arrested in July 2016 – accused by a friend of sharing material ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad on the Whatsapp messaging service.
Lawyer Riaz Anjum said his client intended to appeal against the verdict, passed on Thursday by a sessions court in the town of Gujrat.
There was widespread outrage across Pakistan last April when student Mashal Khan was beaten to death at his university in Mardan following a dorm debate about religion.
Police arrested over 20 students and some faculty members in connection with the killing.
Since then, parliament has considered adding safeguards to the blasphemy laws – a groundbreaking move given the emotive nature of the issue.
There have been at least 67 murders over unproven allegations of blasphemy since 1990, according to figures from a research centre and independent records kept by Reuters.
And in 2011, a bodyguard assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer after he called for the blasphemy laws to be reformed.
Taseer’s killer, executed last year, has been hailed as a martyr by religious hardliners.
– Reuters