Search Results for: blasphemy law

A Pakistan anti-terrorism court (ATC) Monday sentenced six people to death and nine people to life in prison for the lynching of Priyantha Kumara, according to reports from local news outlets. In a press conference, Punjab Prosecution Department Secretary Nadeem Sarwar also said Judge Natasha Nasim sentenced 72 people to two years in jail, sentenced [...]

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, announced Sunday that he had ordered full action be taken against a mob who lynched a mentally ill man for burning pages of the Qur’an in Khanewal district of Punjab last week. The man was arrested for a violation of Pakistan’s strict anti-blasphemy laws, which penalize defiling a [...]

A Pakistan sessions court in Rawalpindi Wednesday sentenced a Muslim woman to death for committing blasphemy by insulting Prophet Muhammad over WhatsApp messages. Aneeqa Atteeq was accused of sending blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad and making remarks about holy personages on WhatsApp while also using her Facebook account to post blasphemous materials to others. The [...]

An urgent writ petition was filed Saturday calling for an end to the protests in the wake of the lynching and murder of a Dalit laborer at the Singhu border, a farmer protest site near Delhi. The body of Lakhbir Singh was found mutilated and hung on the police barricades in the early morning Friday. The [...]

The Lahore High Court in Pakistan on Monday granted bail to a 20-year-old Christian man convicted of blasphemy. Nabeel Masih was 16 years old when a photo of the Kaaba, a holy site in Islam, with a pig on top of it appeared on his Facebook page. According to the US Commission on International Religious [...]

The High Court of the Kano State of Nigeria Thursday acquitted a teenager sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered a fresh trial for a man sentenced to death after the convictions caused international outcry. A Sharia (Islamic law) court had convicted the two individuals in August last year. The high court that overturned [...]

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Saturday issued notices to Google and Wikipedia for “disseminating sacrilegious content” through their platforms. According to the authority, these websites are hosting misleading content about the present khalifa (spiritual head) of Islam. The searches on these platforms show the current leader of the Ahmadiyya community as the “present khalifa [...]

Several UN Special Rapporteurs and members of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention collectively pressed Nigeria Monday to halt the execution and overturn the death sentence for blasphemy for 22-year-old gospel singer Yahaya Sharif-Aminu. The experts, Karima Bennoune, Ahmed Shaheed, Leigh Toomey, Elina Steinerte, José Guevara Bermúdez, Seong-Phil Hong, Sètondji Adjovi, Agnes Callamard, Irene Khan [...]

“I tell you that I still consider myself to be an Indian. For the moment I have accepted the Governor-Generalship of Pakistan. But I am looking forward to a time when I would return to India and take my place as a citizen of my country.” – Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Dec 1947 Karachi) Indians have [...]

The Lahore Sessions Court in Pakistan on Tuesday sentenced Christian factory worker Asif Pervaiz to death for blasphemy. Pervaiz has been in custody since 2013 when he was first charged with blasphemy for messages he sent to his former supervisor, Muhammad Saeed Khokher. Judge Mansoor Ahmad Qureshi sentenced Pervaiz to serve three years in prison [...]