Blasphemy Law & Violence - 2 (Reporter - Dawn News Jan 2011)
Court jails imam and son for blasphemy 12th January, 2011 MULTAN, Jan 11:A
court has jailed a prayer leader and his 20-year-old son for life on blasphemy
charges in the rural heartland of the country, court officials said on Tuesday.
The case follows the assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer by his
bodyguard last week, after he called for reform of the blasphemy law under
which a Christian woman was sentenced to death.
Mohammad Shafi, 45, and his son Mohammad Aslam, 20, were arrested in
April last year for removing a poster outside their grocery shop promoting a
religious event in a nearby village. The poster allegedly carried Quranic
verses.
Judge Mohammad Ayub, heading an anti-terrorism court in Muzaffargarh,
handed down a life sentence to the pair on Monday, his assistant Faisal Karim
said by telephone.
According to the prosecution, the organisers of the event marking the
birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said the pair had “pulled the
poster down, tore it and trampled it under their feet,” Mr Karim said.
“The judge sentenced them to life imprisonment on charges of blasphemy
and ordered them to pay a fine of Rs200,000 each,” he said.
Defence counsel Arif Gurmani vowed to challenge the verdict in the high
court because “it has been given in haste” and was the result of inter-sect
rivalries, he said.
“Both are Muslims.
The case is the result of differences between Deobandi and Barelvi sects of
Sunni Muslims,” he said. “Shafi is a practising Muslim, he is the imam of a
mosque and he had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia… I am
defending them because I am convinced they are not guilty of blasphemy,” he
said. Nobody has been executed in Pakistan for blasphemy and those given the
death penalty have so far had their sentences overturned or commuted on
appeal.—AFP REFERENCE: Court jails imam and son for blasphemy 12th January,
2011 http://dawn.com/2011/01/12/court-jails-imam-and-son-for-blasphemy/
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