ICC Note:
Tensions in a Pakistani village remain high after a Christian was accused of blasphemy against Islam. According to reports, a mob of more than 1,000 people gathered outside of a Christian part of the village and demanded the community convert to Islam. The terrified residents fled the village and fear returning. Accusations of blasphemy against members of religious minority communities in Pakistan have been known to boil over into general communal violence. In 2013, an entire Christian neighborhood in Lahore was burned to the ground after a Christian there was accused of making remarks against the prophet Muhammad.
5/13/2016 Pakistan (Express) – The small community of Christians in a remote village were forced to run for their lives after a crowd of more than 1000 people gathered outside their homes and demanded they convert to Islam.
Campaigners say three quarters of the 300-strong population have now had to flee and are starving in the countryside without food or water, adding that they are only alive at all thanks to the intervention of riot police.
Meanwhile an Islamic death sentence decree known as a fatwa has been issued against the young man at the center of the storm, with Imams ordering that he be brought before them and burnt alive for insulting the Koran.
Tensions first boiled over after a Muslim man accused his Christian friend, who worked as a hospital cleaner, of insulting the Prophet Mohammed as the pair scrolled through Facebook together at work on April 15.
A video, apparently posted by a prominent foreign politician, then auto played on the Christian man’s news feed, sending his Muslim friend into a fit of hysteria.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the Christian man, a 25-year-old called Imran Masih, had just told his best pal that he had fallen in love with a Muslim girl.
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