ICC Note:
Two Christians and a Muslim were sentenced to death on charges of committing blasphemy in Pakistan yesterday. According to Pakistani law, individuals convicted of defaming the prophet Muhammad must be sentenced to death. Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan are often falsely accused of blasphemy as the laws are widely misused. Reform efforts to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have all but halted following the assassination of two government officials in 2011 after they spearheaded a campaign to repeal the country’s blasphemy laws.
6/29/2016 Pakistan (The Express Tribune) – An anti-terrorism court sentenced on Tuesday a Muslim and two Christians to death on charges of blasphemy.
Two of them were also awarded 35-year imprisonment terms.
According to the BBC, the judgment was announced by ATC Judge Bushra Zaman on Monday. The case was registered in Satellite Town police station of Gujranwala on May 15 last year under sections 295C and 386 of Pakistan Penal Code.
According to FIR, Anjum Naz filed a complaint with the police that Javed Naz and Jafar Ali had blackmailed him and forcibly taken Rs20,000 and both of them were demanding Rs50,000. When the police took the two into custody, it was learnt that Javed Naz had recorded a blasphemous conversation of Anjum Naz. Javed had given a copy of the recording to Jafar Ali and they were now blackmailing Anjum, demanding money.
According to the police, the recording suggested that Anjum Naz had said something blasphemous which was recorded by Javed Naz.
The police arrested all three.
…
