ISLAMABAD (TIP): A Pakistan court has sentenced five men to death for posting blasphemous content online, a prosecution lawyer told AFP on Wednesday, as the country witnesses a sharp increase in such cases.
Private groups in Pakistan have brought charges against hundreds of young individuals in recent years for allegedly committing blasphemy online.
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated accusations can incite public outrage and lead to lynchings.
“All five accused were sentenced to death for spreading blasphemous content against the holy Prophet,” a lawyer from the Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan, a private group which brought the case to court, told AFP.
“Separately all were sentenced to life imprisonment for Koran’s desecration and 10 years imprisonment for hurting religious sentiments,” lawyer Rao Abdur Raheem said.
The five men — one Afghan and four Pakistanis — were sentenced on Tuesday in Rawalpindi, the garrison city that neighbours the capital Islamabad.
The sentences will run concurrently, Raheem said.
The convicts have a right to appeal in the upper courts.
Despite the conviction, Pakistan has never executed anyone for blasphemy. The decision comes a day after a Pakistani YouTube star was charged with blasphemy after launching a perfume named after the very law he has fallen foul of. Rajab Butt launched his “295” perfume which refers to blasphemy legislation in the penal code.
Currently in Saudi Arabia, the thirty-year-old faces up to 10 years in prison in two blasphemy cases related to videos he posted online. Many of the online blasphemy cases are being brought to trial by private “vigilante groups” led by lawyers and supported by volunteers who scour the internet for offenders, rights groups and police say.
The Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan (LCBP) is the most active of such groups in Pakistan. Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one of the group’s leaders, told AFP in October that “God has chosen them for this noble cause”.
In January the same court sentenced four men to death for posting for posting “blasphemous content online”.
A support group formed by the families of those convicted and arrested on similar charges filed a case in the Islamabad High Court last year, requesting an independent commission be created to investigate the facts around the cases. (AFP)