Pakistan blasphemy law news from Compass Direct:
ISTANBUL, January 22 (Compass Direct News) – A Pakistani court last week acquitted a Christian “blasphemy” prisoner on grounds that the convict was mentally unstable, while another Christian facing the same accusation was released on bail.Justice Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry overturned Shahbaz Masih’s life sentence at a Lahore High Court hearing on Friday (January 19), citing evidence that the Christian was mentally handicapped. He has been incarcerated for more than five years.
The judge also noted that no one had seen Masih, 28, commit the alleged crime, defense lawyer Khalil Tahir Sindhu said.
A Faisalabad court condemned the Christian to 25 years in prison in September 2004 for allegedly tearing up a Quran in a Muslim graveyard in Faisalabad.
Though psychiatrist Dr. Pervez Ahmed had testified under oath that Masih suffered from a “bipolar effective disorder,” the mentally unstable man was found guilty under sections 295 A and B of Pakistan’s Penal Code, two of the country’s blasphemy laws.
Defense lawyer Sindhu told Compass that tomorrow he plans to secure his client’s release from Faisalabad District Jail’s mental ward, where he has been jailed since June 4, 2001.
‘I will get him tomorrow and keep him in a secret place,” Sindhu said, noting that his client’s life may still be in danger from Muslim fanatics angered by the verdict.
Threats from radical groups have forced Masih’s family into hiding several times during the case. More than 60 armed Muslim clerics were present at the Christian’s final Faisalabad court hearing in 2004, chanting slogans and praising the judge and Islamic law when he was found guilty.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all.. It just gets wackier and even wackier..
one word: islam
don't these people have to work? What tha fook?
If nobody saw him do it, who testified at the trial for the prosecution? Isn't at least one Muslim witness needed? Or does Pakistani law not require a witness when an unbeliever is accused of a crime?
It's such a comfort to know that the religion of peace is full of brain surgeons. It only took them five years to figure out this guy is mentally handicapped and shouldn't be in prison? But then again, in Islam up is down, white is black and chaste girls are whores.
"...his client’s life may still be in danger from Muslim fanatics angered by the verdict."
Oh good! Please, please can we include this mentality in the American justice system? It would be a great thing to know that even though here we are innocent until proven guilty, if a bunch of angry Muslims with chips on their shoulders were unhappy with the verdict we could still be executed and die a really horrible death. I get a warm fuzzy just thinking about it.
"More than 60 armed Muslim clerics were present at the Christian’s final Faisalabad court hearing in 2004, chanting slogans and praising the judge and Islamic law when he was found guilty."
Armed muslim clerics. Armed clerics. Think about it.
Christian clerics are armed with what ? A cross.
"Mentally unstable", "Christian", "Infidel" --what is the diffference? It's just semantics!
"More than 60 armed Muslim clerics were present..."
This is a perfect example of what the difference is between Islamania and the rest of the world. How many ministers, priests and rabbis run around carrying weapons? Islam is a religion? Not bloody likely.
"More than 60 armed Muslim clerics were present at the Christian’s final Faisalabad court hearing in 2004, chanting slogans and praising the judge and Islamic law when he was found guilty."
........Islam is not a religion, it is a military entity.....
Folks, this poor soul is not out of the woods; there is an established pattern of vigilante justice occurring in Pakistan when court verdicts don't go the way of the faithful.
In the 80s, a Pakistani Air Force officer who converted to Christianity was found innocent of blasphemy at a local court....only to be shot to death outside the courtroom by an outraged fundamentalist.
And remember the Christian boy who was accused of blaspheming Islam through graffiti?....even though it was later determined he was illiterate. After charges were dropped in HIS case, he was also shot to death.
The Pakistanis went to great length to convince a Papal envoy that the shooting was un-related to the blasphemy accusations. Their version of the event was that the boy and two friends were bike-riding in the country and had interupted the gunman having sex with a donkey.
The story remains inexplicable in many respects. If the motive of the accused was to hide his perverted display, why didn't he kill the other two boys also?
Me thinks something is rotten in Lahore.
"Christian clerics are armed with what ? A cross."
A parish priest from my hometown is currently in Pakistan. The compound he lives in is "protected" by a patrol of armed guards.
aynrandgirl, in overwelming muslim countries the seriousnous of the charges is all that is needed to convict and punish you by muslims, and if your family dare to protest than they too will be punished. This is the case in every muslim country that has some relgioud minority.
don't these people have to work? What tha fook?
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 25, 2007 02:44 AM
THIS is their holy work. Their government pays them with money it gets from Western aid and oil purchases. Then the "holies" go back to their mosques and continue to manufacture more clones of themselves as well as jihadist killer robots. This is the Islamic cycle of life and we in the West fund it thanks to our idiot "leaders" wasting our tax money on these cesspoolian countries.
No country could possibly be that backward unless it's people where also retarded and/or mentally ill. A sane and intelligient population just doesn't live in such squalor and think it fine and dandy.
Posted by: Mother Ecclesiastica at January 25, 2007 09:08 AM
I challenge this statement. Introducing, the palestinians-the most wretched of Illah's minions.
PS: Had a good look at "Palestine", have you?
Posted by: Mother Ecclesiastica at January 25, 2007 09:18 AM
Thankfully, I've never been there (Gaza seems to basically be palestine at the moment, but those cretins are trying harder to enlarge it as always). Their efforts at nation building have impressed me greatly-shooting rockets into Israel is certainly a new way of getting the job done.
Five years in prison for an "alledged" crime...In Islam you can be jailed or killed just because your neighbor (who has a beef with you)claims you “blasphemied" Islam...The religious police are quick to arrest you , you go to a kangaroo court, and Judge Allie Babba sentences you... no problem...
Folks, nothing but good old taq'qiya. We have been getting a lot of it lately. There was some paki general who said that India and pakistan have *gasp gasp* a "common culture". pervez invited a group of Hindus to pray at a temple outside lahore that was rebuilt recently. And all of a sudden pakistanis seem to have discovered that the ancient city of Taxila had lots of Hindu temples, and there are talks to *gasp gasp* rebuild them again.
They're teasing us, that's all.
One moment, turn the heat down on the water boiling in the pan so the frog swimming in there can backstroke a bit, relax, and even give thanks to his new master for the relief, the next moment, turn the flame all the way up to have funs & chuckles watching him cook amidst the hot bubbles.
Posted by: MeanieMo
Just when you thought you'd heard it all.. It just gets wackier and even wackier..
Well this takes some beating
SICK 256 Al-Baraqah
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects Evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things
Update for the case of Lia Eden, a cult leader on trial for insulting Islam. If it weren’t serious it would be funny.
Lia Eden, real name Lia Aminuddin, leader of the “God’s Kingdom” group, is being tried in Jakarta for blasphemy against Islam, as well as disturbing public order, and committing criminal acts against children. Her trial seems to be some sort of comedy show but this should be tempered with the knowledge of the legal circumstances of the case.
The relevant law under which she is charged, in terms of blasphemy, is article 156 of the criminal code, and reads:
anyone who deliberately and publicly acts or makes known thoughts which involve hatred, misuse, or insulting of any religion followed in Indonesia shall be sentenced to a maximum of five years’ jail
more
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/index.html
Her litany of alleged crimes in the blasphemy area is long.
As for these people seeming astonishingly stupid, Pakistan is one of the countries with the lowest rates of salt iodization, comparable with many sub Saharan African nations. This leads to lower IQs and a host of other health problems. The virulence of their faith is no doubt related to their stupidity, in turn brought on by malnutrition. The most modern Muslim nations, like Tunisia, consume iodized salt and hence have a higher average IQ. Intelligent people are more likely to question their faith, and for that you need iodine. Perhaps the best thing we can do to make these people less crazy is make them less stupid by getting them to iodize their salt. The UN is working on this - they're not all bad, you see.
This is no different than if an American court ruled today that a particular black man, a mulatto, could be allowed to use a whites-only restaurant, not because it's okay for black people to use whites-only restaurants, but only because this particular mulatto has been determined to be white due to a preponderance of white blood. You think PC Multiculturalists would stand for that?
Quijybo,
Has the UN mentioned anything to Muslims about the genetic consequences of centuries of chronic inbreeding? Islam promotes first cousin marriages (Father's brothers' daughters being especially desirable) as a high status achievement - keeping Islamic families dependently enmeshed.
Never-mind, even if Islamists get it together to figure out how to use salt and learn to marry strangers (and thereby strengthen their synaptic clefts) there still remains the problem of the awful teachings of Mohammed. And those teachings are not going anywhere anytime soon. And all the implicit benefits of "Please pass the salt" just don't seem sufficient to the task of fostering reasonable disobedience to Allah's demand for absolute subservience to his monstrous will.
There is no cause for jubilation at the release of these two poor men. Everyone knows, including the judges, that their release is a prelude to their lynching ie if they are licky.
From Minorities want check on misuse of blasphemy law
ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) Chairman Shahbaz Bhatti appealed to the chief justice of the Supreme Court to take suo motto action against the alarming misuse of the blasphemy law and demanded its repeal.
In a statement issued here on Thursday, Mr Bhatti strongly condemned the registration of blasphemy case against a Christian woman, Martha Bibi of Kasur.
He said that a blasphemy case had been registered against her, under Section 295C-PPC, earlier this month by the Changa Manga police, in Patoki tehsil, without any investigation or solid evidence. Even the victim has rejected the allegations.
He said that the blasphemy case against Bibi was baseless concocted and fabricated.
The APMA chief said that religious minorities were being roped in false cases, under the blasphemy law, and many were subjected to extra-judicial killing or were left to languish in prisons for years. He said families of victims were compelled to leave their homes due to threats, harassment and a sense of insecurity.
He said the law had became a tool in the hands of extremists, which they used to persecute, victimise and terrorise religious minorities and opponents.
He said religious extremists took the law into their own hands and did not even wait for the judicial verdict. He said that judgments of superior courts had proved that the blasphemy law was being ruthlessly abused for settling personal scores and used for religious persecution.
He said, “this law is a naked sword hanging on the heads of non-Muslims in Pakistan.”
Mr Bhatti emphasized that the blasphemy law violated Article 25 of the Constitution and was also against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The wording of the law was vague and open-ended, thus open to interpretation and abuse.
He said, “religious minorities respect all Holy Prophets and Holy Books; they can never commit acts that make their own lives miserable.”
He said that this law was hampering the efforts to promote interfaith harmony, national unity and dialogue among different faiths and encouraged religious bigotry, obscurantism and was strengthening religious extremists to indulge in violence in the name of religion.
He said the government should take concrete and practical steps to stop the misuse of the blasphemy law and that its existence and of other discriminatory laws were hurdles in making Pakistan an enlightened and moderate state.
The APMA chairman also demanded of the government to form a judicial commission to review pending cases pertaining to the blasphemy laws and release all innocent prisoners immediately.
He asked for the immediate release of Bibi and protection for her family.
Mother E said:
"You can tell just by looking at ***Pakis***..."
OK, you can stop right there with your offensive crap. Honestly, some of your posts are as intolerant as the rubbish Zawahiri and pals come out with, you're just playing at being on the 'other' side.
I am pretty much to the point that we just need to drop a dozen neutron bombs and get this nonsense over with.
American_Palamite: Genocide eh? How very...Islamic of you.
Two incidents in particular, other than the events of 9/11, awakened my awareness of the threat of islam.
The first was a story of a Christian shopkeeper who had swept up in front of his shop and placed the small pile of refuse in front of a mosque as he went to get a dust pan. He was beaten to the point of being put in the hospital. While in the hospital, a police officer came in and killed him while in bed.
The second was when Jerry Falwell said that islam was violent and then in protest over being called violent, pakistani moslems rioted.
Such were my first lessons about islam.