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India-Pakistan

Pakistan court jails dozens of Islamists over Asia Bibi protests

2020-01-17

[AlAhram] A Pak court has sentenced more than 80 Islamists to 55 years in prison each after protests linked to the 2018 acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman accused of blasphemy

...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran...
, one of their big shots told AFP.

The sentence -- an unusually harsh one in Pakistain, where blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue -- was announced by a lower court in the garrison town of Rawalpindi on Thursday, said Pir Ejaz Ashrafi, a big shot of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistain (TLP).

The Islamists were members of the radical TLP, an anti-blasphemy party which had spearheaded violent protests across Pakistain in the wake of Bibi's acquittal in late 2018.

At the time Pakistain took its leader, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, into custody as part of a broad effort to quell the unrest.

Ashrafi said 86 members of the TLP were convicted after a trial which lasted for more than a year but he argued that the protests had been against Rizvi's arrest, not Bibi's acquittal.

"This is murder of justice and the sentences given are quite ruthless and harsh," he told AFP.

Ashrafi said the party would challenge the verdict in the Lahore High Court.

Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Moslem-majority Pakistain, where even the whiff of an unsubstantiated allegation of insulting Islam can spark death at the hands of mobs.

TLP -- or the Movement at the Service of the Prophet -- has in recent years become one of the most powerful groups in Pakistain weaponising the ultra-sensitive issue, including at the ballot box.

Rizvi had demanded the execution of Asia Bibi, a labourer from central Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
province and minority Christian who had been convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and sent to death row, but was dramatically acquitted on appeal in 2018.

Bibi now lives in Canada with her family.

Another TLP front man, who confirmed the convictions to AFP but was unsure of the numbers, said the government was trying to subdue the party.

"But they can never succeed as we are not standing for Khadim Rizvi or any organization, but for a pure Islam," he said.

Posted by:trailing wife

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