Article

2012-11-16 India-Pakistan

Court in Chitral sentences man to death for blasphemy

[Dawn] A court in northern Pakistain has condemned a man to death for blasphemy, believed to be the first such sentence given under the country's tough laws against blasphemy since a Christian woman was sentenced in 2010.

Hazrat Ali Shah, 25, was convicted of blaspheming against the Holy Prophet ((PTUI!)) and the Holy Koran during a quarrel in his village in northern Pakistain in March 2011.

"The additional session judge Azar Khan has passed a sentence on him (Shah) of capital punishment and imprisonment for 10 years under the charges of blasphemy," Syed Zamurd Shah, the district and session judge in the northern city of Chitral, told AFP.

He said that the sentence was announced on Wednesday after people from the village gave evidence against Shah.

Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Pakistain, where 97 per cent of the population is Moslem,

...though it used to be considerably less...

and under the country's penal code insulting the Holy Prophet can be punished by death.

The death penalty was added to the blasphemy law under military dictator General Zia ul Haq

...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'Ã©tat plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
in 1986 but as yet no-one has been executed for the crime.

Posted by Fred 2012-11-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

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