Islamabad, Pakistan:
A Pakistani court sentenced four men to death for publishing blasphemous content on the Internet, a lawyer for the prosecution told AFP on Monday.
“They were sentenced to death…on Friday for spreading blasphemous content online against the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran,” said Rao Abdur Raheem, a lawyer with the Blasphemy Law Commission of Pakistan, a private group that brought the case to court. . AFP.
“Our case was supported by forensic evidence of the devices used in this heinous act,” he added.
The four men were sentenced in Rawalpindi, the garrison city neighboring the capital, Islamabad.
Blasphemy is an inflammatory accusation in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even baseless accusations can spark public outrage and lead to lynchings.
Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in the prosecution of “online blasphemy” cases, with private vigilante groups charging hundreds of youths for allegedly committing blasphemy.
A member of a support group formed by the families confirmed the sentence to AFP and said the group would challenge the conviction.
“The pattern of arrests and prosecutions in this case is consistent with previous ones,” said the support group member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“We urge the government to establish a commission to investigate the rise in these cases before these young people spend the best years of their lives behind bars.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated channel.)
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