A court in Pakistan, has sentenced a 22-year-old student to death and a 17-year-old to life in prison for allegedly insulting Mohammed, the Islamic prophet, in WhatsApp messages.
Aslam Gujar, a lawyer who represented 22-year-old Junaid Munir, says the judge in Punjab province city imposed the death penalty on his client for blasphemy last week. Seventeen-year-old Abdul Hanan was convicted and sentenced to life in a separate case at the same court.
Munir’s father, Munir Hussain, insists his “son is innocent and he was implicated in a false case.” He is attempting to organize an appeal from hiding, “as some people in our village believe that I should also be killed as I am the father of a boy who allegedly insulted Islam’s prophet.”
“We are Muslims. We love our prophet. No Muslim can even imagine to insult our beloved prophet, and my son is innocent,” he pleaded.
Muslims in Pakistan, notionally a Western ally, often take the law into their own hands when blasphemy is suspected, with the Islamic Republic’s small Christian minority often being targeted.
A Christian couple accused of blasphemy was burned alive in an industrial kiln by a mob in 2014, and hundreds of Muslims descended on a Christian settlement and torched or otherwise wrecked dozens of houses, churches, and a cemetery after two of its members were accused of blasphemy in 2023.
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