War on Christianity in Pakistan - Like Nowhere Else
By Melissa Barnhart, CP Reporter|
Christians attend a Good Friday prayer at the Saint Anthony Church in Lahore, Pakistan, April 3, 2015.
| Reuters/Mohsin Raza
A Pakistani Christian couple who've been imprisoned for six years and sentenced to death on false blasphemy charges of sending a text message insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad continue to have their conviction appeal delayed.
Shagufta Kausar and her husband, Shafqat Emmanuel, who is partially paralyzed, were accused by a local imam of committing blasphemy by sending him an offensive text message in 2013.
Maulvi Mohammed Hussain, a leader at a mosque in the town of Gojra in Punjab province, claimed that Emmanuel used his wife's cellphone to send an anti-Islamic text message. He later claimed other messages followed.
Hussain said he was praying when he received the offensive text message from an unknown number.
His wife's cellphone is an unknown number?
The Muslim cleric reportedly showed the text message to two other imams before approaching his counsel for legal proceedings. He and his lawyer later claimed they both received subsequent blasphemous messages.
Because he sent it to them?
Police registered the blasphemy case following the imam's complaint, and the couple were arrested on July 21, 2013. They were charged with "insulting the Quran" and "insulting the prophet."
They were sentenced to separate prisons in 2014.
According to some reports, "[Kauser] is being held in the same prison cell Asia Bibi was held in before her release," Will Stark, regional manager for South Asia at International Christian Concern, told The Christian Post on Wednesday.
"In regards to Shafqat, his medical condition has deteriorated significantly during his imprisonment," Stark added. "This is because the jail does not provide facilities for him, as someone partially paralyzed. Bedsores and lack of nutrition are definitely issues I have seen reported specifically in regards to Shafqat’s case."
According to the BBC, a final hearing before the Lahore High Court was scheduled for Wednesday. However, the hearing was delayed and a new hearing date will be announced.
Kausar's brother, Joseph, told the BBC that his sister and her husband are not only innocent, but he believes they aren't even literate enough to have written the text messages.
Joseph also said his brother-in-law had been tortured and forced to make a false confession.
"He told me the policeman hit [him] so hard that his leg was broken," Joseph was quoted as saying.
The text messages were also alleged to have been written in English. Aside from being illiterate, Shafqat and Shagufta are not familiar with the English language — written or spoken.
The couple's lawyer, Saif ul Malook, who also assisted in the appeal of Asia Bibi's blasphemy case, said the charges against Kausar and Emmanuel are "deeply flawed" and "weaker" than those levied against Bibi.
Although the phone was registered in Kausar's name, Malook told the BBC that "in their trial, they suggested a Christian neighbor they had argued with might have purchased a SIM card in Kausar's name and sent the messages in order to frame them."
That might explain the imam not knowing his wife's phone number.
In 2014, Nadeem Hassan, who's also representing the couple at the high court, said the offending messages were sent from a phone that had been lost. He further explained that a "bogus SIM card" had been presented as evidence against the couple, The Telegraph reported.
Hassan told ICC last year that the allegation is "based on religious hatred and is being used to settle personal grudges.”
Before her arrest, Kausar worked as a cleaner at a Christian school. Emmanuel has been paralyzed from the waist down since 2004, following an accident that fractured his spine. At the time of the accident, they were living with their four young children in a church compound.
The children continue to remain in hiding as their parents’ case continues, Stark said.
“Like many relatives of Christians accused of blasphemy, they live in fear that their parents’ blasphemy accusation may cause extremists to attack them,” he added.
And with good reason. See story immediately below.
And with good reason. See story immediately below.
Malook said the couple needs the same international support that Bibi received during the years she waited for her appeal to be heard. And if they're acquitted, he said they will also need to be granted asylum.
While no one has yet been executed on blasphemy charges, people who've been accused of the crime have been killed by retaliatory mob violence. Allegations of blasphemy are frequently lodged to settle personal disputes and to discriminate against religious minorities.
Christians make up just 1.6% of the country's population.
Last year, Asia Bible was acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court of blasphemy charges after she languished on death row for more than eight years. Bibi has since written a book about her ordeal.
Pakistan, a 96% Muslim-majority country, ranks as the fifth-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA's 2020 World Watch List. In 2018, Pakistan was also named by the U.S. State Department as a "country of particular concern" for religious freedom violations.
The couple's appeal hearing has been rescheduled for June 22.
“Brother-in-Law of Christian Asia Bibi, Killed in Pakistan,”
3rd Murder associated with Asia Bibi - 2 others were influential politicians
Islamic Insanity
by Stefan J. Bos, BosNewsLife, May 28, 2020:ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife) – The brother-in-law of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who faced the death penalty for “blasphemy” against Islam, has been killed, Christians confirmed Wednesday, May 27.
The body of Younas Masih, 50, was reportedly found Monday, May 25, in a furrow in Dao Ki Mallian village in the Sheikhupura district of Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Asia Bibi
The father of two was married to Najma Bibi, the younger sister of Asia Bibi, who was eventually acquitted of blasphemy in 2018 after spending eight years on death row in Pakistan.
“He used to take care of the cattle at the farmhouse of a local landlord. We had been searching for him after he went missing a day earlier. His throat was slit. We handed over his body to the police,” the victim’s brother George Masih said in published remarks.
Church sources said police had detained the widow and a local Muslim for alleged involvement in the murder. Both had an extramarital affair, local Christians said. The suspects were named as Najma Bibi and Irfan Dogar.
CONFESSING CRIME
Police were quoted as saying they had confessed to the crime, and the victim’s body was sent to a morgue for an autopsy.
It is not the first time that somebody associated with Asia Bibi has been murdered. In 2011, Salman Taseer, the influential governor of Punjab, was assassinated after he appealed for the pardon of Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad.
A month later, Religious Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy legislation, was shot dead in Islamabad, the capital.
Bibi, 47, was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 after defending her faith in Christ after fellow farmworkers did not want to share water with her. Besides “insulting Prophet Muhammad,” the mother-of-five was accused “of contaminating” the well by Muslims.
Some Muslims consider Christians dirty and do not drink water using the same container. Bibi, whose full name is Aasia Noreen, was convicted and sentenced to death for blasphemy, charges she denied….
Asia Bibi is safely living in Canada, her entire family should join her. In fact, I am inclined to believe that all Christians should leave Pakistan and let it suffer the consequences complete rejection of He Who is our Judge and Maker.
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