Pakistan Christian sentenced to death for WhatsApp ‘blasphemy’, despite gaps in police case
By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service
GUJRAT, PUNJAB PROVINCE, PAKISTAN (ANS – September 20, 2017)
-- Six days after a Pakistani Christian was sentenced to death for
blasphemy, the young man’s lawyer says there was insufficient evidence
against his client and that the police failed to investigate the matter
properly.
According to World Watch Monitor (www.worldwatchmonitor.org),
Nadeem Masih, 24, from the Yaqoobabad area of the religiously
conservative city of Gujrat, in Punjab Province, was judged to have sent
four messages via WhatsApp to his Muslim friend which defamed Islam’s
prophet, Muhammad. On 14 September, he was fined the equivalent of
around $3000 and sentenced to death.
But
his lawyer, Riaz Anjum, says there are still unanswered questions from
the trial, which was conducted in the prison where Masih was being held,
for security reasons – in case of a mob gathering if he was transported
elsewhere. According to the first information report (FIR) provided by
the police to the court, the first blasphemous text was sent on 23 June
2016, but the complaint by his friend, whom Masih has known since
childhood, wasn’t lodged for another 17 days.
“Messages
were sent over a period of time and it took 17 days to lodge the first
information report with the police,” Anjum told World Watch Monitor. “If
there was provocation, then the response should have been immediate and
Yasir Bashir [the complainant] would have gone to the police much
earlier.
“During
the entire trial, we did not see that Masih wanted to incite his
friends over religious differences. If that were the case, then he
should have sent these messages to all his friends. So there remains a
need to check what really made this happen.”
Anjum
also accused the police of failing to properly investigate whether the
messages were indeed sent by Nadeem Masih, or whether someone else could
have sent them from his phone.
Masih
was known to have been having a relationship with a woman, Nargis Bibi,
who had converted to Christianity six months before the accusations
were lodged, and Anjum says the police failed to properly investigate
whether she could have sent the messages.
“No-one
has seen Masih sending messages; hence, it is only hearsay, which is
not admissible evidence against Masih,” he said. “… It is quite possible
that Nargis would have sent those messages, as she was in an illicit
relation with him and was always close to him. However, the court could
not find any proof of this and rejected the claim.”
Masih’s family had asked whether Nargis Bibi would be willing to appear as a witness in court, but she refused.
World
Watch Monitor went on to say that another factor in the case was the
relationship between Nadeem Masih, his friend, Yasir Bashir, and the
other complainant, Muhammad Akram. Local sources told World Watch
Monitor, on the condition of anonymity, that the three had been running a
small business together, selling alcohol (the sale and purchase of
which is only allowed for non-Muslims in Pakistan, and only once they
have obtained a special permit).
During
the trial, Bashir witnessed before the court that he had had a close
relationship with Masih for several years and that they had never before
had any problems.
Local
sources told World Watch Monitor that a few days before the case was
filed, the three friends had started doing business separately and
developed a rivalry. They said Masih had even tried to lodge a police
complaint of his own against his friend, Yasir Bashir, accusing him of
illegally selling alcohol.
Initial Arrest
Nadeem Masih was initially accused on July 10, 2016, after which his family fled their homes for fear of repercussions, as local Muslims clamored for his arrest.
“The
situation remained tense even afterwards, so the police administration
decided to conduct the entire trial in the prison,” Anjum told World
Watch Monitor.
After
his arrest, one of Masih’s brothers, Faryad, expressed disbelief that a
family friend had lodged an accusation against his brother.
“Yasir has been our friend for more than 15 years,” he said. “He worked as a painter with my [other] brother, Shahbaz.”
Masih’s arrest came during a spike in blasphemy cases against Christians. In May 2016, a young Pakistani Christian woman was accused of blasphemy
for allegedly using an advertising banner bearing the name of Prophet
Muhammad as a floor covering. The accusation, which was later withdrawn,
came just a few weeks after another Christian was accused of blasphemy in a village 62 miles away.
In June 2016, 10 Christian families fled their village
after a man from a Christian community was accused of sending a
blasphemous message on Facebook Messenger. Also in June 2016, a court jailed two Pakistani Christians (also from Gujrat) for six years for calling a Christian leader a “prophet”. And in the district of Gujranwala, 31 miles from Gujrat, an anti-terrorism court sentenced a school principal to death
for blasphemy. The man had initially sought police protection, after
alleging he was the victim of blackmail and extortion. Instead, he was
charged with blasphemy by the police, after the men he had accused
levelled charges against him.
Blasphemy in Pakistan
More
than 30 years have passed since Pakistan’s President, Muhammad
Zia-ul-Haq – during military rule in 1986 – decided that the death
penalty was the appropriate punishment for blasphemy against Sunni
Islam. This blasphemy law was empowered by former Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif in 1991.
Today,
Pakistan remains the world’s most determined anti-blasphemy state.
Christians make up only about 4 per cent of the country’s overwhelmingly
Muslim population, but about half of blasphemy charges are against
Christians. The cases of two Christian females, Asia Bibi, who is still on death row, and teenager Rimsha Masih, on whom evidence was planted by an imam, both hit the world headlines.
Dr.
Mario Silva, a former member of the Canadian Parliament and Executive
Director of the International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS),
has spoken at the UN Office in Geneva on the issue.
“Since
1987 to 2017, 222 cases under the blasphemy law have been registered
against Christians,” he said. “We have to call the governments in
Europe, the United States and Canada to ask what they are doing by
maintaining a relationship with Pakistan. Why are you not speaking up
with authorities regarding minority rights particularly with the
persecution of Christians in that country? The countries must speak up
against it… The [Pakistan] authorities do nothing about it and the
Government has refused to change the law.”
You can read more about Pakistan’s blasphemy laws here.
Photo
captions: 1) Nadeem Masih in a still from a July 2016 video interview
with Rescue Christians (YouTube). 2) Asia Bibi, still on death row. 3)
Dan Wooding.
About
the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning author, broadcaster
and journalist, who was born in Nigeria, West Africa, of British
missionary parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding, who then worked with the
Sudan Interior Mission, now known as SIM. Dan now lives in Southern
California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for some 54
years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who
all live in the UK. Dan is the founder/president of the ASSIST News
Service (ANS), and is also the author of numerous books. He has a radio
show and two television programs, all based in Southern California.
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SEOUL, KOREA (ANS – September 28, 2017)
-- An announcement from a theologian that Hurricane Irma was violently
rushing northward to Florida and a great deal of loss was expected to
occur, and who later said that it had then miraculously died out
following the believing prayer of a Korean pastor, is attracting a lot
of attention.
Dr.
Morgulis said, “I was told that Dr. Jaerock Lee had prayed to God in
the evening of September 8, for this to occur. Afterwards, the hurricane
subtly changed its course and rushed into the western land passing by
the eastern coast in which there are many major cities. Meanwhile it
lost its strength and weakened to a tropical storm. The power of faith
and prayer is so powerful.”
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (ANS - September 29, 2017)
-- He dressed up porn and attempted to make it respectable, flaunted a
hedonistic, licentious lifestyle, exploited and objectified women, and
ensnared many men in sexual addiction.
Some
Christians will be quick to say they know Hefner’s eternal destiny. If
the immortal Dante’s depiction of hell is correct, Hefner may be in the
infamous “second ring” of the Inferno – reserved for those overcome by
lust.
My
misery and the misery of countless others resulting from Hefner’s
ignoble life leads me to a place of grim satisfaction as I contemplate
the fact that God’s justice will finally be executed perfectly in
Hefner’s soul.
About the writer: Mark Ellis is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (
TURKEY (ANS – September 30, 2017)
-- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has for the first time
confirmed publicly that a US pastor jailed in Turkey for the past 12
months is being held by his government as a political hostage.
Since
October 7, 2016, Andrew Brunson has been one of these prisoners. He
remains jailed without any written indictment explaining his alleged
charges or providing any evidence against him. Judicial proceedings
remain stalled, and his lawyer continues to be refused access to the
sealed file of accusations against him.
Erdoğan
continues to insist that “more than enough” evidence has been provided
to the United States for a legal basis to extradite Gülen, apparently
expecting President Trump to issue an executive order to simply “trade”
the controversial cleric for Brunson.
About
the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning author, broadcaster
and journalist, who was born in Nigeria, West Africa, of British
missionary parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding, who then worked with the
Sudan Interior Mission, now known as SIM. Dan now lives in Southern
California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for some 54
years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who
all live in the UK. Dan is the founder/president of the ASSIST News
Service (ANS), and is also the author of numerous books. He has a radio
show and two television programs, all based in Southern California. Dan
has received numerous awards for his journalistic work on behalf of
Persecuted Christians, the most recent was in Beverly Hills, California,
where at an international film festival, he was presented with a top
humanitarian award by his son, Peter Wooding, before some 500 Hollywood
luminaries.