Pakistan Hands Down First-Ever Death Sentence For Blaspheming On Facebook
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jun 12, 2017
A Pakistani counter-terrorism court just handed down the first death penalty for blaspheming on social media on Sunday, according to Reuters. The ruling is the latest step in an intensifying crackdown on dissent on social media by the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Taimoor Raza, 30, was convicted for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammad, his wives and companions, according to Shafiq Qureshi, a public prosecutor in Bahawalpur, a city about 300 miles south of provincial capital Lahore. Raza was arrested last year after a debate about Islam on Facebook with a man who turned out to be a counter-terrorism agent. He was one among 15 people arrested by the counter-terrorism department last year, accused of blasphemy, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Reuters.
Raza’s brother, Waseem Abbas, told the Guardian that the family was “poor but literate”, and belonged to Pakistan’s minority Shia Muslim community.
“My brother indulged in a sectarian debate on Facebook with a person, who we later come to know, was a [counter-terrorism department] official with the name of Muhammad Usman,” he said.
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