Court in Pakistan canceled the verdict of the Christian married couple – they were going to execute for the insult of the Prophet Mohammed, but changed his mind because of the lack of evidence, CNN reports with reference to their lawyers.
Man and woman, parents of four children are under arrest since 2014 after allegedly sent offensive messages for Muslims. Their case became a reason for the European Union to impose additional restrictions on export from Pakistan.
About allegedly final death sentence for a couple became known in 2019. Already then it was reported that messages for which suspected want to execute, they could not send, because they do not speak English.
Persecution for blasphemy is widely supported by the population of Pakistan. Critics of cruel punishments as part of this norm say that it is often used as a means of revenge in personal conflicts, and the charges are sometimes based on very weak evidence. Nevertheless, Pakistani politicians often support the harsh kara for disrespecting faith to maintain popularity from the electorate – 96 percent of the country’s citizens confess Islam Sunni.
Many accused on this article became victims of the Samoy. Christians are approximately 1.59 percent of the country’s population, but more than 50 percent of the accused of blasphemy are not Muslims.
In 2011, the governor of the province of Punjab Salman Tazir was shot dead in Islamabad. The motive for the murder was his critical attitude to the law on blasphemy and the proposal to pardon the Christian convicts convicted for him.