Originally published at The Crux
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A Pakistani trial court has acquitted a blind Christian man who spent 10 months in jail after being charged with blasphemy, an offense that carries a mandatory death sentence under the country’s laws.
The director of the UK-based Minority Concern Pakistan, Aftab Alexander Mughal, told Crux Now the acquittal is an encouraging development but warned that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are still being abused to harass and threaten the innocent.
“Since the blasphemy laws were strengthened under the military rule of General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s,” Mughal said, “they have been widely misused to settle personal disputes and enmities.”
Zia, a career military officer and World War II veteran, ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and ruled the country until 1988, using repression to secure his grip on power and establish a program of Islamization for Pakistani society.
“Christians,” Mughal said, “have been disproportionately targeted under these laws.”
Authorities in Pakistan had charged 51-year-old Nadeem Masih – who has been blind since birth – under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy law criminalizing acts of insult to Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and mandates the death penalty upon conviction.
The court in Lahore ruled that prosecutors failed to
