12th June, 2015
A 20-year-old man, previously treated for his mental health, has been accused of desecrating the Quran in Pakistan, according to a report in the World Watch Monitor.
The news organisation says Yaqoob Bashir Masih has been accused of desecrating the Quran in Mirpur Khas in Sind province on 4th June.
Known locally as “Kaka”, Bashir, a Christian, is said to have told a crowd who doused him in kerosene and threatened to set fire to him that he burned and buried a Quran, an admission which led to a further mob to gather and lock him into a house, and which caused local Christians, fearing a riot, to flee.
The World Watch Monitor reports that police later took Bashir into custody and are reported to be currently investigating charges against him.
The organisation says Catholic priest Father Abid Habib confirmed to them that Yaqoob had received treatment for mental illness from a mental health facility in Hyderabad and that “some say that he was also a drug addict and was under the influence of hashish when he committed the act of desecration".
Under Pakistan”s blasphemy laws – which covers desecration of the Quran – exemptions are permitted if an offender can prove "lack of mental capacity". The Sind provincial government strengthened this law in April, making it mandatory for a psychiatrist to assess anyone accused of blasphemy, or who tries to kill him/herself.
The case follows that of Humayun Faisal who was accused in late May of desecrating the Koran in Lahore, in Punjab province: World Watch Monitor reported that he was well-known in the area as having severe mental health problems, and as a drug addict.
A recent book Blasphemy Law and Religious Freedom by Professor Shahid Mobeen said that at least 13 Christians (including Aasiya Noreen Bibi) are on death row on blasphemy convictions.
Moubin, of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, says Pakistan’s blasphemy law criminalises all behavior considered offensive to the Quran or the Prophet Muhammed.
It has been applied more than 1,000 times in the past 25 years, the academic says, noting that Christian minorities have suffered from this more than others.
Meanwhile, on 10th June, 37-year-old Christian, Aftab Nazir Bahadur, who”d allegedly confessed to double murder when he was 15 years old in 1992, was hanged. He was convicted on the evidence of two witnesses, both of whom recently retracted their accounts, saying they had implicated Bahadur after police tortured them.
Maya Foa, director from international human rights group Reprieve, said it was a "truly shameful day for Pakistan’s justice system."
"Aftab was subjected to almost every injustice conceivable," she said. "To the last, Pakistan refused even to grant his lawyers the few days needed to present evidence which would have proved his innocence. This is a travesty of justice, and tragedy for all those who knew Aftab."
– DAVID ADAMS
