Pakistani Christian Receives Death Sentence For Blasphemy

Asif Pervaiz, a 37-year-old Christian and father of four, who has been in jail since October 2013 after being charged with blasphemy, was recently sentenced to death by a court in Lahore Pakistan

According to Perviaz’s attorney, Saiful Malook, Pervaiz’s former supervisor at a garment factory where he worked, accused him of sending sacrilegious text messages from his cell phone.

Pervaiz was charged under sections 295-A, 295-B and 295-C of the blasphemy laws. Section 295-C which has to do with insulting the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, carries a mandatory death sentence. The court ruled that Pervaiz would first serve a three-year prison term for phone misuse, be fined 50,000 rupees (US$300) and be “hanged by his neck till his death.”

Pervaiz has maintained that his supervisor accused him only after he refused to convert to Islam. Malook said the prosecution’s case was so weak that he could not fathom why the judge had ruled against his client.

Malook, a Muslim who represented Aasiya Noreen (known as Asia Bibi), also sentenced to death before she won her freedom, said that the ruling by Additional Sessions Judge Mansoor Ahmed Qureshi dismayed him because there was no evidence to justify the charges.

Pervaiz has said he had lost his SIM card some days before the alleged incident, which his former supervisor misused to send derogatory text messages to his own number, the attorney said.

“In his statement to the court, Pervaiz had categorically said that the complainant used to pressure him to renounce his Christian faith and convert to Islam,” Malook said. “Pervaiz said that due to the complainant’s constant harassment, he was forced to leave his job at the factory, but the latter continued to hound him at his new workplace.”

Malook said he would appeal the conviction in the Lahore High Court this week. He said Pervaiz was naturally distressed when the judge announced the sentence.

“It’s tragic that Pervaiz has already spent seven years in prison during the trial, and God knows how many more years he will have to remain incarcerated till the high court takes up his appeal,” he told Morning Star News. “The worst thing in blasphemy cases is that the accused are left to rot in jail for years till their innocence is finally proved.”