Accusing blasphemy, a Christian has been sentenced to death by a court in Lahore. The real facts suggest that it would be revenge for defending his faith and destroying the prosperous business of the 34-year-old man.
According to the Vatican agency Fides, the accused is Ashfaq Masih, who is a father of a family, a mechanic, and has been imprisoned for more than 5 years.
On 5 June 2017, when Masih, owner of a prosperous workshop where he repaired motorcycles and bicycles, argued with Muhammad Naveed, a Muslim who offered the same repair service in another shop, but who resented that the majority of the clientele preferred the Christian.
Muhammad Irfan asked Masih for a repair job and did not want to pay for the labor because he is a Sufi. That is a mystical follower of Islam.
“In response, I said that I am a believer in Jesus Christ and asked for payment for the repair work,” Masih told the court.
So Irfan and Naveed team up and accuse him of blasphemy.
“These two men also threatened me because they wanted me to leave the workshop. I gave this same information to the police officer who arrested me,” added Masih.
“I have never uttered derogatory words against Prophet Muhammad, nor would I ever. I respect Prophet Muhammad with all my heart and soul,” he said.
However, on July 4, the Court of First Instance in Lahore sentenced him to death by hanging.
For the President of the NGO “Voice for Justice”, Joseph Jansen, “Ashfaq Masih’s death sentence generates disappointment and fear in the entire Christian community in Pakistan, and in particular in all other prisoners accused of blasphemy and in their families. ”.
“It is clear that all the evidence, in this case, is fabricated and Ashfaq Masih is only caught up in it for claiming service charges for repairing a Muslim’s motorcycle,” Jansen stressed.
Likewise, for Ashiknaz Khokhar, a minority rights activist, “it is worrying to see how the courts of first instance hand down death sentences to those accused of blasphemy, even without sufficient evidence.”
“The government must take serious steps to crack down on the abuse of blasphemy laws and work to protect the fundamental rights of citizens and their families,” he denounced.
There are 1,949 cases of blasphemy accusations in Pakistan, and 281 are against Christians, but 84 people of the total have already been extrajudicially killed from 1987 to 2021, as per the data released by the Centre for Social Justice.