Pakistani youth sentenced to death for sharing 'blasphemy' on WhatsApp

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Mesquita em Rawalpindi, Paquistão. Um tribunal paquistanês sentenciou uma mulher à morte por supostamente insultar o Profeta Maomé

Mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. A Pakistani court sentenced a woman to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad| Photo: EFE/EPA/SOHAIL SHAHZAD

A court in Pakistan has sentenced to death a woman of 01 years for sharing alleged blasphemies in WhatsApp and Facebook message exchanges.

Aneeqa Ateeq was found guilty by a court in the city of Rawalpindi on Wednesday after being indicted for violating Pakistan’s strict blasphemy law, according to The Guardian newspaper. The legislation even punishes anyone who insults the Prophet Muhammad or Islam with the death penalty.

Ateeq, who is Muslim, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were opened in May 2020 . She has the right to appeal the sentence, which is still subject to confirmation by the Lahore High Court.

She was accused of sending blasphemous caricatures of holy prophets and making comments about “holy figures” on WhatsApp, and of using Facebook to share blasphemous content with others, according to documents from the prosecution, the British newspaper reported.

2022″The material blasphemous that was shared/installed by the accused in her status [na plataforma de mensagens WhatsApp] and the messages and caricatures that were sent to the complainant are totally unacceptable and not tolerable for a Muslim,” the judge wrote in his verdict in the case, according to Al Jazeera.

2022The court found her guilty and sentenced her to 20 years in prison and ordered her to be hanged.

2022In a statement to the court, Ateeq said that his acu sador, Hasnat Farooq, purposely got her into a religious argument with the intention of setting the woman up after she refused to “be friendly” with him. The two met on an online gaming platform and continued to chat on WhatsApp.

“I feel like he intentionally dragged me into this thread out of revenge, so he filed a lawsuit against me, and during the conversation [por WhatsApp] he gathered everything he had against me,” the young woman said. in a statement to the court.

2022The blasphemy laws in the Pakistan are among the strictest in the world. People often receive the death penalty in the country, but in practice executions do not take place; instead, the accused spend the rest of their lives in prison.

However, the accused are often killed by vigilantes even before the courts reach a verdict. In addition, judges are often pressured to convict the accused.