LAHORE, Pakistan — Police in Pakistan this week arrested a mentally challenged Christian man on blasphemy costs regardless of being conscious of his situation, sources mentioned.
In Sahiwal, Punjab Province, Ghala Mandi police on Monday arrested Farhan Javed Masih, 28, after a neighborhood villager, Muhammad Bilal Khan, accused him of talking towards Islam and the faith’s sacred figures, mentioned the suspect’s mom, Parveen Javed.
“We have been at house when Bilal and another Muslims got here and informed us that Farhan had dedicated blasphemy,” his mom, Parveen Javed, informed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information. “I pleaded with them to forgive him, conserving in thoughts his psychological state, however they didn’t hearken to me and referred to as the police, who arrested him.”
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Javed, widowed six years in the past and mom of three youngsters in Chak 134-9/L village, mentioned Farhan Masih’s psychological well being began deteriorating after his father’s dying. His youthful sister, Anum, mentioned that his psychological situation was identified to everybody within the village.
“Getting him arrested for blasphemy will solely worsen his psychological situation,” she mentioned. “The police ought to have a minimum of gotten his psychological examination finished earlier than registering the FIR [First Information Report] towards him.”
A member of the Affiliate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Parveen Javed mentioned her son had accomplished a four-year nursing course and had labored at Adam Welfare Hospital in Sahiwal however was fired in 2023 because of psychological sickness and drug habit.
“Farhan had develop into a heroin addict, which aggravated his psychological well being,” she mentioned. “We have now tried to get him handled, but it surely didn’t work. Ever since he misplaced his job, Farhan used to loiter across the village all day saying absurd issues. All the village is aware of that he’s of unsound thoughts.”
His sister mentioned the household was surviving on the earnings of her and her mom.
“My mom and I are already underneath lots of strain and stress because of my brothers’ sickness and drug habit downside,” she mentioned. “Now we’re on a knife’s edge pondering what is going to occur to Farhan given how severe the accusation is.”
Intent should be confirmed for conviction on blasphemy costs in Pakistan, which carry punishments starting from fines and jail to the dying penalty.
Complainant Bilal Khan said within the FIR that he was going to water his crops when Farhan Masih arrived and began talking absurdities.
“The holy personages of your faith are false, and I don’t wish to dwell amongst Muslims, since you belong to inferior standing,” Masih purportedly informed him, in accordance with Khan’s police criticism.
Police registered a case towards the Christian underneath the blasphemy statutes, together with Part 295-A, which requires imprisonment of as much as 10 years for deliberate and malicious acts meant to outrage non secular emotions of any class by insulting its faith or non secular beliefs; 298-A, with a punishment of as much as 10 years in jail for disrespecting the wives and companions of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam; and Part 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which features a clause associated to inflicting civil commotion or unrest and is punishable by a minimal five-year jail time period.
Bishop Abraham Daniel of the Baptist Church in Sahiwal mentioned there have been 150 to 200 Christian households within the village.
“After I acquired information of the incident, I instantly contacted senior police officers and sought safety for the Christian residents,” Daniel informed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information. “Fortunately, well timed police deployment prevented any untoward incident from going down there, and the scenario is peaceable now.”
He mentioned that Masih’s psychological sickness ought to have protected him towards arrest on blasphemy costs.
“Farhan has no management over his thoughts and doesn’t comprehend the seriousness of the issues that he says,” Daniel mentioned. “He didn’t commit blasphemy deliberately, and the police and courtroom should take his psychological situation into consideration whereas judging the matter.”
Church of Pakistan’s Moderator Bishop Azad Marshall mentioned a senior officer ought to have intervened as police knew the matter concerned an individual of unstable thoughts.
“Farhan’s case is especially regarding as a result of his psychological sickness raises severe questions on his means to know or commit the alleged offense,” Marshall informed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information. “We have now repeatedly referred to as for reforms in Pakistan’s blasphemy legal guidelines, however sadly our pleas proceed to be ignored regardless of a number of folks falling sufferer to false accusations of blasphemy each second day.”
The senior church chief additionally expressed concern over stories of organized teams trapping youths in blasphemy instances throughout the nation, regretting that the harmful pattern had made Christians extra weak to persecution.
“A whole bunch of individuals, together with Muslims, are being accused and jailed for blasphemy, but it surely’s very unusual that regardless of this concern being highlighted by the media and even the Nationwide Fee for Human Rights, nothing is being finished to dismantle such organized teams,” he mentioned.
Spike in false accusations
In Muslim-majority Pakistan, any baseless blasphemy accusation can ignite public outrage and generally end in mob violence.
In line with the Lahore-based advocacy group Middle for Social Justice, 343 blasphemy instances have been filed in Pakistan in 2024, together with 19 Christians, 5 of them females.
Expressing alarm over a rise in false blasphemy accusations in Pakistan, the U.N. Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) on Nov. 7, 2024, urged repeal or amending of the nation’s extensively condemned blasphemy legal guidelines.
The committee famous that false blasphemy accusations led to Islamist mob violence and really helpful amending the legal guidelines in accordance with necessities of the Worldwide Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In its concluding observations of the committee’s second periodic report on Pakistan, it said concern over sections 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carry extreme penalties, together with the dying penalty, and have a disproportionate influence on non secular minorities.
“Additionally it is involved in regards to the rising variety of individuals incarcerated underneath blasphemy costs, the excessive variety of blasphemy instances based mostly on false accusations, violence towards these accused of blasphemy, fostering vigilante justice, and allegations of entrapment of individuals, particularly younger individuals, on accusations of on-line blasphemy underneath cybercrime legal guidelines,” the committee said.
It emphasised ending use of cybercrime legal guidelines, such because the Prevention of Digital Crimes Act (PECA) 2016, to prosecute and detain these accused of breaching blasphemy legal guidelines on-line. The committee additionally urged the federal government to analyze allegations of huge abuse of blasphemy legal guidelines in reference to cybercrime legal guidelines and publish the outcomes of the inquiries.
“[The committee] can be involved in regards to the chilling impact that legal defamation legal guidelines, blasphemy, sedition and counter-terrorism legal guidelines, and different just lately handed laws have on the train of freedom of expression by journalists, activists, human rights defenders and members of ethnic and spiritual minorities,” it said.
Urging Pakistan to take all obligatory measures to ensure immediate and honest trials for all individuals charged with blasphemy or different offenses towards faith, the committee highlighted jail circumstances, stating that it was “additionally involved about stories of abuse of girls prisoners, together with sexual violence, and that people accused of blasphemy are sometimes positioned in solitary confinement for prolonged intervals of time. It stays involved in regards to the widespread recourse to extended pretrial detention.”
Pakistan ranked eighth on Open Doorways’ 2025 World Watch Checklist of probably the most tough locations to be a Christian.
This text was initially printed at Christian Day by day Worldwide–Morning Star Information
