Daily Times

A court has sentenced five men to death for posting “blasphemous content online,” a prosecution lawyer told AFP on Wednesday. “All five accused were sentenced to death for spreading blasphemous content against the holy Prophet (PBUH),” a lawyer from the Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan, a private group which brought the case to court, told AFP. “Separately all were sentenced to life imprisonment for holy Qur’an’s desecration and 10 years imprisonment for hurting religious sentiments,” lawyer Rao Abdur Raheem said. The five men – one Afghan and four Pakistanis – were sentenced on Tuesday in Rawalpindi, the garrison city that neighbors the capital Islamabad. The sentences will run concurrently, Raheem said. Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in the Muslim-majority country, where even unsubstantiated accusations can incite public outrage and lead to lynchings. The convicts have a right to appeal in the upper courts.