Daily Times

A court on Friday sentenced a man to five years jail and hard labour for a blasphemous Facebook post, in what is believed to be one of the first such cases under the cybercrime laws.

Sajid Ali was charged with posting blasphemous and derogatory content against revered Islamic figures on the social network in 2017.

Prosecutor Munam Bashir Chaudhry said Ali’s case is the first to be tried under a section of the cybercrime laws, which were passed in 2016, pertaining to hate speech.

There have been other cases of prosecution against ‘online blasphemy’ in the country, including one in 2017 that saw a man sentenced to death for sharing what the court said was blasphemous content on social media. However none of the previous convictions have come under the cybercrime laws, according to Chaudhry.

Shahzad Ahmad, of the digital rights group Bytes for All, said he also believed it was the first such case – but warned that more are being registered.

Authorities say they have registered about 500 cases in total under the cybercrime laws since they came into effect. Critics of the laws say they are open to abuse by government agencies to restrict freedom of expression in a country where activists have long warned of a shrinking space for dissent.