A young Christian is sentenced for a WhatsApp message in Pakistan

The situation in Pakistan is getting worse every day. In addition, the persecution of Christians reaches social networks, the Internet and chat rooms. On this occasion, the persecution has been carried out on a young man, Nouman Asghar, a 24-year-old Christian from the city of Bahawalpur, in Punjab, who was sentenced this week to death for blasphemy by a Bahawalpur court of first instance.

The young man had been arrested in 2019 for violating article 295-c of the Penal Code, which punishes the vilification of the Prophet Muhammad, due to an alleged consummated blasphemy through WhatsApp. WhatsApp chat messages containing blasphemous drawings of the Prophet Muhammad were found on the mobile phone of the young man and his friend Sunny Mushtaq, who was also detained.

The trial against the young man concluded last January, but the district judge of the Bahawalpur Magistrate Court took five months to deliver the verdict, which was made public on May 30.

The young man’s family denies the accusation. According to the lawyers, Mushtaq and Asghar received a blasphemous cartoon on their smartphones. However, that drawing was sent to him by Bilal Ahmad, a young Muslim man, but the police did not take any action against Ahmad, who was the sender of the blasphemous image. “This is another example of the misuse of blasphemy laws,” says attorney Anthony, calling on authorities to conduct a fair investigation of the case and announcing an appeal. The authorities continue to overstep the Christian community while Muslims are unfairly protected.