Petition seeks repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy

GENEVA (RNS/ENI) A petition calling for the repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which impose the death sentence on a person found desecrating the Quran, has been delivered to the United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights. The signatories say the law is used to settle scores with non-Muslims and has been exploited to incite hatred […]

GENEVA (RNS/ENI) A petition calling for the repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which impose the death sentence on a person found desecrating the Quran, has been delivered to the United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The signatories say the law is used to settle scores with non-Muslims and has been exploited to incite hatred and attacks against Pakistan’s minority Christian community in recent times.

“These laws condemn to death any person who desecrates the Holy Quran,” said the petition, which bears more than 9,000 signatures. “The testimony of just one Muslim is sufficient to bring charges against the alleged culprit who is then immediately put in jail, where he often remains for months or years pending trial.”


Rory Mungoven, head of the Asia-Pacific unit of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, received the petition on Wednesday (Oct. 14) from a delegation of the London and Pakistan-based Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement.

“Almost all charges brought under these laws are fabricated or false, and made to settle private scores,” said Nasir Saeed, the chairperson of the legal aid center.

Mungoven said what was given to him would enable the U.N. to raise the issues in meetings with the government of Pakistan.

Blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad is punishable by death under the law of Pakistan, although nobody has been executed for it. Courts have acquitted those accused of blasphemy in more than 100 cases after overruling lower tribunals. However, some lawyers have said that non-Muslims they defended, including Christians, had been killed while awaiting trial.

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!