ICC Note:

Shafqat Masih, a disabled Christian man sentenced to death for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages to an imam in Pakistan, has filed to appeal his death sentence to the Lahore High Court. According to Masih’s appeal, he is seeking bail due to his deteriorating health condition. In 2013, Masih and his wife Shagufta were accused of blaspheming against Islam by sending blasphemous text messages. Both Masih and his wife have denied this accusation and claim they didn’t even have the phone that texted the imam when the text messages were sent. Also, both Masih and his wife are illiterate, so texting an imam is not something the couple was capable of. Despite these facts, a sessions court in Pakistan sentenced the couple to death in April 2014. 

2/15/2016 Pakistan (Christian Post) – A disabled Christian man who has been sentenced to death alongside his wife for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages to an Islamic cleric has filed an appeal at Lahore High Court, seeking bail due to his deteriorating health.

“I have developed bedsores and I may die in jail as there is no possibility of a better treatment there,” Shafqat Masih, who is paralyzed from his waist down, said in his petition, according to the Deccan Chronicle.

“There are serious contradictions in witness accounts against me and my wife and we are hopeful of an acquittal on our appeal,” he added.

Masih, alongside his wife, Shagufta, both of whom are in their 40s, were convicted and sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy back in April 2014. The couple, who have four young children, were found guilty of sending blasphemous text messages to a local cleric, something which they deny on account that they are both illiterate.

“There was no evidence that the text messages came from a phone owned by the couple. In the first place they had lost the phone some months before July 2013 and secondly there was no SIM card in their names. The only evidence police produced was a bill for a SIM card from a shop owner which is unheard of,” said Farukh Saif, an official of World Vision in Progress, an organization defending the Christian couple.

The Lahore court is set to hear the petition on March 5.

Human rights and persecution watchdog groups, such as International Christian Concern, have pointed out that Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws are often used to persecute Christians and other religious minorities in the country.

While meant to protect Islamic sensitivities, the laws are often used to settle scores, for personal gain, and to oppress minorities, ICC said.

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