ICC Note:
Barkat Masih, a Christian convert from Hinduism, was detained on October 1 for allegedly insulting Islam in Pakistan, World Vision in Progress reports. After a dispute with coworkers, Masih was sent to jail on “false” charges of “blasphemy” against Islam, the rights group said. Blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment in Pakistan. “At least 15 people are known to be on death row over blasphemy allegations and at least 52 people have been killed while awaiting trial on similar charges,” BosNewsLife reports.
By Stefan J. Bos
10/27/2012 Pakistan (BosNewsLife) — A Christian worker was without his wife and five children Saturday, October 27, as Pakistani police sent him to jail on “false” charges of “blasphemy” against Islam, a rights group said.
Sweeper and cleaner Barkat Masih, who converted from Hinduism to Christianity, was detained October 1 in the eastern city of Bahawalpur following a dispute with co-workers, explained Pakistan-based advocacy group World Vision in Progress (WVIP).
Rights activists said his problems began during a September night-shift at a Muslim shrine, where two men demanded his keys.
“They asked him to give them the duplicate keys of the shrine so that they could take the property papers of the land on which the shrine was built,” said Farrukh H. Saif, WVIP’s executive director.
Masih refused because he realized they would use those documents to obtain the land through illegal means, according to WVIP investigators.
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