Pakistan: 68 Muslim lawyers charged with blasphemy

May 15, 2014

Sixty-eight Muslim attorneys have been charged by Pakistani police with blaspheming a companion of Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

The charges, according to BBC, were filed after “some lawyers ridiculed a police officer who shares his name with the second caliph, Omar.”

“This is another case of patent abuse,” said Father Yousaf Emmanuel, national director of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan. “But in this case, I believe that, within two or three days, thanks to the intervention of politics, the intra-Muslim dispute will be remedied without consequences.”

“It is different when a Christian is involved: then there are murders or mass attacks, without even having the possibility or the right to defend oneself,” he added.

 

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Further information:

• Pakistan police charge 68 Pakistani lawyers with blasphemy (BBC)
• 68 Muslim lawyers denounced for blasphemy: for the Church "it is a patent abuse" (Fides)