Christian accused of blasphemy for a post on social media

Ishtiaq Saleem would have spread on the Internet images of his body tattooed with inscriptions (in Arabic) about the Koran and Muhammad. During the arrest he was subjected to mistreatment. His wife proclaims his innocence by claiming that he is illiterate and the victim of a confessional “conspiracy.” Along with profanity, he also resorts to cybercrime to target minorities.

Islamabad () – A new case of blasphemy in Pakistan involves a Christian who is accused of desecrating Islam and offending the sentiments of Muslims by posting offensive content against the Prophet Muhammad on the Internet. It would be inscriptions tattooed on some parts of his body that were filmed and then published on social networks. However, the family claims the innocence of the man, who would be illiterate and therefore incapable of understanding the true meaning of the writings (in Arabic) they wrote to him. What happened, human rights activists explain, is a new example of abuses against Christians and the growing number of complaints about the content and comments on publications, which shows a greater hardening against religious freedom.

The events occurred on November 29 but only became known this year due to the complaint filed by the Muslim Muhammad Imran. Ishtiaq Saleem, a Christian who works as a health care worker in Islamabad, was accused of posting blasphemous content in the media, which led to an arrest for computer crimes (section 11 of the Electronic Crimes Act, 2016) and violation of laws against blasphemy (295 A, B, C and 298-A). At the time he was arrested, the police beat him, confiscated his ID and smartphone, and forced him to “confess” to the crimes he had committed, ending up imprisoning him.

Saleem’s wife, Ghazal Ishtiaq, claims that the man is illiterate and would not have committed any crime intentionally because he has been the victim of a confessional “conspiracy”. “We have a two-year-old son. The family – she explains she – lives in a traumatic climate and constant terror ”. The father, Saleem Masih, adds that his son worked for more than four months without receiving any salary and asks the Christian community for help at the risk of a death sentence.

Commenting on the case with , the president of Voice for Justice, Jospeh Jansen, denounces a growing number of indictments and arrests linked to (alleged) violations of the law for electronic crimes that, in the case of minorities, add up to blasphemy. . A “persecutory” climate against minorities with extensive recourse to the law and without evaluating the real “intentions” of the accused”. Activist Ashiknaz Khokhar speaks of “defamation” for confessional reasons and abuse of blasphemy laws to settle personal disputes. His partner, Ilyas Samuel, adds that those who use false pretenses to accuse and foment hatred are not prosecuted, while “innocent people who post on social media end up being framed and sentenced to death.”

In Pakistan, blasphemy laws have often become a pretext for lynching and extrajudicial killings. On the one hand, the law is a weapon in the hands of fundamentalists to indiscriminately attack religious minorities -Christians and Hindus- and even Muslims, avenging any alleged offense against the Koran or Mohammed in the name of Islam. On the other hand, the accusation has become a shortcut to heinous vendettas and reckoning. The story of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother who spent years on death row, caused a sensation in the past. The intervention of organizations, activist movements, governments and Pope Francis himself made the liberation of the woman possible, who was then forced to flee to Canada to escape the revenge of radical groups.