A man walks past the Supreme Court building in Islamabad. Credit: Reuters/Faisal Mahmood/FilesLahore: A Christian man has been sentenced to death on blasphemy charges by a court in eastern Pakistan after a close friend accused him of sharing anti-Islamic material, the defendant’s lawyer said on Friday.Blasphemy is a criminal offence in Muslim-majority Pakistan and insults against the Prophet Mohammad are punishable by death. Most cases are filed against members of minority communities.Nadeem James, 35, was arrested in July 2016, accused by a friend of sharing material ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad on the WhatsApp messaging service.Lawyer Riaz Anjum said his client intended to appeal against the verdict, passed on Thursday by a sessions court in the town of Gujrat.There was widespread outrage across Pakistan last April when student Mashal Khan was beaten to death at his university in Mardan following a dorm debate about religion.Police arrested over 20 students and some faculty members in connection with the killing.Since then, parliament has considered adding safeguards to the blasphemy laws, a groundbreaking move given the emotive nature of the issue.There have been at least 67 murders over unproven allegations of blasphemy since 1990, according to figures from a research centre and independent records kept by Reuters.In 2011, a bodyguard assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer after he called for the blasphemy laws to be reformed.Taseer’s killer, executed last year, has been hailed as a martyr by religious hardliners.(Reuters)
