A Christian couple has been acquitted of blasphemy on appeal in Pakistan. In doing so, the couple avoids the death penalty it was sentenced to by a lower court in 2014.
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A lawyer for the couple said the Supreme Court in the northeastern city of Lahore had reached a verdict after a three-day hearing of the case. Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel have been in prison since 2013 and were sentenced to death by a court in Toba Tek Singh in April 2014. The Christian couple had been accused by an imam of sending “blasphemous” text messages insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
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The messages were sent from a phone with a SIM card in the name of Shagufta. He denied the allegations and said he suspected that the sim had been obtained by someone with a copy of her identity card. The couple said they had been the victims of a conspiracy after clashing with Islamist colleagues.
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In mid-May, the European Parliament had called for the death sentence to be reversed and the couple immediately released.
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Asian Aunt
In 2018, large-scale protests took place in Pakistan when a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy was acquitted. The case of Asia Bibi received a lot of attention worldwide. She had been on death row for nearly ten years.
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