Internet ‘vigilantes’ behind the rise of online blasphemy cases in Pakistan
Aroosa Khan’s son was chatting on WhatsApp but suddenly found himself the target of “vigilante” investigators who accused him of having committed blasphemy online, a crime that carries the death penalty in Pakistan.
The 27-year-old is one in hundreds of young men standing trial in Pakistan courts accused of making blasphemous statements online or in WhatsApp groups, an offence for which arrests have exploded in recent years.
Many of the cases are being brought to trial by private “vigilante groups” led by lawyers and supported by volunteers who scour the Internet for offenders, rights groups and police say.
“Our lives have been turned upside down,” Ms. Khan said, saying that her son, who has not been named for security reasons, had been tricked into sharing blasphemous content in the messaging app.
He had joined a WhatsApp group for job-seekers and was contacted by a woman.
She sent him an image of women with Quranic verses printed on their bodies, his mother said, adding that the contact then “denied having sent it and asked Ahmed to send it back to her to understand what he was talking about”.
He was later arrested and prosecuted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
One such group was responsible for the conviction of 27 people who have been sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty over the past three years.
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated accusations can incite public outrage and lead to lynchings.
Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one of the private investigation group’s leaders, said that more than a dozen volunteers track online blasphemy, believing that “God has chosen them for this noble cause”.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio...755194.ece
Aroosa Khan’s son was chatting on WhatsApp but suddenly found himself the target of “vigilante” investigators who accused him of having committed blasphemy online, a crime that carries the death penalty in Pakistan.
The 27-year-old is one in hundreds of young men standing trial in Pakistan courts accused of making blasphemous statements online or in WhatsApp groups, an offence for which arrests have exploded in recent years.
Many of the cases are being brought to trial by private “vigilante groups” led by lawyers and supported by volunteers who scour the Internet for offenders, rights groups and police say.
“Our lives have been turned upside down,” Ms. Khan said, saying that her son, who has not been named for security reasons, had been tricked into sharing blasphemous content in the messaging app.
He had joined a WhatsApp group for job-seekers and was contacted by a woman.
She sent him an image of women with Quranic verses printed on their bodies, his mother said, adding that the contact then “denied having sent it and asked Ahmed to send it back to her to understand what he was talking about”.
He was later arrested and prosecuted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
One such group was responsible for the conviction of 27 people who have been sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty over the past three years.
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated accusations can incite public outrage and lead to lynchings.
Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one of the private investigation group’s leaders, said that more than a dozen volunteers track online blasphemy, believing that “God has chosen them for this noble cause”.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio...755194.ece
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
