June 8, 2022 Pakistan:
We are grieved to learn about the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench verdict of the death penalty served to Qaiser Ayub and Amaon Ayub. Today, June 8th, 2022, the decision of the additional session court upheld the death penalty for Qaiser and Amaon.
They were arrested and charged under Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws 295-C Penal Code under section 105/11 for sharing blasphemous material against the Prophet Mohammad on social media Facebook.
On June 9, 2011, Mohammad Saeed from Talagang city of Punjab province launched a complaint at a local police station that two Christians brothers had posted blasphemous material on social media. The police registered the case against them and issued search warrants to arrest them, but Qaiser and Amoon remained hidden in Pakistan for some time.
On November 11, 2011, Qaiser was arrested in Lahore but his brother Amaon succeeded in hiding until April 17, 2015, when Amaon tried to flee and got arrested in the Lahore airport. The case was heard in the Additional Session Court of Lahore on December 18, 2015; the additional court ruled and served the death penalty. The Additional Session Court decision was challenged in the Lahore High Court, but the High Court upheld the decision and on June 7th, 2022 both brothers were sentenced to death.
The last chance is to appeal in the highest court (Supreme Court of Pakistan). The appeal to the Supreme Court must be launched in writing by June 14, 2022, in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In most of the cases the Supreme Court reviews the facts, and many accused are declared innocent and released.
An example is that of Asia Bibi and Shagufta Emmanuel. Their cases were stranded in the Lower Courts of Pakistan but finally they were acquitted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In these cases, even though the accused was declared innocent, fear of assassination remained. In some previous cases of blasphemy, the accused were either killed extrajudicially or shot to death in police custody.