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PAKISTAN: A CHRISTIAN GETS DEATH PENALTY FOR BLASPHEMY
March 27, 2014: A Pakistani court found Sawan Masih, a 35-year-old Christian, guilty of blasphemy and sentenced him to death.
In March 2013, a Muslim friend of the condemned man said that during an argument between the men, Masih had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. Two days later, enraged mobs swept through Joseph Colony, a Christian neighborhood in the city of Lahore, and set more than 170 houses and two churches on fire.
A lawyer for Masih said that he would appeal the case to the Lahore High Court, which must sign off on death penalty cases. Sawan Masih insisted that he had been falsely charged as part of a plot by businessmen to use blasphemy allegations to drive Christians from the land in Joseph Colony so that it could be seized for industrial use. (Sources: nytimes.com, 28/03/2014)
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