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Man Sentenced to Death For Blasphemous Facebook Comments In Pakistan (gizmodo.com)
In what is believed to be "the first time the death penalty had been awarded in a case related to social media," a 30-year-old man in Pakistan has been sentenced to death for blasphemy in comments made on Facebook. Gizmodo reports: The prosecutor told The Times of India that Taimoor Raza was arrested "after playing blasphemous and hate speech material on his phone on a bus stop in Bahawalpur, where a counter-terrorism officer arrested him and confiscated his phone." It was the material on Raza's phone that led to his arrest. The Guardian reports that the accused's brother said Raza "indulged in a sectarian debate on Facebook with a person, who we later come to know, was a [counter-terrorism department] official with the name of Muhammad Usman." Raza's defense attorney told The Guardian the initial charges were limited to "insulting remarks on sectarian grounds," which carries a maximum two-year jail sentence, but that "derogatory acts against prophet Muhammad," which carry a death sentence, were added later. According to The Times of India, Raza will be able to appeal the ruling to the Pakistani High Court and the Supreme Court. Facebook said in a statement: "We are deeply saddened and concerned by the death sentence served in Pakistan for a Facebook post. Facebook uses powerful systems to keep people's information secure and tools to keep their accounts safe, and we do not provide any government with direct access to people's data. We will continue to protect our community from unnecessary or overreaching government intervention."
Congratulations, you found the one religiously run state that doesn't have any need for such laws. Well, maybe because that particular state is very special in a lot of aspects. One of them probably being that to get in, you first and foremost have to have drunk the cool-aid and totally love it, or you just would not be there. It's not like you can be born in the Holy See (yup. Only country in existence with 100% (former) foreigners making up the population). You pretty much HAVE TO be all-in on the whole religious spiel already to even have a chance to become a citizen.
I hope it's easy to see how you can get away with not having any laws like this and still have a 100% devotee population. You don't have to enforce anything there. People ARE already completely sold to the cult.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They do it because American Evangelists encouraged them to do so.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/how-uganda-was-seduced-by-anti-gay-conservative-evangelicals-9193593.html
Things get hard when "soft power" is used in the wrong way.
Of cause Saudi Arabian Muslim evangelists are doing far worse and probably inspired the problem in the article.