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."

Comments

Re:"Islam is evil!" No...

[ckatko]

This is hilarious. First off, let's throw away the logical fallacy that assumes all Muslim governments are 3rd world, or, that non-3rd-World Muslim governments have great human rights records. (::cough::Saudi Arabia::cough::)

You're the same people who scream about separation of church and state, and then fail to notice when Muslim controlled governments are extremely oppressive.

http://www.unzcloud.com/wp-con...

Oh look at that, only 1.1 billion (that's "billion" with a 'b') Muslims believe that Sharia Law should take precedence over government law. Only 600 million believe leaving Islam should equal death.

What's the difference? Christianity has had multiple _reformations_. Islam hasn't. And every time you defend Islam, you're hurting the chances Ex-Muslims and Progressive Muslims will ever get a chance to reform their religion into something resembling modern society's values.

Why are there no Buddhist terrorists? Why are there no Amish terrorists? Why are 99% of all terror attacks committed by Muslims? Because religions are a set of ideas, and all ideas ARE NOT EQUAL.

You might as well be saying all football teams are equally good because they're all teams, and they all play football. If you apply abstraction after abstraction a thousand times, throwing away all of the facts that get in the way of your argument, it's amazing how easily things become equal. Google Vicious Abstractionism.

Re:Umm, WHICH religion would that be?

[stealth_finger]

Why the fucking hell do you have to slimily lump all religions together?

Because all religions are the same slime.