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| India-Pakistan |
| Senators call for amending blasphemy law |
| 2017-04-19 |
| [DAWN] Senators on Monday called for amending the blasphemy law to provide for punishments to those who concoct blasphemy accusations against others and demanded a campaign against those taking the law into their hands. Condemning the lynching of Mashal Khan, a student of Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, politicians stressed the need for effective steps to prevent misuse of the blasphemy law. Talking about the blatant misuse of the law, PPP’s Farhatullah Babar said a religious scholar had proposed that accusers who levelled false accusations should suffer the same sentence as provided for a blasphemer. He recalled how a Federal Shariat Court decision had prompted the maximum punishment for blasphemy to be increased from life imprisonment to death, reminding the house that Raja Zafarul Haq -- the current leader of the house -- was the chairman of law and justice committee at the time. He said the committee had made some suggestions while approving the bill and called for that report to be made the basis of any further action. "The liquidation of Mashal Khan should make us think about concrete measures to prevent the misuse of the blasphemy law; we need to revisit this law," he remarked. |
| Posted by:Fred |