Death Penalty News

SAHIWAL: Two men were awarded a death sentence on Thursday for making a blasphemous post on Facebook in 2024. Along with the death penalty, AntiTerrorism Court Special Judge Ziaullah Khan also awarded the convicts seven-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs1.5 million each. According to the police, both men were booked in the FIR under the PPC Section 295-C, sections 7 and 9 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (1996), and sections 10 and 11 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (2016). 

Rules capital charges leveled against the disabled Catholic man were fabricated A Pakistani court has acquitted a blind Catholic man of blasphemy charges, ruling that the case against him was fabricated. The Additional Session Judge Court in Lahore, capital of Punjab province, cleared Nadeem Masih, 51, on June 22 and ordered his immediate release from detention. Judge Saad Salman Khan delivered the verdict in a case that carried the death penalty under Pakistan’s Penal Code.

South Asian country enacted new anti-rape law in wake of 2020 incident A Pakistani court has upheld the death sentences awarded to two men for raping a French woman in front of her children six years ago. Abid Ali and Shadqat Ali were accused of assaulting the foreign tourist on the busy Lahore-Sialkot motorway in September 2020. Investigators said the 32-year-old woman’s car had run out of fuel, leaving her stranded on the highway after midnight. She was calling for help when the two men pulled up. They broke the windows of the car, dragged the tourist and her children to a nearby field and sexually assaulted her. They were sentenced to death by a trial court in March 2021 but moved to the Lahore High Court for reprieve later that year.

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

A division bench of the Lahore High Court at Rawalpindi dismissed the appeal and upheld the death sentence of Rizwan Habib, who was convicted of the brutal murder of his former wife, US citizen Wajiha Swati, in a case involving a property dispute over assets worth around Rs1 billion that took place in Rawalpindi. The High Court remarked that the convict perpetrated a vile crime, thus justifying the death sentence. The division bench of the Lahore High Court included Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan and Justice Tanveer Sheikh.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are among the world’s most egregious tools of religious repression. They enable abuse, mob violence, and the targeting of individuals and religious minorities (including Christians) for criminal prosecutions that carry life sentences and death penalties.  Pakistani professor Junaid Hafeez, for instance, is imprisoned and sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy. 

LAHORE, Pakistan (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are facing renewed criticism as a Christian charged in a high-profile case awaits a verdict that could carry the death penalty. The case against Ishtiaq Saleem underscores growing concerns about false blasphemy accusations by organized networks and the risks to religious minorities, according to ADF International, a Christian legal advocacy group supporting the accused’s defense through allied lawyers in Pakistan. “Blasphemy laws create a culture of violence and discrimination and must be repealed,” said Tehmina Arora, director of advocacy for Asia at ADF International, in a press statement. “Ishtiaq must be freed, and Pakistan must move toward a culture that respects and protects religious freedom for all.”

Christian sanitation worker falsely accused under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and imprisoned for over 3 years could receive the death penalty ISLAMABAD (10 March 2026) – A Pakistani Christian father accused under the country’s draconian blasphemy laws is awaiting a potential death penalty verdict in a case that raises serious concerns about religious freedom and the exploitation of blasphemy accusations by organized networks.  The trial proceedings concerning Pakistani Christian Ishtiaq Saleem have reached a critical stage, with the court completing hearings relating to false blasphemy-charges against Saleem, while proceedings continue for his co-accused. 

Lahore, Feb 9 (PTI) A high court in Pakistan has set aside the death sentence of a former military officer in a blasphemy case and acquitted him for "want of evidence," a court official said on Monday.  A sessions court had awarded a death sentence to Col (R) Muhammad Arif last year for allegedly passing insulting remarks about the Prophet in Rawalpindi city, some 250kms from Lahore.  An activist of radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which was recently proscribed by the Shehbaz Sharif government, was complainant in this case. 

Two Pakistani nationals have been executed for the crime of drug smuggling In the Saudi city of Makkah. According to a statement issued by the Saudi Ministry of Interior, the two Pakistani citizens attempted to smuggle heroin and other narcotics into Saudi Arabia by concealing them in different parts of their bodies, after which they were arrested. Authorities said that after the crime was proven, the court handed down the death sentence.  Following the rejection of appeals against the verdict by the Supreme Court, a royal decree was issued to carry out the sentence.

Zafar Bhatti, a Christian pastor in Pakistan who spent 13 years in prison on a false blasphemy conviction, died of cardiac arrest just three days after his acquittal. He had returned home after being cleared by a high court, but collapsed before his family could make arrangements for medical care. Bhatti, 62, founder of the Jesus World Mission Church, was arrested in July 2012 in Rawalpindi, Punjab province, after a local cleric accused him of sending text messages that insulted the mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was charged under Article 295(C) of Pakistan’s Penal Code, a provision that carries the death penalty for defiling the name of the Muslim prophet.

Pakistan’s Senate has passed legislation removing the death penalty for two specific crimes in what officials openly acknowledge is a calculated move to preserve billions in European trade benefits — while leaving untouched the blasphemy laws that have sent dozens of Christians to death row.  The Criminal Laws Amendment Bill, which awaits National Assembly approval and presidential sign-off, eliminates capital punishment for publicly stripping women and harboring hijackers. Pakistani officials did not attempt to disguise their motivation: the changes were explicitly designed to satisfy European Union requirements under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) trade scheme, which demands that death sentences be “limited to the most serious crimes only.”

Saudi Arabia retains the death penalty for drug trafficking A Pakistani national, identified as Bakhtiyar Zaib, was executed in Makkah on Sunday after being convicted of smuggling heroin into the Kingdom, the Saudi Ministry of Interior announced. He had been arrested in connection with attempting to traffic heroin within Saudi Arabia. A criminal court initially sentenced him to death; the verdict was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday acquitted Anwar Kenneth, a 72-year-old Christian man who spent more than two decades on death row under a blasphemy conviction, citing mental illness as a key factor in its ruling. Kenneth, a former government employee, was arrested in 2001 after allegedly writing letters deemed blasphemous toward the majority religion. In 2002, he was sentenced to death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code and fined five million rupees. Despite concerns over his mental health and reports of a coerced guilty plea, the Lahore High Court upheld the conviction in 2014.

The court, however, acquitted two other suspects -- Daud William and Shahid Aftab -- for want of evidence against them. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has awarded a death sentence to a Christian man for committing blasphemy and implicating two fellow Christians in a false (blasphemy) case that caused an anti-Christian riot in a city of Punjab province in 2023, a court official said on Saturday. He also awarded him 10 year jail, with a total PKR 3 million fine under section 295-A of the PPC.

Convict’s relatives continue to threaten slain man’s family A judge in Pakistan sentenced to death a Muslim who murdered a 20-year-old Christian in the presence of his family, sources said.  Saima Riyasat, additional sessions judge of Pasrur, Sialkot District, handed the country’s maximum punishment for murder to Muhammad Zubair for killing Farhan Ul Qamar on Nov. 9, 2023, said Christian attorney Lazar Allah Rakha. The court also imposed a fine of 500,000 Pakistani Rupees ($1,785 USD), he said. 

LAHORE, Pakistan — Federal agents in Pakistan arrested a young Christian man under a blasphemy law mandating the death penalty for comments posted in Facebook chat groups under his name by unknown persons, his family said.  Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials took 24-year-old Arsalan Gill of Railway Quarters in Mughalpura, Lahore, into custody on March 17 as he returned home from his work as a sweeper, said his brother, Suleman Gill.

LAHORE: A sessions court has awarded the death penalty to a man for committing blasphemy on Thursday. Shahdara police had registered the FIR in 2020 under section 295 A & C of the PPC on the complaint of Niaz Ahmad Noori, a prayer leader and local emir of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). The complainant alleged that the accused uttered disrespectful remarks against the Holy Prophet. The former wife of the convict also testified in the trial proceedings and presented an audio recording of the blasphemous remarks allegedly uttered by him.

A Pakistani court Saturday sentenced four people to death for blasphemy, allegedly because they posted sacrilegious material on social media about Islamic religious figures and the Quran. Their lawyer said appeal preparations are underway. Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or its religious figures can be sentenced to death. Authorities have yet to carry out such a penalty, although the accusation of blasphemy and opposition to the law can incite mob violence or reprisals.

DADU: Jamshoro’s additional sessions court on Friday sentenced a man and his son to death after they were found guilty of murdering a young woman and her father in the name of honour. The convicts Ali Mohammad Rind and his son Munir alias Farooq Rind had reportedly brutally killed 50-year-old Meer Rind and his 18-year-old daughter Ms Nimani in Joghi Khan Rind village near Sehwan in 2023.