First published June 6, 2021.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar. Photo: family handout.
On 3 June 2021, the Lahore High Court in Pakistan acquitted Shagufta Kausar and her husband Shafqat Emmanuel, a Christian couple who had spent about seven years on death row for blasphemy. They had been sentenced to death in 2014 over text messages said to insult the Prophet Muhammad, messages they always denied sending. The two judges found the prosecution's evidence unconvincing, and the couple were freed. Their case is one of the clearest examples of how Pakistan's blasphemy laws can put vulnerable people at risk of execution on weak evidence.
The accusation
The couple lived in Gojra, a town in Toba Tek Singh district in Punjab province. In mid-2013, Gojra police registered a case after a local man, Malik Muhammad Hussain, described in reports as a prayer leader, complained that he had received blasphemous text messages; a local lawyer was reportedly sent similar messages. Shafqat and Shagufta were arrested on 25 July 2013 and charged under blasphemy provisions including Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, along with the Telegraph Act.
Shagufta worked as a caretaker at a Christian school. Shafqat had been left paralysed by a spinal injury in a 2004 accident and uses a wheelchair. They have four children. Shagufta's brother told reporters he doubted the couple were even literate enough to have written the messages, which were reportedly written in English, and their supporters suggested the phone had been used by someone else to frame them.
Death sentence and appeal
In April 2014, a court in Toba Tek Singh convicted the couple and sentenced both to death, with a fine of 100,000 rupees each. They were held in separate prisons, roughly 240 kilometres apart: Shafqat in Faisalabad and Shagufta in a women's prison in Multan.
Their appeal was led by Saif-ul-Malook, the Muslim lawyer who had won the acquittal of Asia Bibi in 2018. He argued that the prosecution had never proved that the phone number used to send the messages belonged to either of them, and that there was no credible evidence for the charges. After years of delays, the appeal was finally heard in 2021.
The 2021 acquittal
A two-judge bench of the Lahore High Court, Justices Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Tariq Saleem Sheikh, set aside the death sentences and acquitted the couple, describing the prosecution evidence as defective. Their lawyer told the Associated Press he was glad to have helped save innocent lives. The complainant retained the right to challenge the acquittal before the Supreme Court, which is why early reports noted the couple could not yet feel fully safe.
Amnesty International welcomed the verdict and called for Pakistan to repeal its blasphemy laws. Its deputy South Asia director, Dinushika Dissanayake, urged the authorities to protect the couple and their lawyer. They were released soon afterwards, and they were later reported to have been granted asylum in Europe, a common outcome for people acquitted in such cases because of the threat of revenge attacks.
How Pakistan's blasphemy laws work
Pakistan inherited laws against offending religion from British colonial rule, but they were made far harsher under military ruler Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. Section 295-B punishes defiling the Quran with life imprisonment. Section 295-C, added in 1986, covers insulting the Prophet Muhammad, and since a 1990 Federal Shariat Court ruling its only penalty has been death.
The laws require no proof of intent, and an accusation alone can lead to arrest and years in custody. Judges in lower courts are often under heavy pressure from crowds and religious groups, so many convictions are overturned only on appeal in higher courts, as in this case. Human rights groups have long documented the laws being used to settle land disputes, business rivalries and personal grudges.
The danger outside the courtroom
No one has ever been judicially executed for blasphemy in Pakistan, but the courts are not the only threat. At least 89 people accused of blasphemy were killed outside the law between 1947 and 2021, by mobs or individual attackers. Even an acquittal is no guarantee of safety, which is why many freed defendants leave the country.
Some of the best-known victims were those who defended the accused. In 2011, Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard after speaking up for Asia Bibi, and weeks later Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was also assassinated. Asia Bibi herself spent eight years on death row before the Supreme Court acquitted her in 2018; she later moved to Canada.
Who is affected
Christians make up a small minority in Pakistan, around 1.4% of the population according to recent census figures, yet they face a disproportionate share of blasphemy accusations. Most people charged, however, are Muslims, including members of the Ahmadi community, whom Pakistani law does not recognise as Muslim. More than 1,800 people were charged between 1987 and early 2021.
Reform has proved extremely difficult, because politicians who question the laws face threats and violence. International pressure, including from the European Union, which has linked trade benefits to human rights, has had limited effect. For Shagufta and Shafqat, justice came through careful lawyering, an independent bench and years of advocacy, but only after seven years of their lives were spent waiting to be hanged for messages they say they never sent.
Sources: Dawn (June 2021), Vatican News (June 2021), Wikipedia: Blasphemy in Pakistan, BBC News (original report).
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