A mob has been accused of murdering a Pakistani man whom they accused of blasphemy, the majority of the deaths resulting from religiously motivated attacks in Pakistan last year, according to an unpublished survey commissioned by the United Nations. According to the official data from the country’s Federal Bureau of Statistics, 94 people were killed in a “religiously motivated crime” last year in Pakistan, but the UN estimated that a total of 379 people were attacked or murdered over the same time frame because of the expression of their religious beliefs.
Pakistan’s Taliban said Friday that it had seen in the video a “crude, doctored” presentation and denied any involvement in the attack on the Pakistani man, Muhammed Shakir. “That is all doctored and not of a terrorist or an armed organization,” said the Taliban spokesman, Mohammed Khurasani. The United Nations has yet to comment on the latest allegation.
The news came the same day the nation’s prime minister condemned the blasphemy death sentence handed down to Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who was found guilty of having insulted Islam when she was working on a farm in 2009. “Such incidents day of shame for the country and cast doubt on the judiciary system. These incidents can’t be allowed to go unpunished,” Imran Khan tweeted on Friday. Bibi’s lawyer, Saif-ullah Matloob, said he was paralyzed and had not been able to defend her after she was attacked by the mob.
Read the full story at The New York Times.
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