Pakistan arrests two editors for blasphemy

Pakistani police on 20 January, 1998 arrested two newspaper editors overnight under a controversial Islamic blasphemy law, but the two men were bailed by a court yesterday (21 January), police sources said.

They said editor Jamil Chishti and joint editor Hameed Jhelumi of the pro-opposition Urdu-language daily Pakistan were arrested on Monday night in Lahore, capital of the central province of Punjab, for printing an article that authorities regarded as blasphemous to Islam's fourth caliph, Ali.

Both men, who are Moslems, were accused under a milder section of the blasphemy law as well as an anti-terrorist law and could be sentenced for up to 10 years in jail if convicted.

A blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammad is punishable by death.

In 1995, a Pakistani court sentenced two Christians to death on a charge of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammad. The sentence was later overturned by a two-judge bench of Punjab's Lahore High Court, after which the two Christians, Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih,fled to Germany fearing a threat to their lives.