A Pakistani court has sentenced two Christians in Punjab to death for the crime of blasphemy, following their arrest in 2015.
The two brothers, Qaisar and Amoon Ayub, were accused in 2011 of posting material offensive to Islam on their website, and subsequently sent to the Jhelum prison in Lahore in 2015. Qaisar testified that he had shut down the offending website in 2009 but that a Muslim acquaintance of his, Shahryar Gill, had resurrected the site keeping the copyright in Qaisar’s name.
On December 13, Judge Javed Iqbal Bosal heard the case in the Jhelum prison for security reason, and there declared the brothers guilty and sentenced them to death. The men are both married and Qaisar is the father of three children.