From the "it could be worse" files
by digby
I think we've established that America is no paradise. But there are places that are worse. A lot worse:
A court in eastern Pakistan has sentenced a Christian couple to death for sending a blasphemous text message insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, their lawyer said Saturday.
Judge Mian Amir Habib handed the death sentence to Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar in a jail in the town of Toba Tek Singh on Friday, defence lawyer Nadeem Hassan told AFP.
Prosecution department officials confirmed the sentence.
The impoverished couple, who are in their forties, have three children and live in the town of Gojra, which has a history of violence against Christians, Hassan said.
Both denied the charges, Hassan said, adding that they would appeal the sentence.
Maulvi Mohammad Hussain, the prayer leader at a local mosque in Gojra, lodged a complaint against couple on July 21 last year for sending him a text message which he said was insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Hussain accused the husband of sending the message from his wife's cellphone.
However, defence lawyer Hassan said that the text originated from a cellphone which the couple had lost some time before the incident, so they could not have sent the message.
Now that's a very direct attack on religious liberty. Having to fill out a form declaring that your religion prohibits you from following a certain law should probably go by another label. Religious inconvenience maybe? It just isn't in the same realm.
And, by the way, the defense in the Pakistani case says this is really all about some personal score settling. Which means it probably has nothing to do with religion at all. It's about people being assholes. As usual.
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