This is the blasphemy laws under the sharia. The same sharia the NY Times self-enforces when it refused to run my rebuttal ad to the anti-Catholic ad they ran.
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, March 15, 2012 (AFP) - A Pakistani court on Tuesday jailed a 42-year-old Muslim man for life for burning a Koran, officials said... (hat tip David W)
... Ahmed said he would appeal the sentence, professing his innocence and saying he had no idea that a Koran was among a pile of books he set alight."The farmer was found guilty under the Muslim country's blasphemy laws that make defaming Islam punishable by death and which have been heavily criticised in the West, particularly over the persecution of a tiny non-Muslim minority.
“We heard up to 15 witnesses. His mother also testified against the accused and we have given him life imprisonment,” Judge Ameerullah Khan told AFP.
Ahmed said he would appeal the sentence, professing his innocence and saying he had no idea that a Koran was among a pile of books he set alight.
“My younger brother and sister didn't care about their school books and used to leave them scattered around the house,” Ahmed told AFP, speaking by telephone from custody.
“One day I came home and got angry at seeing the books scattered. I collected them up and burnt them. My mother admonished me, telling me that among the books I burnt, was a copy of Holy Koran,” he said.
“The neighbour overheard and called the police. Members of a rival (Sunni Muslim) sect with whom I had been clashing in the past suddenly became active in this case that is why I have been convicted,” he said.
Pakistan introduced its anti-blasphemy law in 1986 and it was adopted by Pakistani-administered Kashmir in 1993.
In late 2010, a Pakistani court sentenced a Christian mother to death for blasphemy. Her case was taken up by liberal politician Salman Taseer, who was shot dead in January 2011 over his calls to reform the blasphemy law.
