(29 Jan 2014) The arrest of another British man accused under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law is prompting more international concern about its application.
72-year-old, Dr. Masood Ahmad, is the latest person to be detained under the law, which carries a potential death sentence for anyone deemed to have insulted Islam.
He says he was duped into talking about his religion by an outlawed militant group which reviles it as heretical.
Ahmad was arrested in the eastern Punjab provincial capital of Lahore after two men from a nearby centre run by a banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, came to his clinic and began asking him questions about his minority Ahmadiyya sect of Islam.
Businessmen nearby Ahmad's homeopathic clinic said he never preached his religion.
They say police, who are required by a new government order issued last year to rigorously investigate allegations of blasphemy before laying charges, never spoke to them or took their statements.
Ahmad's is not alone. There are more charges than ever being laid under the Blasphemy law.
Last week a Pakistani court sentenced a mentally ill British man, Mohammad Asghar, to death on blasphemy charges after he allegedly claimed to be Islam's prophet.
Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Asghar returned to his homeland in 2010.
The mother and father of six-year-old Zaira, poor Christians from eastern Punjab province, were also arrested seven months ago on charges of sending text messages that insulted Islam's Prophet.
Her frail looking grandfather, Emmanuel Masih, explained that it was not possible for them to have sent the messages because they cannot write very well.
"The phone messages were sent by someone else, because my son and daughter-in-law are only educated to fifth grade so how can they send these type of messages, it's not possible they are involved in Blasphemy," he explained.
Pakistan's blasphemy law has been condemned as archaic by human rights organisations, who say it has become a potent weapon in the arsenal of militant Muslims, who use it against adherents of minority religions.
Human rights activists say fear of retribution from violent militants is keeping ordinary Pakistanis from coming to the defence of an accused person.
"They (the Muslim extremists) do go to the court at the time of hearing, and scare them and raise slogans and the judges are afraid of these demonstrators," said I.A. Rahman, one of Pakistan's leading human rights activists.
"We are having a considerable difficulty in finding lawyers for these Blasphemy accused," he added.
Pakistan's federal religious affairs ministry refused to comment on those claims and calls to government officials went unanswered.
In recent years there has been a creeping rise in the number of charges laid under the blasphemy law, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which says 34 charges were laid in 2013, while a government statistic says 27 charges were filed in 2012.
Charges can and often do take years to be prosecuted in court.
Representatives from Pakistan's minority faiths say life for minorities has become tenuous and fearful.
In March last year a mob of young Muslim radicals swept through a collection of poor simple cement houses owned by Christians in Lahore.
They set fire to nearly 150 homes and shops, and sent the entire population of Joseph Colony running for their lives.
A US-based charity, Rescue Christians, started operations in Pakistan four years ago to help Christians facing discrimination, said Keith Davies, founder and executive director.
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