Source: www.jubileecampaign.org
Date: April 6, 2020
It has recently been announced that Shagufta and Shafqat's final verdict for their appeal will be decided by the Lahore High Court on April 8, 2020. The couple's defense attorney Saif Al Malook expressed strong confidence that the upcoming decision will be in their favor. The impending verdict follows after the case's presiding judge claimed in late February that the provided evidence against the couple is "dubious."
The judge's claims align closely with what has been reported regarding the case. Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel are a Pakistani Christian couple who were originally detained in 2013 after a Muslim mosque leader, Muhammad Hussain reported receiving a blasphemous text he claimed came from a phone registered by Shagufta. Hussain and his lawyer Anwar Mansoor Goraya continued to report receiving more inciting and blasphemous text messages, many of which were in English.
Due to the current lockdown in Pakistan as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, courts are closed until April 5th, we hope this will not cause the hearing to be postponed.
The claims against Shagufta and Shafqat were suspicious from the very beginning. Both of the individuals, who had lived in poverty most of their lives, had not been educated and were therefore illiterate in Urdu, their own first language. That the text messages were in English, a language neither have remotely any fluency in, cast further doubt on the accusation. During the investigation following the couple's arrest, the SIM card of the phone in question which had reportedly sent blasphemous messages was not located. However, a false confession was extracted by Shafqat after he was repeatedly physically tortured.
The couple was charged on blasphemy with "insulting the Qur'an" and "insulting the Prophet," and were sentenced to death under Sections 295-B and 295-C of the Pakistani penal code, whose provisions stipulate the death sentence on blasphemy charges. The couple have spent nearly six years in prison, in separate facilities, and have since appealed their charges to the Lahore High Court, which is supposedly set to announce their decision on April 8.
We would like to ask that you keep Shagufta and Shafqat's upcoming decision at the forefront of your prayers. We ask you to pray:
- That Shagufta and Shafqat are acquitted of their false charges
- That their death sentence will be repealed
- That Shagufta and Shafqat peacefully reunite with their four children
- That blasphemy laws in Pakistan will be abolished, and pray for a revision of the Penal Code, specifically 295-B and 295-C which institute the death sentence as the punishment for blasphemy.