Pakistani actress Veena Malik, media Mogul and two others sentenced to 26 years prison for Blasphemy.(SP).
Four Pakistani media figures have been sentenced in a regional court after staging a TV wedding.
A court in Pakistan has sentenced the owner of Pakistan's biggest media group and three others to 26 years in prison and fines of 1.3 mln Pakistani rupees ($12,800) each, for airing a blasphemous program on Geo TV, part of Pakistan’s GEO and Jang media holding.
“The malicious acts of the proclaimed offenders ignited the sentiments of all the Muslims of the country and hurt the feelings, which cannot be taken lightly and there is need to strictly curb such tendency,” said the court in its verdict, according to AFP.
CaravanDaily.com reports that in May this year, Geo TV aired a live broadcast on its morning show, in which Pakistani actress Veena Malik and her actor husband Asad Bashir Khan took part in a mock marriage, to a backing of religious music. The show “featured Malik dancing with her new husband while a group of Sufi musicians sang a devotional song about the wedding of the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) daughter Fatima,” reports the South Asian website.
The judgment was handed down by court in Gilgit, a city in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. The area is controlled by Pakistan, but its location in the Kashmir region means that India also lays claim to it. As a consequence, the verdict is unlikely to be enforced in the rest of Pakistan.
According to Dawn.com, in sentencing on Tuesday the judge convicted “the proclaimed offenders under sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997,” and ordered police in Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to arrest them and, in case of non-compliance, to seize their assets.
On May 26, Sunni cleric Himayatullah Khan registered the case in a Gilgit police station. AFP writes that Khan is deputy chief of Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, an anti-Shia organization, and that the charges are suspected to be politically motivated and in association with Pakistan's military establishment: “Similar routines by other channels in the past have largely gone unnoticed,” it reports.
According to Gulfnews.com, Malik has reacted with disbelief at the sentence: “26 years! Come on. 26 years is a lifetime … But I have faith in higher courts in Pakistan. When the final verdict comes, it will do justice to me. Nothing bad is going to happen,” she told an interviewer on Wednesday.
Along with Malik and Khan, Geo TV owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and TV host Shaista Wahidi were likewise sentenced to 26 years. The four were not in court to face sentencing and are currently residing out of the country, having faced threats from extremists.
“The malicious acts of the proclaimed offenders ignited the sentiments of all the Muslims of the country and hurt the feelings, which cannot be taken lightly and there is need to strictly curb such tendency,” said the court in its verdict, according to AFP.
CaravanDaily.com reports that in May this year, Geo TV aired a live broadcast on its morning show, in which Pakistani actress Veena Malik and her actor husband Asad Bashir Khan took part in a mock marriage, to a backing of religious music. The show “featured Malik dancing with her new husband while a group of Sufi musicians sang a devotional song about the wedding of the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) daughter Fatima,” reports the South Asian website.
The judgment was handed down by court in Gilgit, a city in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. The area is controlled by Pakistan, but its location in the Kashmir region means that India also lays claim to it. As a consequence, the verdict is unlikely to be enforced in the rest of Pakistan.
According to Dawn.com, in sentencing on Tuesday the judge convicted “the proclaimed offenders under sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997,” and ordered police in Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to arrest them and, in case of non-compliance, to seize their assets.
On May 26, Sunni cleric Himayatullah Khan registered the case in a Gilgit police station. AFP writes that Khan is deputy chief of Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, an anti-Shia organization, and that the charges are suspected to be politically motivated and in association with Pakistan's military establishment: “Similar routines by other channels in the past have largely gone unnoticed,” it reports.
According to Gulfnews.com, Malik has reacted with disbelief at the sentence: “26 years! Come on. 26 years is a lifetime … But I have faith in higher courts in Pakistan. When the final verdict comes, it will do justice to me. Nothing bad is going to happen,” she told an interviewer on Wednesday.
Along with Malik and Khan, Geo TV owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and TV host Shaista Wahidi were likewise sentenced to 26 years. The four were not in court to face sentencing and are currently residing out of the country, having faced threats from extremists.
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