ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Chinese language employee on a dam venture in northern Pakistan has been arrested and imprisoned on accusations of blasphemy, in a uncommon case of a foreigner being swept up in Pakistan’s harsh and controversial blasphemy legal guidelines.
The Chinese language man was recognized in a Pakistani police report as “Mr. Tian” and described as a transportation supervisor on the Dasu hydropower venture, led by China’s Gezhouba Group building and engineering firm.
The police report, which was obtained by The New York Instances, stated the person was on a discipline go to together with a workforce of Pakistani staff over the weekend when he was accused of constructing blasphemous remarks and gestures in opposition to God and the Prophet Muhammad after afternoon prayers throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Below Pakistani legislation, a conviction on these accusations may deliver the loss of life penalty.
Officers stated the Chinese language man was being transported to a jail close to the town of Abbottabad for his security, and confronted courtroom hearings to find out whether or not he can be indicted.
Information of the accusations unfold shortly, resulting in protests on Sunday that had been dispersed by safety officers within the Kohistan area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.
The Chinese language Embassy in Islamabad has not but commented on the arrest. However the motion may pressure diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China, which have drawn closer in recent years.
China has been a heavy investor in growth initiatives in Pakistan for years below the so-called Belt and Road Initiative, and the safety of Chinese language staff there was a problem for Islamabad. China has repeatedly urged the Pakistani authorities to make sure the security of its residents within the nation after separatist teams and Islamist militants have repeatedly focused Chinese language pursuits.
Now, the arrest of the Chinese language employee is once more illuminating the tensions inside an in any other case shut financial friendship. One of many protests concerned demonstrators surrounding a camp for Chinese language staff in Barseen, Kohistan, and throwing stones earlier than they had been dispersed by safety forces firing into the air, officers stated. Enraged protesters additionally staged a sit-in on the Karakoram Freeway, inflicting a whole bunch of automobiles to get caught. The protest ended after assurances by the native authorities of motion in opposition to the accused man.
Rights teams have lengthy campaigned in opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy legal guidelines, however accusations and convictions haven’t ebbed below successive governments. Folks accused of blasphemy steadily grow to be targets of mob violence and have been overwhelmed or killed in rising numbers lately.
In lots of instances, the accusations have risen out of private feuds, and religious minority groups — particularly Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis — face these fees in disproportionate numbers.
The blasphemy allegations within the nation have resulted in a wave of violence, together with the vandalization of Hindu temples and neighborhoods, the torching of police stations by livid mobs, the lynching of a pupil on a college campus, and the arrest and killing of academics and senior politicians.
Officers who’ve dared to talk out in opposition to the blasphemy legal guidelines have discovered themselves focused, as effectively. In 2011, two politicians had been murdered in related episodes. Salman Taseer, then a provincial governor, was killed by a bodyguard after expressing opposition to blasphemy legal guidelines. And, Shahbaz Bhatti, a federal minister, was murdered for opposing the loss of life sentence imposed on Asia Bibi, a Christian convicted of verbally insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Although Ms. Bibi was acquitted in 2019, she fled Pakistan, and her lawyer has been receiving loss of life threats.
