Pakistan court frees Christian convicted of blasphemy 23 years ago
Anwar Kenneth was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to death in 2002 despite doctors confirming him being mentally ill
Updated: June 27, 2025 08:15 AM GMT
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has freed a mentally-ill Catholic man who spent 23 years on death row after being convicted of committing blasphemy.
A three-judge bench overturned the conviction of Anwar Kenneth on June 25 after doctors reportedly confirmed his mental illness.
The court said an individual with mental illness cannot be held criminally liable.
Kenneth, now 72, was arrested in 2001 for allegedly writing letters about the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran that were deemed blasphemous under Pakistan’s repressive blasphemy law that can result in a death sentence or life imprisonment for violations.
In July 2002, a court in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, sentenced him to death and fined him five million rupees (US$17,985). Despite appeals and medical reports confirming the convict’s mental disorder, the Lahore High Court upheld the sentence in 2014.
Kenneth is expected to be released next week, said his lawyer, Rana Abdul Hameed
“Although doctors had declared him insane at the time of the alleged offense, he kept confessing and pleading to be hanged, which complicated the trial,” Hameed told UCA News.
While the man suffered for years, now he faces possible death threats from hardliners who consider killing a blasphemer a religious duty, the lawyer said.
“His family will need to arrange for his protection,” he said.
Hameed claimed that he himself had received threats after he held a press conference earlier this year to demand an independent probe into the misuse of the blasphemy law.
“Two to four policemen have been stationed outside my office,” he added.
In socially and religiously conservative Muslim-majority Pakistan, blasphemy has been a highly contentious issue.
Dozens of Muslims and people from other minorities, including Christians, have been convicted for blasphemy with some being handed death sentences, but nobody has been executed so far.
However, religiously-charged mobs have rioted and carried out lynchings following mere allegations of blasphemy. Most of these allegations later turned out to be baseless and fabricated.
In 2023, a Muslim mob vandalized, looted and torched several churches and dozens of Christian homes in Jaranwala, in Punjab after Christians were accused of committing blasphemy by burning pages of Quran.
Kenneth’s release follows the acquittal of Farhan Masih, a mentally challenged young Christian, in Sahiwal, in Punjab on June 12. Masih was jailed for blasphemy earlier this year.
Rights group Jubilee Campaign Netherlands, which provided support throughout Kenneth’s case, welcomed his acquittal.
“This long-overdue acquittal is not only a relief for Kenneth but also a beacon of hope for all those unjustly imprisoned due to their faith,” the group’s advocacy officer, Joseph Janssen, told UCA News.
The court ruling affirmed Pakistani blasphemy laws are “incompatible with international human rights standards” that allows “systemic abuse enabled by vague and overly broad legislation used to persecute religious minorities, silence dissent, and settle personal scores,” he said.
“That it took 24 years to correct such a gross miscarriage of justice reflects deeply rooted flaws in Pakistan’s legal framework,” he added.
Rights groups have frequently criticized Pakistan’s blasphemy law and called for its repeal.
On June 9, Human Rights Watch published a report A Conspiracy to Grab the Land: Exploiting Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws for Blackmail and Profit that documented the widespread misuse of blasphemy laws to displace religious minorities and grab their property.
The report highlighted a sharp rise in blasphemy cases from 11 in 2020 to at least 475 in 2024, many of which were sparked by rumors on social media.
