Dr. Shaikh Muhammed Younus's last hope of escaping...

Dr. Shaikh Muhammed Younus's last hope of escaping the gallows lies with his petition to a Pakistani high court. The medical professor, 45, was sentenced to death on August 19 on a charge of blasphemy. Even if Younus is freed his life is in danger: armed Islamic fanatics have vowed to kill him for his offence.
In October 2000, during a physiology lecture at Islamabad's Capital Homeopathic College, Younus started talking about the prophet Muhammad and certain practices prevalent in pre-Islam seventh-century Arabia.
Among other things, the professor stated that Muhammad was a non-Muslim till the age of 40, that he was not circumcised until then and that his parents were non-Muslims.
His students and local mullahs accused him of making sacrilegious remarks, and the professor was arrested by Islamabad police under a controversial blasphemy law. Enacted in 1981, it states that whoever "directly or indirectly defiles the sacred name of the prophet is punishable by death." Ostensibly meant to prevent any disrespect to Islam, the law has become a weapon of persecution for religious extremists.
Human-rights groups maintain that Younus was framed because of his liberal views. Younus has practised medicine in Pakistan and Ireland and has been an active member of the South Asia Peace Movement and the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
"The clerics generated an atmosphere where it was not possible for the accused to get a fair trial," says I. A. Rehman, director of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Hundreds of people, mostly Christians and non-Muslims, are facing trial under the draconian blasphemy law. According to the HRCP, at least four people (including three Muslims) have been condemned to death by lower courts.
In August a Lahore high court upheld a blasphemy death penalty for a Christian, Ayub Masih-the first time a blasphemy conviction was upheld by a high court. Activists say the Masih case shows how the law has become a weapon of oppression-or just a way to settle scores. Masih was reportedly accused of blasphemy following a land dispute with a Muslim landlord, and condemned to death in 1998.
Many times, people accused of blasphemy have been killed by fanatical mobs after they were acquitted by the courts. Two people charged with blasphemy were murdered even before the court issued a verdict.
Conservative Islamists blocked any move to amend the blasphemy law. They launched a nationwide agitation in 2000 when Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, tried to stop its misuse by making some procedural changes. But Musharraf dropped the idea after he was pressured by hard-line generals.