Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the release of a Christian...

Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the release of a Christian whose death sentence for blasphemy led to a bishop's suicide. Ayub Masih was sentenced to death in April 1998 after being convicted of speaking favourably about British author Salman Rushdie in an argument with a Muslim neighbour in the central province of Punjab two years earlier.
The Lahore High Court upheld the conviction in July 2001. "The Lahore High Court judgment is set aside," a three-member bench of Supreme Court said in a brief ruling. It said the reasons for the decision would be given later.
John Joseph, the then Roman Catholic bishop of Faisalabad and a leading human rights campaigner, shot himself outside the courtroom in the town of Sahiwal in May 1998, 11 days after it handed down the death sentence.
The day he killed himself, a letter from the bishop appeared in a national newspaper urging fellow Christians, Muslims and minority groups to protest against Pakistan's blasphemy laws.
Christian representatives termed the Supreme Court decision a landmark judgment.
"It's a victory for justice," said Peter Jacob, executive secretary of church-run National Commission for Justice and Peace. "It restores our confidence in the judicial system here," Christian pressure groups and some foreign governments have put discreet pressure on majority Muslim Pakistan to amend the blasphemy act.
Christians said the neighbour had made a false accusation of blasphemy against Masih because he had a land dispute with him.
Masih's lawyer Abid Hasan Minto told the Supreme Court that after his arrest the disputed land was transferred to the complainant's name.
Minto said the high standard of evidence required by Koran for awarding death penalty for blasphemy was also not followed when a district judge handed down the sentence.
The conviction sparked protests in Sahiwal, which is surrounded by many minority Christian villages.Jacob said the supreme court judgment revived memories of Bishop Joseph's "great sacrifice".
He said the Supreme Court should thoroughly review the blasphemy law, which had been used to jail hundreds of Christians.
"We call on the government to repeal this law, which in the majority of cases has been misused," he said.Christians, Hindus and other religions make up about three percent of Muslim Pakistan's 140 million people.