Pakistani police have arrested a Muslim man for blasphemy after a video apparently showing him hitting a Bible with a shoe went viral.
The individual, aged around 50, was arrested last weekend in the city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, and was remanded into custody after appearing in court, police officer Mohamed Rizwan said.
Arrests for insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammed are common in the Islamic republic, but blasphemy laws are rarely invoked for insulting another religion.
“I would say it is very rare, if not unprecedented,” said Sabookh Syed, an Islamabad-based researcher.
The man, who appeared to be in a stable mental state, was a Christian but converted to Islam a few years ago, according to police.
The arrest comes a few weeks after militants from an Islamic group set fire to churches and homes in a Christian neighbourhood in central Pakistan over a blasphemy case.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, introduced by former military ruler Zia ul Haq in the 1980s, provide for the death penalty as the maximum punishment for insulting the religion or the Prophet Mohammed.
