3 militants executed in Pakistan – ‘Removed blasphemous content’

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ISLAMABAD, March 15, (Agencies): Three Islamic militants convicted by military courts were executed in a prison in central Pakistan on Wednesday, the Pakistani army announced.

The militants were associated with the Pakistani Taleban and a second extremist group named Harkat-ul-Jihad e-Islami, the army said in a statement.

They were convicted of involvement in the killing of soldiers and police officers, it said. The Pakistani government began trying alleged Islamic militants in military courts and lifted a moratorium on executions following a December 2014 Taleban attack on a school that killed more than 150 people, most of them schoolchildren.

Human rights groups have criticized the fairness of the military courts, but the army says all defendants have a right to appeal. The two-year mandate for the military courts to try alleged Islamic militants recently expired, and parliament has been debating whether to continue the practice. Pakistan has been at war with Islamic militants for over a decade.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, gunmen intercepted the car of a bureaucrat, Abdullah Jan, in the southwestern city of Quetta, and abducted him, according to police officer Abdur Razzaq Cheema. No ransom or any other demand has been made yet and no one has claimed responsibility. Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, is a hotspot for both Islamic militant groups and separatist insurgents who demand greater autonomy and a larger share of regional resources.

Pakistan launched a national census on Wednesday, the country’s first in 19 years. Asif Bajwa, the country’s chief census officer, told reporters in the capital Islamabad that tens of thousands of civilian data collector will be working door-to-door, supported by 200,000 soldiers. The project will be conducted in two phases and aims to be finished by May 15, Bajwa said. He appealed to all citizens to cooperate with the data collection staffers, warning that providing false or incorrect information could result in fines or even jail terms of up to six months. The survey will also count Afghan refugees, diplomats and, for the first time, transgender people. “We have to count each and every person who is sharing the resources of my country,” Bajwa said.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday ordered that “blasphemous” content on social media websites be removed or blocked and those posting such material “strictly punished.” Blasphemy is a criminal offence in Pakistan and can carry the death penalty. Sharif’s tough talk against blasphemy will appeal to his conservative voter base ahead of elections likely to take place next year.

“Effective steps must be taken immediately to remove and block such content,” the prime minister said in a statement. He instructed Pakistan’s foreign ministry to contact international foreign social media firms and demand the blocking of blasphemous posts. He did not mention any company by name, but social networks such as Facebook Inc, its Instagram unit and rival Twitter Inc are popular in Pakistan.

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