(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has confirmed that editorial writer Ayub Khoso was released from Hyderabad prison (in the southern province of Sindh) on 24 October 2002. His release follows a Hyderabad High Court decision quashing his conviction for blasphemy. He had been imprisoned since December 1999. The court also overturned the conviction of Zahoor Ansari, publication […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has confirmed that editorial writer Ayub Khoso was released from Hyderabad prison (in the southern province of Sindh) on 24 October 2002. His release follows a Hyderabad High Court decision quashing his conviction for blasphemy. He had been imprisoned since December 1999. The court also overturned the conviction of Zahoor Ansari, publication director of “Alakh”, a daily newspaper to which Khoso contributed editorials.
Khoso’s lawyer informed RSF member and “Daily Times” correspondent Ahmed Raza that the Hyderabad High Court issued its ruling on 22 October. Khoso was released on bail and has since returned to his village in the Mirpurkhas area. The complaint against him still stands, however, and he is scheduled to appear in court on 25 November for the first hearing of his new trial.
In 1999, the Mirpurkhas Anti-terrorist Court convicted Khoso of “blasphemy”, in absentia, and sentenced him to 17 years in prison for publishing an excerpt from a book entitled “Hum Jins Parasti Ki Tehreek” (“Movement for Homosexuality”), which suggested that homosexuality emerged at the time of the prophets Adam, Habeal and Qabeel. The Mirpurkhas court’s judge deemed this to be an “insult to the Prophet.”
The complaint against Khoso was filed by Ahmed Mian Barkati, a fundamentalist leader in the Mirpurkhas area known for filing lawsuits in connection with publications he considers to be an incitement to “religious hatred.”
Khoso was formerly a teacher in a private school in his village. He previously published opinion pieces on a regular basis in newspapers in the region, especially “Ibrat”, “Alakh”, “Tameer-e-Sind”, “Sawural” and “Sham”. He was fired from his teaching position following his conviction.
