A PAKISTANI actress and her husband have been sentenced to 26 years jail after starring in a mock marriage on a Pakistani television program. 
 
Veena Malik is an actress, model and television presenter and has a significant media profile in Pakistan.

During a live television segment in May, Ms Malik and her real-life husband Asad Bashir Khan Khattak took part in a staged marriage with a religious song about the wedding of the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter playing in the background. This is considered blasphemy according to Pakistan’s laws.

On Tuesday, a Pakistani anti-terror court also sentenced the owner of Pakistan’s biggest media group Geo TV (the channel on which the program aired), Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, and the program’s host to 26 years jail.

Ms Malik, who recently gave birth to a son, says the sentence is “ridiculous”.

“I am innocent. I am sure I haven’t done anything wrong. I feel emotionally broken,” she said in an interview with a tabloid, Gulf News reports.

“26 years! Come on. 26 years is a lifetime … But I have faith in higher courts in Pakistan. When the final verdict comes, it will do justice to me. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

The anti-terror court is in the city of Gilgit, which is controlled by Pakistan but is part of the Kashmir region which India also claims.

There is some doubt about the strength of the Gilgit court’s order, because the court isn’t recognised by the rest of Pakistan.

The four people convicted were also ordered to pay a fine of 1.3 million rupees ($AUD24,600), sell their properties and surrender their passports, according to a copy of the court order.

“The malicious acts of the proclaimed offenders ignited the sentiments of all the Muslims of the country and hurt the feelings, which cannot be taken lightly and there is need to strictly curb such tendency,” the order said.

But the court order is unlikely to be implemented because the Gilgit-Baltistan region is not considered a full-fledged province by Pakistan and verdicts by its courts do not apply to the rest of the country.

The incident set off a storm of controversy on social media, though similar segments by other channels in the past have largely gone unnoticed.

Some commentators suspected Pakistan’s military establishment of engineering the blasphemy campaign against Geo TV.

Ms Malik says she had no control over the content of the show or how it was edited, adding that it was not her decision to have the religious song playing in the background.

“I would surely want the common people who read the news to watch the clip. I was a guest on the show along with my husband and I was just seated in a respectable manner. I was not the one controlling the content of the show or its editing.”

Ms Malik says her lawyer is working to appeal the verdict in Pakistan’s higher courts and says she was not present in court at the time of the verdict.

May I be the first to say, nothing can save...sorry, I'll  start again.
May I be the first to say, this has nothing to do with Islam?

Rocketanski wrote on Dec 24^th, 2014 at 3:22am:


I reckon the christian countries should bomb them and bring there beautiful democracy with them.

Just look how beautiful afghnaistan and iraq came out.