18 January 2025 – Jubilee Campaign urges the Supreme Court to act swiftly on the report submitted by the Medical Board and immediately release Anwar Kenneth, authorities have already arbitrarily detained him for over 20 years.
Jubilee Campaign echoes the call of Pakistani human rights advocates urging Pakistan authorities to immediately release Anwar Kenneth. They have been detaining Anwar Kenneth on death row for over two decades. The Punjab Institute of Mental Health Lahore’s report which concluded that Anwar Kenneth suffers from “Bipolar Affective Disorder” was forwarded to the Supreme Court on 1st January 2025. With the news of his poor mental condition it is incumbent upon the authorities to reunite Anwar Kenneth safely and immediately with his family.
Background
Anwar Kenneth, a former officer at Pakistan’s Fisheries Department, was initially arrested by Pakistani authorities in September 2001 on charges of blasphemy in connection with a letter he had written to a Muslim leader and notable scholar, ulama Haji Mehmood Zafar, in which he divulged his beliefs as a practitioner of Christianity. On 18 July 2002, an Additional Session Court in Lahore found Kenneth guilty of “defaming” and “insulting” the Prophet Muhammad, sentencing the defendant to capital punishment and a fine of 500,000 Pakistani rupees according to the highly contentious Article 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860). What has ensued since the court sentenced him to two decades of legal uncertainty and personal turmoil and denied him his right to a fair trial, is the repeated postponement of his appeal, the deterioration of his physical and mental health, and the severe emotional toll on his family relationships due to the prolonged separation.
In 2014, the Lahore High Court reviewed Kenneth’s case and upheld his sentence of capital punishment, remanding him to death row where he would remain for another decade. The defendant’s family has lamented that they have experienced obstacles to visiting with him, increasingly so within the past five months, having resorted to paying a bribe to prison officials. Kenneth’s nephew, in his most recent meeting with his uncle, observed that Kenneth’s health appears to be deteriorating; already in his adult years when detained in 2002, Kenneth is now in his sixties. His elder sister, nearly twenty years his senior, reiterated her wishes to see him released from prison in her lifetime, and his son has long since fled Pakistan due to threats to his and his family’s life by radical Muslim community members.
Experts on minority rights and conditions of religious persecution in Pakistan have raised concerns with the nation’s anti-blasphemy laws and their application in Anwar Kenneth’s case, notably that he has been conferred the most severe and irreversible sentence for sharing his faith beliefs, conduct which is explicitly protected in both domestic legislation and international human rights conventions to which Pakistan has acceded. The UN Special Procedures have also raised concern with the arbitrary detention of Anwar Kenneth in a letter to the government in April 2024, that was recently made public. They write:
“We wish to express our serious concerns regarding the arrest, detention, and imposition of the death penalty for blasphemy related charges against Mr. Anwar Kenneth, a mandatory sentence for the offence which does not meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’ as required for the imposition of the death penalty under international law. If the above allegations are accurate, they would be in contravention with various articles under the International Covenant on International and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Pakistan on 23 June 2010, including articles 6 (right to life), 7 (right not to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment), 9 (right to liberty and security), 18 (right to freedom of religion or belief), 19 (right to freedom of opinion and expression), 26 (equality before the law) and 27 (rights of minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language).”
Given the recent release of the Lahore Medical Board’s report made on the 19th December 2024, it is incumbent upon the court to release Anwar Kenneth. Jubilee Campaign fears any extended detention of Anwar Kenneth will exacerbate the irreparable damage to Anwar Kenneth’s physical and psychological integrity from the prolonged arbitrary detention, merely for peacefully expressing his beliefs. Anwar Kenneth is kept with a prison bracelet chained to his legs, disregarding his age, frailty and psychological condition.
Jubilee Campaign urges the Supreme Court to act swiftly on the new information received by the Medical Board, and immediately release him to the care and oversight of his family. Pakistan has both signed and acceded to the ICCPR and the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Blasphemy is not a crime and it is most certainly not punishable by death. The detention of Anwar Kenneth, who suffers from bipolar disorder, is a violation of the ICCPR and Pakistan’s commitments to those most vulnerable in society.