Accusations of blasphemy and large-scale riots aren’t directed at Westerners alone: Local accounts of questioning the Quran or offending the prophet Muhammad have commonly led to mob violence and protests as well.
In 2005, a Pakistani man was killed after a mob of close to 400 people – instigated by the local mullah – chased him up a tree after an argument with his wife led him to throw a Quran, which then hit the floor, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
Another example took place in Pakistan in 2009, when local Christians were accused of desecrating the Quran at a wedding celebration, according to Agence-France Presse. A mob burned homes and churches in the Punjab town of Gojra and killed close to 10 people.
And in 2012 a mob of roughly 2,000 people took a mentally disabled man from a police station in Punjab and attacked him for reportedly burning pages of the Quran. Pakistani legislation says insulting the prophet can be punishable by death and defacing a Quran can lead to life in prison, though to date no one has been executed via death penalty for blasphemy charges, reports the AFP.
