Today Pakistani authorities have arrested two Christian women over a false allegation of blasphemy. Videos circulated on social media show a crowd of enraged Muslim men circling police vehicles, chanting slogans, and demanding the women’s arrest. The crowd was gathered outside the hospital where both women worked. Policemen were seen pleading with the crowd to calm down. One video shows the police taking both women into custody and some in the crowd trying to attack them while the police were putting them in the vehicle.

Mariam Laal, a nurse, and Newish Arooj, a third-year nursing student, worked at Civil Hospital in Faisalabad where they were accused of blasphemy. According to the charges filed with the local police by Dr. Mirza Muhammad Ali (Deputy Medical Superintendent), the sanitary inspector of the hospital informed Dr. Ali that he had found out from a Muslim nurse that the two Christian women scratched and removed a sticker from a hospital cabinet. The sticker contained a verse from the Quran.

A video circulated over social media shows an employee of the hospital (who is reported to be a medical dispenser or a ward assistant named Waqas) calling Mariam vulgar names and telling a room full of other employees that she tore down a sticker, which contained a Muslim prayer, from the medicine cabinet. He further said in the video that “our” Muslim nurse called Rukhsana saw it and snatched the torn sticker from Mariam’s hand so that it’s not further defiled or thrown on the ground. Then he said that when he found out about it, he confronted the Christian nurse Mariam. He said, “I am a Muslim; how can a Muslim sit quietly over blasphemy of his Prophet.” Then he proudly told the employees gathered in the room that he attacked Mariam with a knife, but failed when the blade broke, only injuring her arm.

At this point, no one knows if the two Christian women were responsible for removing the sticker. It also seems strange that no one complained about the sticker on the cabinet prior to this issue since there are a number of situations in which the sticker could be damaged. For example, the sticker would wear down over time, the sticker could be removed or painted over while painting the cabinet, or the sticker could be damaged simply by cleaning materials. The enraged men do not seem to care about such situations or blame the person who put the sticker at a place where it could possibly get defiled. The police, on the other hand, rushed to file charges against the two women, most likely to calm the mob down. Even if that were the intention, the case will run its course for years.

Charges have been filed under section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which states that “[w]hoever willfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur’an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.” This means that, if convicted, both women would be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Generally, trial courts are known to convict those accused of blasphemy due to pressure from angry mobs. Even in situations where the higher courts have ultimately overturned convictions, the accused spend years in prison. One such well-known case was of Asia Bibi, who spent over nine years in prison until the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her. Salman Taseer, Governor of the Punjab province, was shot over twenty times and killed by his own bodyguard because the late Governor disagreed with blasphemy laws and supported Asia Bibi.

This February, another Christian nurse in Karachi was accused of blasphemy after she reminded other nurses that they were violating the hospital policy by receiving money from patients. Her co-workers did not like it and accused her of committing blasphemy.

Last December, a Christian pastor was accused of blasphemy over a Facebook post, forcing hundreds of Christian families to flee the neighborhood of Charrar, Lahore, after they received threats of attacks from angry mobs.

Just last year, about 200 cases of blasphemy were registered against religious minorities as well as Muslims. The cases mentioned above, however, show that there has been an increase in the vulnerability of Christians. Mob attacks are more common when allegations are filed against Christians.

We hope that the government of Pakistan takes this matter seriously and protects its own citizens from mob violence and such serious blasphemy allegations. We also urge the authorities to file attempted murder charges against the man who bragged about attacking and trying to kill Mariam and instigating the mob.

Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to help Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election, according to a declassified intelligence assessment that found broad efforts by the Kremlin and Iran to shape the outcome of the race….

The report released Tuesday from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence represents the most detailed assessment of the array of foreign threats to the 2020 election. These included efforts by Iran to undermine confidence in the vote and harm Trump’s re-election prospects as well as Moscow operations that relied on Trump’s allies to smear Joe Biden, the eventual winner.

The report is the latest official affirmation of the integrity of the election, even as Trump supporters continue to make false claims of interference, from foreign or domestic actors, and refuse to accept Biden’s victory. Multiple courts and even Trump’s own Justice Department refuted claims of widespread fraud. The document makes clear that even while Trump has cried foul about the legitimacy of the election, intelligence officials believe Russia sought to influence people close to Trump as a way to tip the election in his favor.

The report wades into the politically charged task of ferreting out which foreign adversaries supported which candidates during the 2020 election, an issue that dominated headlines last year. Trump, whose 2016 campaign benefited from hacking by Russian intelligence officers and a covert social media effort, seized on an intelligence assessment from August that said China preferred a Biden presidency — even though the same assessment also said Russia was working to boost Trump’s own candidacy by disparaging Biden.

Tuesday’s report, however, says China ultimately did not interfere on either side and “considered but did not deploy” influence operations intended to affect the outcome. U.S. officials say they believe Beijing prioritized a stable relationship with the U.S. and did not consider either election outcome as advantageous enough for it to risk the “blowback” that would ensue if it got caught with interfering.

The primary threats instead came from Russia and Iran, albeit with different intentions and through different means, according to intelligence officials.

In the case of Russia, the report says, Russia sought to undermine Biden’s candidacy because it viewed his presidency as opposed to the Kremlin’s interests, though it took some steps to prepare for a Democratic administration as the election neared.

The report also says Putin authorized influence operations aimed at denigrating Biden, boosting Trump, undermining confidence in the election and exacerbating social divisions in the U.S.

Central to that effort was reliance on proxies linked to Russian intelligence “to launder influence narratives” by using media organizations, U.S. officials and people close to Trump to push “misleading or unsubstantiated” allegations against Biden.

Intelligence officials did not single out any Trump ally in that effort. But longtime associate Rudy Giuliani met multiple times with Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, who in 2020 released heavily edited recordings of Biden in an effort to link the Democratic nominee to unsubstantiated corruption allegations. U.S. officials have said they regard Derkach as an “active Russian agent,” and Tuesday’s report said Putin is believed to have “purview” over his activities.

Notably, though, Russia was not as aggressive as in past election cycles in trying to hack election infrastructure. The report says Russian cyber operations that targeted state and local government networks last year were probably not election-focused and were instead part of a broader effort to target U.S. and global entities.

Iran, meanwhile, carried out its own influence campaign aimed at harming Trump’s re-election bid, an effort U.S. officials say was probably approved by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

One “highly targeted operation” — the subject of an October news conferenc e by then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray — involved a flurry of emails to Democratic voters in battleground states that falsely purported to be from the far-right group Proud Boys and threatened the recipients if they didn’t vote for Trump.

Iran’s efforts, which officials say were more aggressive than in past elections and continued even after the contest was over, were focused on sowing discord in the U.S., likely because Tehran believed that would hurt Trump’s re-election chances.

Though Iran sought to exploit vulnerabilities on state election websites, and did “compromise US entities associated with election infrastructure as a part of a broad targeting effort across multiple sectors worldwide,” it did not attempt to manipulate votes or affect election infrastructure, the report concluded.

The 15-page document is a declassified version of an election interference report that was provided to Trump on Jan. 7, one day after a riot at the U.S. Capitol that occurred as Congress was gathering to certify the election results.

A separate document released Tuesday from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion about the integrity of the election, saying there was no evidence any foreign actor had changed votes.