NEW YORK, July 12: The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday expressed its dismay at the life sentence awarded to Munawwar Mohsin, a former sub-editor of the Frontier Post, on charges of blasphemy and asked President Pervez Musharraf to pardon him immediately.

In a letter, the New York-based CPJ said, the Pakistan government should never have brought criminal charges against the Frontier Post journalist since an apology was printed in prominent dailies of Pakistan by the paper profoundly regretting the publication of “highly blasphemous material masquerading as a letter to the editor.”

The CPJ also called on the president to withdraw arrest warrants against Frontier Post’s managing editor Mahmood Shah Afridi, who was also charged and has gone into hiding.

It asked Gen Musharraf to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which it said have been used to persecute journalists and religious minorities. Mohsin’s lawyers have said they will appeal against the sentence.

Paul Michaud adds from Paris: Munawwar Mohsin’s conviction has also been criticised by Reporters Sans Frontiers, which has expressed its “outrage” over the “extremely harsh” sentence imposed on the journalist.

“Because Munawwar Mohsin printed something written by somebody else does not necessarily mean he agreed with its contents in any way,” says RSF secretary-general Robert Menard.

Photographer dies: A Canadian freelance photographer, 54-year-old Zahra Kazemi, arrested in Tehran and then taken to a hospital with serious head injuries has died, two human rights organizations, RSF and the Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Iran both said on Saturday.—Reuters