Younus Shaikh is a Pakistani medical doctor, scholar, and human rights activist. Having studied and worked abroad, he eventually returned to his home country to practice there. A member of organizations promoting liberalism and human rights abroad such as Humanists International, he also founded an organization of his own based on the ideals of the Enlightenment, aptly named “The Enlightenment.” His liberal and secular viewpoints, however, landed him in trouble in deeply-pious Pakistan.

"One of my reasons for returning to Pakistan was to campaign for human rights and civil liberties in Pakistan: to work for the Pakistan-India peace movement, to struggle for liberalism, secularism and humanism, and to counter the forces of religious extremism and fundamentalism." - Younus Shaikh

At a conference in October 2000, Younus got into a brief verbal dispute over the India-Pakistan border with a Pakistani officer; his view was, apparently, too sympathetic to India. Two days later, his employer suspended him from his medical teaching job without explanation, and on the same day, a student of Younus’s who also worked in the Pakistani Foreign Office told a cleric that Younus had insulted the Prophet Muhammad in one of his lectures. Allegedly, Younus had said that Muhammad was not a Muslim before God spoke to him. The cleric, finding this offensive enough to file a complaint for blasphemy, did just that.

In 2001, amid a trial riddled with intimidation tactics from the prosecution, Younus was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death, even though the trial revealed that the words for which he was charged were fabricated. For the next two years, Younus was held in solitary confinement. Fortunately, although two years of his life were irrevocably stolen, an appeal eventually went through and the initial verdict was reversed. Younus was set free, first simply laying low in Pakistan but soon realizing his best move was to flee to Europe where he could be safer from retaliatory violence.