Despite appeals by the British Prime Minister, a group of influential British Muslims and an online petition with over 29,000 signatures, the fate of a British pensioner with mental health issues, recently sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan, remains uncertain.

Seventy-year-old Mohammad Asghar from Edinburgh was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death by a court in Rawalpindi city on 23 January 2014.

Asghar, who has lived in Pakistan for several years, was initially arrested in 2010 after sending letters in which he declared himself a prophet.

But Asghar’s family says that he has a history of mental health issues, having previously been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

His legal team also argue that the blasphemy claims came from a tenant who was in dispute with Asghar,

Javed Gul, a government prosecutor, reportedly told the AFP news service that "Asghar claimed to be a prophet even inside the court. He confessed it in front of the judge.’’

In Pakistan – a country where 97 per cent of the population is Muslim – blasphemy against any recognised religion is punishable by anything from a hefty fine to the death penalty.

Defending Asghar is Asma Jahangir, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist who is appealing the verdict on the grounds of her client’s mental health.

Speaking to Equal Times, Jahangir strongly criticised Pakistan’s judiciary system where the constitutional legal system and Federal Shariat court work in parallel.

Both Muslims and religious minorities tend to fall victim to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, particularly the Ahmadiyya community, which creates a climate of fear.

Those defending people accused of blasphemy often receive death threats and politicians in support of reforming the country’s blasphemy laws have been killed.

The most famous case was that of Salman Taseer, a vocal anti-blasphemy law politician and governor of the Punjab province, who was gunned down by his own security guard on 4 January 2011.

His murder sparked street protests across Pakistan and international outcry.

Shahbaz Bhatti, a Minorities Affair Minister, and a Catholic, was also shot dead for the same reason a couple of months later.

And Rimsha Masih, a teenage Catholic girl suffering from mental illness, is arguably the only person accused of blasphemy who escaped a potential death penalty.

She was arrested in the capital city of Islamabad in August 2012 after a local religious clerk claimed to have seen her desecrating pages of the Qur’an. She was eventually acquitted of all charges, seeking asylum in Canada where she lives today.

The Islamabad-based think tank, the Centre for Security Studies, reports that at least 52 people accused of blasphemy have been murdered in extrajudicial killings since 1990.

However, the charge is difficult to defend since blasphemy is not strictly defined and courts are often reluctant to hear evidence, fearful that reproducing it will also be labelled as blasphemy.

Efforts to change the law are rare and strongly opposed by religious parties.

When the former Ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman unsuccessfully tried to do so in November 2010 as a Member of Parliament she was forced to go into hiding after receiving death threats.