Blasphemy sentence reversed
Mixed reaction after Pakistan acquits Christian woman on death row
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother facing execution for blasphemy, in a landmark case which has incited deadly violence and reached as far as the Vatican.
“The appeal is allowed. She has been acquitted. The judgement of the high court as well as trial court is reversed. Her conviction is set aside,” said Pakistan’s Chief Justice Saqib Nisar in the ruling yesterday.
Bibi appeared to be in a state of disbelief after hearing the decision from her lawyer.
“I can’t believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?” she said by phone from prison after the ruling.
“I just don’t know what to say. I am very happy, I can’t believe it.”
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Muhammad can provoke death at the hands of vigilantes.
Bibi was set to be released immediately according to the court.
Her legal team celebrated the court’s decision amid beefed-up security in Islamabad after religious hardliners had vowed to protest any acquittal of the case.
“The verdict has shown that the poor, minorities and lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings,” Bibi’s lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook said.
Bibi’s case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country.
Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.
Freedom for Bibi in Pakistan, where university students have been lynched and Christians burnt in ovens over blasphemy claims, means a life under threat by hardliners, who regularly hold demonstrations calling for her execution.
The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when she was working in a field and was asked to fetch water. Muslim women she was labouring with allegedly objected, saying that as a non-Muslim she was unfit to touch the water bowl.
The women went to a local cleric and accused Bibi of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad, a charge punishable by death under colonial-era legislation.
During the appeal hearing on Oct 8, a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices appeared to question the case against her, with Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, considered Pakistan’s top expert in criminal law, listing flaws in the proceedings.
Leading rights groups have long criticised the legislation, saying it is routinely abused to justify censorship, persecution and even murder of minorities. — AFP