Itan Wali, Pakistan (CNN) – In this village in Pakistan’s Punjab province a tearful 12-year-old girl ponders if the Pakistani government will soon hang her mother.
“Whenever I see her picture I cry,” Isham Masih told CNN. “I want my mother back. That’s what I’m praying for.”
This month a Pakistani court sentenced Isham’s mother, 45-year-old Asia Bibi, to death, not because she killed, injured or stole, but simply because she said something.
Prosecutors say Bibi, who is a Christian, broke Pakistan’s strict blasphemy law by insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad, a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment according to Pakistan’s penal code.
The alleged incident happened in June 2009 when Bibi, a field worker, was picking fruit in a village two hours west of Lahore. Prosecutors say when Bibi dipped her cup into a bucket of drinking water during a lunch break, her co-workers complained the water had been contaminated by a non-Muslim.
Court records show the women got into a heated argument.
Mafia Satar said she was there and heard Bibi’s insults.
“She said your Muhammad had worms in his mouth before he died,” Satar told CNN, a crude way of saying Muhammad was no prophet.
The town cleric, Qari Muhammad Salim, reported the incident to police who arrested Bibi. After nearly 15 months in prison came her conviction and the death sentence.
“When I heard the decision my heart ached,” Bibi’s husband Ashiq Masih told CNN.
Masih denies his wife ever insulted Muhammad. He said death threats forced him and his daughters, one of them disabled, to flee their village.
Neither the Koran nor the prophet Muhammad’s teachings in the Hadith call for the execution of blasphemers, but Islamic scholars and jurists from generations past included the death sentence when drafting Islamic law.
Human rights groups have long blamed Pakistan’s blasphemy laws for persecution and violence against religious minorities like last year’s attack on a Christian village in Punjab Province and recent bombings of minority Muslim mosques.
Activists say the government has refused to amend the law for fear of backlash from Islamist groups and their followers who deem scrapping the law as un-Islamic.
At the time this report was filed, Pakistan’s law minister had not responded to CNN’s request for an interview.
Bibi has appealed her death sentence and asked for bail, the chief prosecutor of Punjab province told CNN.
The prosecutor, Chaudhry Muhammad Jahangir, said the appeal will be heard by the Lahore High court and a decision could be months away.
Pakistan has never executed someone convicted of blasphemy but in Bibi’s village public opinion was unanimous.
“Yes, she should be hanged,” a group of villagers cried out.
The town cleric, who made the initial complaint against Bibi, called her death sentence one of the happiest moments of his life. “Tears of joy poured from my eyes,” Qari Salim told CNN.
The clerics tears are in stark contrast to those shed by Bibi’s daughter Isham, who wants her mother to live.
Shame on pakistani goverment and their blasphemy law. no wonder pakistanis want to still live in 14th century.
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
She probably had some argument with someone and they wove the story around it. Frankly, the Blasphemy law is just a Pakistani way of keeping Non-Muslims in line here...
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
Imagine if something similar had happened in non-muslim countries wherein a muslim was sentenced to be hanged for insulting others' Gods.
Indian painter MF Hussain comes to the mind. This topic would have been filled with posts who would have cried their hearts out. Anyway I really sorry for these people to be so insecure about their religion.
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
She probably had some argument with someone and they wove the story around it. .
Even if she did say what she is accused of, its important to note that nowhere in Islam does Allah SWT allow a death sentence for something like this. Blasphemy is not a part of Islam. Its a part of Pakistan's so called Sharia law, where the rulers can break all the Islamic rules in the world, and not be held accountable, yet if a non-muslim dares say something like this, he/she is condemned for blasphemy.
If you (the people) love Islam, and Prophet SAW that much, then the best way to show that love is by following his teachings....but thats a lost cause in Pakistan anyway.
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
Imagine if something similar had happened in non-muslim countries wherein a muslim was sentenced to be hanged for insulting others' Gods.
Indian painter MF Hussain comes to the mind. This topic would have been filled with posts who would have cried their hearts out. Anyway I really sorry for these people to be so insecure about their religion.
hit the nail on the head.
bloody idiots... always trying to shove down their own faith others throat.
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
conspiracy of hindu jionist ,raw, mosad ,cia, black water ,red...green....blue water just to distort very secular and peaceful pakistan image. this may be like false flag approach as hindus did in bombay
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
Imagine if something similar had happened in non-muslim countries wherein a muslim was sentenced to be hanged for insulting others' Gods.
Indian painter MF Hussain comes to the mind. This topic would have been filled with posts who would have cried their hearts out. Anyway I really sorry for these people to be so insecure about their religion.
Actually, there wasn't any real hoopla over MF Hussain on the Pak side, or anywhere else in the Muslim world...aside from paks suggesting that it was very unsecular of secular India.
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
Even if blasphemy is a crime that calls for execution, that should only be implemented in a real Islamic state, not in in a tattoo nation like Pakistan where president and PMs commit all kind of crimes themselves.
Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi is seen in an undated photo handed out by family members in Punjab province on November 13. — Photo by Reuters
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s president may pardon a Christian woman facing a death sentence for blasphemy against Islam, officials said Saturday, as the mother of four tearfully denied the charge in interviews.
The case of Asia Bibi has drawn appeals from Pope Benedict XVI and human rights groups to free her. She was sentenced to death earlier this month.
Bibi appeared in a televised interview at her prison Saturday, protesting her innocence to reporters and maintaining the case stemmed from a personal dispute.
“It was just the outcome of a rivalry. I would never even think of blasphemy,” she said weeping. “I have small children. For God’s sake, please set me free.”
The verdict has drawn attention to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which critics say are used to persecute Christian and other minorities and fan extremism. They are also often exploited to settle personal scores.
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for minority affairs, said Saturday that President Asif Ali Zardari has asked for a report on the case and has the power to pardon Bibi.
“The president has taken notice of this case … he is concerned on this issue,” Bhatti said, adding that Zardari has the power to pardon her even ahead of the court appeal.
Gov. Salman Taseer of Punjab province, where Bibi is held, told reporters in a televised conference he believes Zardari will soon pardon her.
“I am going to take this petition to president and he will forgive her,” he said.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
International human rights advocate Amnesty International has joined calls for the release of Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi who has been sentenced to death under the country’s blasphemy laws.
Amnesty International on Friday also called on Pakistan to revise the law under which Bibi was convicted this month.
The case stems from a dispute between Bibi and a group of Muslim women over the use of a water bowl. The other women accused her of making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). She has been in prison for one-and-a-half years and her case has been appealed. -Agencies
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
interestingly it appears while casteism is disappearing in India, it is being practiced in Pakistan! the water was made impure because she was not a Muslim? wow. I used to wonder why India was backward but it looks like Pakistan is worse.
Re: Family waits to see if mother, accused of blasphemy, will be hanged
mister chintu_bhopali
yes blasphemy is punishable by death in Islam because in an Islamic state the law of Allah is supreme and no one is allowed to speak ill of the Messenger of Allah. However, i doubt that death penalty goes for squabbles as well. So in my point of view, the woman should be pardoned if indeed she had done what she has been accused of. The problem is not the law itself rather its loose interpretation. so just watch it with your transport of hatred.