At her initial trial, Ms. Bibi’s inexperienced lawyer failed to cross-examine the two witnesses or object to errors in the proceedings. Ms. Bibi was convicted under Pakistan’s 1986 blasphemy law and sentenced to death by hanging.
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| Authors: Nina Shea (L) and Farahnaz Ispahani |
Source/Credit: The Wall Street Journal
By Farahnaz Ispahani/Nina Shea | October 20, 2016
[Excerpt]
The country’s Supreme Court dodges a decision by adjourning a high-profile blasphemy case.
The fate of an illiterate berry picker on death row for blasphemy has gripped Pakistan in a furor of religious fanaticism. Few examples better illustrate the misplaced priorities of the Pakistani government and the country’s Islamist ideologues.
Asia Bibi was scheduled to appear before Pakistan’s Supreme Court last week. She was arrested in 2009 following an angry dispute with her fellow field hands over whether she, a Christian, was too impure to sip from a cup of water she had fetched for them. The mother of five denies that she blasphemed, and has testified that she was merely professing her Christian faith.
At her initial trial, Ms. Bibi’s inexperienced lawyer failed to cross-examine the two witnesses or object to errors in the proceedings. Ms. Bibi was convicted under Pakistan’s 1986 blasphemy law and sentenced to death by hanging.
Since then, Ms. Bibi has been on death row and placed in solitary confinement, ostensibly for her own protection. Though Pakistan has never carried out the death penalty for blasphemy, some defendants in prior cases were murdered by cellmates and guards. Ms. Bibi’s was the first capital blasphemy conviction against a woman to be affirmed by a Pakistani appellate court.
When one of us met with Ms. Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, at a New York conference in April, Mr. Masih said through an Urdu translator that the family was hopeful Ms. Bibi would soon be exonerated. He said that a court official told him her appeal would be heard as soon as things “cooled down” after the judicial execution in February of Mumtaz Qadri.
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Read original post here: Perspective: Religious Fanaticism Prevails Over Pakistan’s Court
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