by Giulio Meotti • October 31, 2018 at 5:00 am
Asia Bibi was sentenced to death in 2010 because she is a Christian and because she was thirsty. Today, justice was served when her conviction was overturned.
Now, Bibi may be targeted for assassination when she is released. Islamists have placed a bounty on her head of 50 million rupees ($375,000). Salman Taseer, a brave Muslim who was governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, was murdered just for expressing support for her. Pakistan's federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was also murdered for defending Bibi.
Lawyers defending Christians and others accused of blasphemy are sometimes murdered as well.
In the ultimate irony, just a few days ago, the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld this same blasphemy law. The ECHR ruling is unspeakable. It is time to remove the unelected judges of that unaccountable and unappealable court.
Asia Bibi and two of her five children, pictured prior to her imprisonment on death row in 2010 for "blasphemy."
After 3,422 days of cruel and unjustified imprisonment as "the first woman to be sentenced to death for blasphemy," the death penalty verdict against Asia Noreen Bibi has finally been overturned.
Pakistan's Supreme today set aside the death sentence against Bibi, a Roman Catholic mother of five. After being convicted in a trial in 2010 for false accusations of "blasphemy", now justice has actually prevailed. Killing Bibi because her Muslim co-workers were offended that she, an "unclean" Christian, drank water from a communal well, was too much even for Pakistan, where Christians are habitually persecuted.
Bibi is now being "held at an undisclosed location for security reasons." Islamist hardliners have already threatened the judges that if she is freed, those responsible would meet a "horrible" end.
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