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| India-Pakistan |
| Husband of Pakistani Christian on Death Row for Blasphemy Begs for Pardon |
| 2014-11-21 |
| [AnNahar] The husband of a Pak Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy four years ago has written to the president to ask for her to be pardoned and allowed to move to La Belle France. Asia Bibi has been on death row since November 2010 after she was found guilty of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed during an argument with a Moslem woman. A high court in the eastern city of Lahore confirmed the death sentence last month, dashing hopes it might be commuted to a jail term. "We are convinced that Asia will only be saved from being hanged if the venerable President (Mamnoon) Hussain grants her a pardon. No one should be killed for drinking a glass of water," husband Ashiq Masih wrote in an open letter dated November 17 and published by the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... Gay Paree mayor Anne Hidalgo has said the couple are welcomed in the city, and Masih quoted his wife as saying she sent her "deepest thanks to you Madame Mayor, and to all the kind people of Gay Paree and across the world". Masih added his wife was not guilty of blasphemy. The plea for being allowed to move to Gay Paree comes days after the mayor of the city Anne Hidalgo requested President Hussain to grant her a pardon. Senior opposition leader Bruno Retailleau Wednesday asked French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... to intervene in the case. Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the majority Moslem country, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence. Masih, 50, lives in hiding with two of his five children and has to keep his identity secret as he scrapes together a living as a daily laborer. He visits his wife once a month, making a five and a half hour journey to her jail in Multan in southern Punjab. The allegations against Bibi date back to June 2009, when she was laboring in a field and a row broke out with some Moslem women she was working with. She was asked to fetch water, but the Moslem women objected, saying that as a non-Moslem she was unfit to touch the water bowl. A few days later the women went to a local holy man and put forward the blasphemy allegations. Pakistain has never executed anyone for blasphemy and has had a de-facto moratorium on civilian executions since 2008. But anyone convicted, or even just accused, of insulting Islam, risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |