Pakistan: Sentenced to death, Christian woman's prospects bleak amid extremist climat

[sonicboom]

Pakistan: Sentenced to death, Christian woman's prospects bleak amid extremist climate



Islamabad, 4 March (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The recent murders of two outspoken critics of Pakistan's blasphemy laws by suspected religious extremists highlight the bleak prospects for a Christian woman sentenced to death under the controversial laws and for their reform.


Pakistan’s minister for minorities affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was shot dead in Islamabad on Wednesday by suspected Islamic extremists. He was one of the few politicians still urging Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws to be amended after the slaying of Punjab's provincial governor Salman Taseer by one of his own bodyguards in January.


Taseer, a vocal opponent of Pakistan's blasphemy laws had asked Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari to pardon Asia Bibi (photo), a Christian mother of five who in November 2010 condemned to death by a Punjab court for making blasphemous remarks against the Prophet Mohammed.


“As per Section 295-C of the blasphemy law, the death sentence given to Asia Bibi is justified, providing the proof provided was strong enough for the verdict," Pakistani constitutional lawyer Javed Iqbal told AKI.


Bibi's sentencing to death sparked an international outcry and prompted moves to reform Pakistan's blasphemy laws to give defendants a better chance of contesting the alleged evidence against them and proving their innocence.


"The judge can give leniency in punishment only if there are some loopholes in the investigation or evidence brought before the court," said Iqbal.


Other people have been convicted under Pakistan's blasphemy laws but received jail terms rather than the death penalty because the evidence against them was not watertight, Iqbal noted.


Critics of Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws say they are abused to persecute religious minorities or settle grudges since convictions can be delivered with little evidence.


The laws have exposed deep divisions between the country's increasingly powerful religious conservatives and secular liberals who oppose the current legislation.


A member of parliament from the ruling liberal Pakistan People's Party, Sherry Rahman on 3 February dropped her bill proposing reforms to the blasphemy laws aimed at tightening up the standards for admissible evidence against defendants.


“The bill sent in by Sherry Rehman was placed under consideration but the government made it clear that there will be no changes made to the law,” PPP lawmaker and former information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told AKI.


The parliament speaker never admitted the bill to the legislative agenda, Rahman told journalists in February.


Pakistan's prime minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on 18 January stated publicly that the government did not intend to amend the country's controversial blasphemy laws.


His remarks came after Taseer's murder and followed mass protests over Rahman's bill which were staged across the country by religious parties and their supporters.

Pakistan: Sentenced to death, Christian woman's prospects bleak amid extremist climate - Adnkronos Politics