Pakistan News:

Aasia Bibi approaches LHC against conviction

* Minorities minister says government will not allow misuse of blasphemy law
Daily Times

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ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti on Friday said that Aasia Bibi’s lawyer has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court against a sessions court November 12 decision sentencing her to death. The court has not yet fixed a hearing date.

Bhatti said this while giving a briefing to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Minorities. He said the government will not allow anyone to misuse the blasphemy law. Bhatti said that blasphemy case against Aasia was baseless, concocted and malafide. He said the complainant and major witnesses were not present at the site of incident. The minister said that there are lacunas in the blasphemy law in the registration, investigation and trial procedure, and they should be addressed to save the lives of innocent people. Bhatti said he had submitted a report on Aasia’s case to President Asif Ali Zardari, in which he had recommended that she be pardoned. He said the president would use constitutional and legal way in the case.

(daily times)

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A Thirst for Blood:

Pakistan Muslims warn of anarchy over Christian

By Waqar Hussain (AFP) – 

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistani Muslims threatened protests and anarchy if the government pardons a Christian mother sentenced to death for blasphemy, calling hundreds of demonstrators onto the streets on Friday.

Demonstrators marched in the eastern city of Lahore after the most influential Sunni Muslim alliance in Pakistan urged the government not to grant mother-of-five Aasia Bibi clemency.

A crowd of several hundred called for "Jihad" and pledged to sacrifice their lives to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, an AFP reporter said.

The rally was organised by a subsidiary of banned charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which the United Nations has blacklisted as a terrorist organisation.

"We will hold nationwide protests if the government pardons the Christian woman," the subsidiary's chief coordinator, Qari Yaqub, told participants.

Politicians and conservative clerics have been at loggerheads over whether President Asif Ali Zardari should pardon Bibi, who was sentenced on November 8 to hang under controversial blasphemy laws for defaming the Prophet Mohammed.

"The pardon would lead to anarchy in the country," the head of the Sunni Ittehad Council, Sahibzada Fazal Kareem, told AFP.

"Our stand is very clear that this punishment cannot be waived.

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