[ad_1]
REPORT – In this October 13, 2016 photo, supporters of a Pakistani religious group shout slogans demanding the hanging of a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, in Lahore, Pakistan. The Supreme Court of Pakistan is about to hear the latest appeal of the Christian sentenced to death since 2010, accused of insulting the Prophet of Islam, a crime that incites crowds to kill and kill. entails the automatic death penalty. (AP Photo / K.M. Chaudary, File)
ISLAMABAD – The Pakistan Supreme Court is about to hear on Monday the latest appeal of a Christian sentenced to death since 2010, accused of insulting the Prophet of Islam, a crime that incites crowds to kill and entails the automatic death penalty.
His lawyer Saiful Malook is optimistic. Aasia Bibi will win her last lawsuit. But otherwise, he will ask for a review, which could take years.
"I am 100% sure that she will be acquitted," Malook told The Associated Press during a phone interview on the eve of the hearing. "She has a very good case."
On a hot day in 2009, Bibi went to get some water for her and her fellow farm workers. After taking a sip, some Muslim women got angry at the fact that a Christian drank the same container. They asked that she be converted, she refused. Five days later, a crowd accuses him of blasphemy. She was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Malook said he would argue that the many contradictions of eyewitnesses taint their evidence. Malook added that he would also argue that the witnesses had not been judged in accordance with the Islamic injunctions, which requires proving that they were "godly, never to have lied, of" 39, to be of good character ".
Bibi's case sparked outrage, but in Pakistan he rallied radical Islamists and militant groups who adhered to Pakistan's blasphemy law, using it to cultivate support and attack those who try to break their power.
Defending it is dangerous.
"I lost my health, I am a patent for high blood pressure, my privacy is totally lost, you have to hide," said his lawyer. Everyone in his tree-lined street knows his identity. "They are looking at this house and know that it is the home of a person who can be killed at any time by angry mullahs."
Outside the home of Malook, in the Punjab capital, the police provide security 24 hours a day. In 2011, Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab province, was shot dead by one police officer. of his elite guards for defending Bibi and criticizing the abuse of the blasphemy law. Malook sued his murderer, Mumtaz Qadri, who was hanged for his crime. Qadri has since become a martyr for millions of people who go on pilgrimage to a shrine erected on his behalf by his family outside the federal capital.
Last month, a newly elected Pakistani government member, led by Imran Khan, a former cricket star who adopted religious conservatism, offered a prayer at the Qadri shrine, sparking an outcry from human rights defenders. # 39; man. Supporters of Qadri have openly called for the immediate death of anyone who would even be accused of blasphemy.
An unprecedented number of religious parties participated in the July elections that put Khan in power. But as in previous elections, they collected less than 10% of the popular vote. They still have allies among all the major parties. Yet one party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik, won three seats in Sindh province, southern Pakistan, campaigning on one subject: the purpose of the Prophet Muhammad. They are ardent supporters of the harsh blasphemy law that prescribes the death penalty to anyone found guilty of insulting Islam.
According to the United States Commission for Religious Freedom around the world, 71 countries have adopted blasphemy laws – about a quarter of them are in the Middle East and North Africa, and about one-fifth are although their application and sanctions vary.
Pakistan is one of the most ferocious leaders.
At least 1,472 people were charged under the Pakistan Blasphemy Law between 1987 and 2016, according to statistics collected by the Center for Social Justice, a Lahore-based group. Of these, 730 were Muslim, 501 were Ahmedis – a sect deemed heretical by traditional Muslims – while 205 were Christians and 26 Hindus. The center said that he did not know the religion of the last 10 because they had been killed by militia before they could go to court.
Although Pakistani law is punishable by death and the perpetrators have been sentenced to death, no one has been executed yet.
Malook said that an acquittal could generate countrywide protests and Bibi's life. In the past, people accused of blasphemy, but later released, had to flee Pakistan for their safety.
