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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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