Monday, November 22, 2010

Pakistani President frees Christian woman facing death for blasphemy

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has today freed a Christian mother-of-two facing execution for supposedly committing blasphemy.
Asia Bibi had already spent the last year and a half in prison after Muslim colleagues on the fruit farm where she worked accused her of blasphemy following a dispute between them over their different faiths.
She was arrested in June 2009 in her home village of Ittanwalai, west of the Punjab provincial capital of Lahore, and prosecuted under Section 295 B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carries a mandatory death penalty.
She became the first Christian woman in Pakistan to be handed the death sentence during a court hearing on November 8.
The 45-year-old was freed not long after President Zardari pardoned her today in the face of pressure from the international community.

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