Legal Commentary

A 45-year-old woman in Pakistan is sentenced to death for blasphemy.

[S]he had been working as a farmhand in fields with other women, when she was asked to fetch drinking water.

Some of the other women ? all Muslims ? refused to drink the water as it had been brought by a Christian and was therefore "unclean"...

The incident was forgotten until a few days later when [Asia] Bibi said she was set upon by a mob. The police were called and took her to a police station for her own safety.

Shahzad Kamran, of the Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan, said: "The police were under pressure from this Muslim mob, including clerics, asking for Asia to be killed because she had spoken ill of the Prophet Mohammed.

"So after the police saved her life they then registered a blasphemy case against her." He added that she had been held in isolation for more than a year before being sentenced to death on Monday.

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Full post as published by Althouse on November 09, 2010 (boomark / email).