Hey girls, check out this article that was in today's Houston Chronicle. It describes a Christian woman in Pakistan who has been put in jail for speaking the truth and has been sentenced to death. It is a weighty reminder to us believers in America who are so afraid to stand up for Christ, even though we have the freedom to do so. The only real suffering we experience here is being made fun of or looked down upon. This woman faced death for preaching Christ's name, yet she boldly spoke up anyway. May we all have this same courage and boldness to share the gospel in our own country~
Pakistani accused of blasphemy may avoid execution
Christian has spent 18months in jail for insult about Muhammad
By SAEED SHAH
McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
KARACHI, Pakistan — Hopes were raised Monday that a Pakistani Christian woman, convicted of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad this month and sentenced to death, will be pardoned soon, after government officials said they expected her to be freed.
The case raised an international outcry, including a plea formercy from Pope Benedict XVI. However, even if Asia Bibi, who’s spent a year and a half in jail on the charge, is granted a presidential pardon, the blasphemy law remains in place in Pakistan, a majority of whose population is Muslim.
Critics charge that the law is an instrument for terrorizing minorities, leading to dozens of people being jailed each year on trumped-up charges. The targets are mostly Christians and an Islamic minority sect known as Ahmedis.
Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs, said he was convinced that Bibi was innocent, and the president’s top representative in Punjab province, where the conviction occurred, predicted an imminent award of clemency. President Asif Ali Zardari has the power to overturn punishment the courts hand down to anyone.
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, said in an interview: “The president has made it clear that she will not be punished. He will grant her a pardon.”
The furor over the case has given the government an opportunity to abolish or amend the law.
“This is a disgraceful case; it is a disgraceful law. It has to be repealed,” Taseer said.
Bibi, a poor 45-year-old mother of five, was jailed after a row with some Muslim women in Sheikhupura, a district near the city of Lahore in the eastern province of Punjab. She and the women argued while laboring in a field, after they refused to drink water that Bibi had fetched because she was a Christian.
They accused her of saying something insulting about Muhammad, leading to her incarceration and then to her sentencing to hang by a lowlevel local court on Nov. 8.
Hey girls, check out this article that was in today's Houston Chronicle. It describes a Christian woman in Pakistan who has been put in jail for speaking the truth and has been sentenced to death. It is a weighty reminder to us believers in America who are so afraid to stand up for Christ, even though we have the freedom to do so. The only real suffering we experience here is being made fun of or looked down upon. This woman faced death for preaching Christ's name, yet she boldly spoke up anyway. May we all have this same courage and boldness to share the gospel in our own country~
