Pakistani Christians have announced a day of fasting and prayer on Monday as Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who has spent the last nine years on death row for alleged blasphemy, makes a final court appeal.
The British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) has written directly to Imran Khan, prime minister of Pakistan, and to President Arif Alvi, asking for Ms Bibi to be released.
Asia Bibi’s “crime” was to drink water from a supply used by Muslims. As a farm worker, she was in the fields alongside Muslim women when she took a drink of water. They objected because she was an “unclean” Christian. Beaten by an angry mob, she was rescued by police, but a few days later she was accused by a local imam, who had not been present at the incident, of insulting Muhammad. She was sentenced to death under Pakistan’s stringent blasphemy laws a year later.
