PAKISTAN'S President faces mounting pressure to intervene in the case of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
The case has drawn the Vatican's attention and sparked street protests in this Muslim-majority nation.
In a report delivered to President Asif Ali Zardari, Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti recommended that the woman, Asia Bibi, 45, be pardoned or released from prison if her pending appeal is not quickly addressed.
Mr Bhatti said he also recommended amendments to the nation's controversial blasphemy law.
The report followed calls for clemency by Pope Benedict XVI, rights groups, newspapers and the governor of the province where Bibi became the first woman condemned to hang for blasphemy.
But opponents have been equally loud, and the response of Mr Zardari's government will be viewed as a barometer of its will to stand up to hard-line religious groups, including some political allies.
Hundreds of Muslim demonstrators in Lahore threatened violence this week if Bibi is released.
Her ordeal began last year when Muslim women in her village near Lahore accused her of speaking ill of the prophet Muhammad. Human rights organisations have long urged a repeal of the blasphemy law, and Mr Zardari's Pakistan People's Party - whose government depends on a fragile coalition with conservative religious parties - has vowed, but done little, to prevent its abuse.
''All Pakistanis, no matter what their religion, are equal under the law,'' said Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for Mr Zardari. ''President Zardari has followed the case of Asia Bibi closely and will take appropriate action, if necessary, to issue a pardon or grant clemency.''
Several people have been sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan, but none have been executed. Instead, rights activists and lawyers say the law is widely used to ostracise religious minorities or settle personal scores.
Though police are supposed to investigate cases, lawyers say that accusers often do little more than gather an intimidating group to lodge a claim and police make an arrest to avert an uprising.
That is what happened in Bibi's case, according to Mr Bhatti, who is a Christian. He said Bibi drew the ire of fellow farmhands after a dispute in June 2009, when they refused to drink water she collected and she refused their demands that she convert to Islam.
The women complained to a cleric, who gathered a crowd that forced her to the police station, Mr Bhatti said. He said police did not investigate and a court, without hearing her full account, handed down a death sentence four months later.
Mr Bhatti said he had concluded that Bibi, a mother of five who has been in prison for 17 months, never criticised Islam and the case against her was riddled with flaws.
People accused of blasphemy are frequently so threatened that they must leave their towns, and several convicted blasphemers have been killed in jail, said Ali Dayan Hasan, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.
''The cases that go to trial are really the tip of the iceberg,'' Mr Hasan said. ''The law creates this legal infrastructure which is then used in various informal ways to intimidate, coerce, harass and persecute.''
Bibi's husband and children were in hiding, Mr Bhatti said.
''We are frightened,'' Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, a brickmaker, told reporters in Islamabad on Wednesday. ''We are receiving threats, especially from clerics.''
Sahibzada Fazal Karim, the leader of the Sunni Ittehad Council, a key Muslim body, said he agreed that the law should be amended - but not towards leniency. Instead, he said, it should make blasphemy against other religious figures, such as Jesus, also punishable by death.
''Death is the only punishment for a person who commits blasphemy,'' Mr Karim said. ''If such a man or woman is set free by the President, ignoring the decision by the judiciary, it will have a ruinous effect on peace and harmony in the country.''
No quick pardon for Pakistani Christian
Pakistan's president will not immediately pardon a Christian woman sentenced to die for insulting Islam, but may do so later if an appeals court delays her case too long, an official said on Thursday.
The case against Asia Bibi has inflamed religious passions in Pakistan. Hard-line Muslims demonstrated again on Thursday against any pardon for her, and minority Christians held their own protests calling for abolishment of the blasphemy law, which critics say is misused by some to settle personal scores and persecute minorities.
Pope Benedict XVI has appealed for the release of Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of five who has said she was wrongly accused by a group of Muslim women with a grudge against her. The Pope said her case highlights the persecution of Pakistani Christians, who make up less than 5 per cent of the country's 175 million people.
Bibi, 45, is the 1st woman condemned to die under the blasphemy law. She has been jailed for 18 months and was sentenced November 8 to hang for insulting Islam's Prophet Mohammed.
Her lawyer has filed an appeal with the Lahore High Court, and President Asif Ali Zardari has decided to let the appeal process play out instead of immediately pardoning her, said Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, who met with Zardari on Thursday.
Pardoning Bibi would carry political risk for Zardari, whose broadly secular ruling party relies on the support of Islamist groupings in parliament.
However, the president agreed to pardon Bibi later if the appeal case is unduly delayed, said Bhatti, who delivered a report to the president on Thursday recommending Bibi be immediately freed. Zardari's spokesman could not be reached on Thursday.
Bhatti said Zardari did not specify any deadline but he believes the president "will not wait months or weeks."
About 100 Muslim demonstrators rallied on Thursday in the central city of Multan, warning against any presidential pardon for Bibi and burning an effigy of the Punjab provincial governor who has supported her appeal.
"We will resist if the government moves against the court verdict and attempts to amend the blasphemy law," warned Tariq Naeemullah, a leader of Citizen Front of Multan.
Dozens of Christians held their own protest in the southern city of Karachi, carrying a large crucifix and placards reading Down with Black Law and Stop Discrimination Against Religious Minorities.
Pakistan's higher courts have always struck down lower courts' death penalties in past blasphemy cases. Still, Bhatti said many who are falsely accused are unjustly jailed for months and often targeted by violence. 2 Christian brothers in Punjab were gunned down earlier this year as they were leaving a court hearing on a blasphemy charge.
The minorities minister acknowledges that repealing the blasphemy law is politically unfeasible but has proposed changes to it including making it a crime to falsely accuse someone, abolishing the death penalty for the crime and requiring initial cases to be heard by higher courts instead of local ones.
Source: Associated Press, November 27, 2010
