Update on Asia Bibi

Naeem Shakir, who is Asia Bibi's lawyer, says that she will never be freed "without international pressure".

Key quote:

[The] human-rights lawyer who has risked his life by defending Asia Bibi has denounced the blasphemy law under which she has been sentenced to death as a "tool of oppression".

Naeem Shakir, a lawyer who has acted for Asia Bibi, told an audience at Westminster Abbey on Saturday that the international community must put pressure on the Pakistani authorities to reform the law. "Sharing your concern from wherever you are is important," he said, because "no change is forthcoming, due to the unavailability of any kind of dialogue. . . We do not find anywhere to seriously deliberate these issues."

He went on: "Political actors are not concerned . . . to deliver justice. . . . They do not want to distress their constituencies by disturbing the religious extremists."

The death penalty for blasphemy was recommended in Pakistani law in 1986. There was now, Mr Shakir said, "a wrong public impression, created by vested interests, that this law is . . . divinely mandated", whereas it had been "framed by earthly men" and did a disservice to Islam, undermining the "basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence". As a man-made law, it was "not static", and could be reformed. "This law is flawed. This law is against the Qur'an [and] a tool of oppression."

As for the argument that, without the law, people would take justice into their own hands, he said: "People are already doing [that]." He pointed to the case of a Christian couple beaten and burned in a kiln last month, after being accused of desecrating the Qur'an.

Here is a 2010 Associated Press photo of Asia Bibi:

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

The online petition calling for mercy for Asia Bibi can still be found here.

For those who do not know who she is, here is the story about Asia Bibi's unjust imprisonment and death sentence for "blasphemy" against the Prophet Muhammad.

Please pray for Asia Bibi and her family. Also, please pray for those who are risking their lives to free her.