Update on Asia Bibi

Nasir Saeed writes about blasphemy laws.

Key quote:

A Christian prisoner, Qamar David, who was serving a life sentence for blasphemy died a year after his custodial term began, despite being considered to be in good health. Though, in this case, it must be noted that he had spent some four years in pre-trial detention; in a ‘Christian only’ block.

Sadly, his is not a lone case. Many variations exist. There was Ranjha Masih, another Christian man charged with blasphemy back in 2003. Though he was acquitted after eight years – here, again, it is pertinent to note he had spent five additional years in pre-trial detention, bringing the total number of years spent in prison to 14. Yet only his physical being gained freedom; his mind remained mentally unstable before he died a few years later. Then there is Asia Bibi, yet another Christian inmate. She was arrested back in 2009 and sentenced to life imprisonment a year later. It has been reported that she has spent the last three years in solitary confinement where no one – neither her husband nor her five children – has been allowed to meet her during this time. The bitterest irony is that while almost the whole world knows her name she is not permitted to speak to anyone. And no one knows if she will ever get life back.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have even been deliberately misused to target the vulnerable, such as Rimsha Masih who was said to have suffered mental health issues that effectively placed her at an even younger age than her estimated 14 years at the time of her arrest. There is also Asif Masih. And so the list goes on.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Crowds gather to call for Asia Bibi to be murdered.

Key quote:

Asia Bibi’s death penalty, the Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy and awaiting trial before the Supreme Court; resignation of the Minister of Justice Zahid Hamid; release of Islamic religious leaders detained: are some of the demands made by radical Islamic groups "Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan" and "Sunni Tehreek", which have launched a public protest against the Pakistani government in the streets of Islamabad in recent days. According to information sent to Agenzia Fides, in the sermon preached on Friday by imams close to radical groups, in front of some three thousand demonstrators, threats of violent attacks were addressed to the family members of the Minister of Justice or those accused of blasphemy.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Unfortunately there is no new news I can find about Asia Bibi. Yet even though the world may have forgotten her God never will.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi has just completed her seventh Christmas in prison for her Christian faith.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi's hearing has been delayed. The final appeal was scheduled for October 13.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi's final appeal to be held on October 13.

Key quote:

A persecution watchdog group is organizing a 24-hour prayer rally for Asia Bibi, the Christian mother of five who's facing the death penalty in Pakistan for blasphemy, and warns that hard-line Islamists could lash out violently against Christians after next week's hearing.

The Pakistani Supreme court announced on Friday that Bibi's appeal will take place on Thursday, Oct. 13 in Islamabad, which is expected to decide whether the Christian mother will escape the death penalty, or become the first woman in Pakistan to face such an extreme punishment for blasphemy.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Another appeal for Asia Bibi to be released.

Key quote:

Prominent Christian lawyer and rights activist Advocate Sooba Bhatti invokes President of Pakistan to pardon Asia Bibi’s capital punishment. Asia Bibi a Pakistan Christian woman was awarded a death sentence after being convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

600,000 sign a petition calling for the release of Asia Bibi.

Read Asia Bibi's own words.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

New threats against the life of Asia Bibi.

Key quote:

The fear spread among Christians in Pakistan when news appeared in section of press to hang Asia Bibi by group of Muslim followers of Mumtaz Qadri who was hanged in Rawalpindi Jail on February 20, 2016, on murdering Punjab Governor Salman Taseer on seeking clemency for Christian mother Asia Bibi sentenced to death on accusations of blasphemy.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi has a message for her tormentors.

That message is: I forgive you.

Christmas is the celebration of God’s mercy. I forgive my persecutors, those who have falsely accused me, and I await their forgiveness. . . . Jesus made this happy day for me and has accepted my prayers. . . . But, although I have been in prison for seven years, I do not hate those who did me wrong. . . . I pray that Jesus Christ will grant peace to the whole world.

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.

Immigration

Yesterday my wife and I went to San Antonio for her citizenship interview. This has been a long process, and we are thankful it is over. Praise God for removing all barriers and knocking down all obstacles so that my wife may become a US citizen! Bwana asifiwe!

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi's health is said to be "good".

Key quote:

Good news has recently been released concerning Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, a mother of five who is on death row for blasphemy. Her only “crime,” offering water to her Muslim co-workers from the same cup out of which she, a Christian, had drank.

Due to the overall volatility of the situation, rumors of Asia Bibi’s declining health began to surface around the internet in October of 2014. These rumors claimed that Asia Bibi was vomiting blood and was having difficulty walking. Similar rumors appeared in June of 2015 claiming that Asia Bibi’s health was so terrible that she might not live long enough to be executed.

Fortunately, these rumors were recently debunked by her attorney, Saif-ul-Malook, after he visited her in the Multan prison. Malook was contacted by several foreign news agencies claiming that his client’s health was worsening. When Malook and Asia Bibi’s husband visited her to verify the reports, they said she looked healthy and normal, but asked her if she had suffered from any serious illness. According to the World Watch Monitor report, Malook said that, “Asia has totally denied she ever suffered any serious illness since 2009 in prison.”

Praise God!

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.

Tanzanian election

This Sunday Tanzania will be holding its election:

It could be a tough weekend for Tanzania's ruling party. Its candidate for the presidency faces a formidable challenge from a former prime minister. 12 candidates are vying for the top job. Only one is a woman.

Pray for the people of Tanzania.

Gravel instead of the Bread of Life

Membership in the Episcopal Church has dropped below two million.

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For the first time in 75 years, The Episcopal Church's total membership dipped below the two million member mark. TEC's just-released official 2014 stats show worldwide church membership standing at 1,956,042. The last time Episcopal Church membership was below two million was in 1939 when there were 1,996,434 Episcopalians.

At the close of World War II, the Episcopal Church had a high water mark of 7,894 congregations; following the war, with the glut of baby boomers, The Episcopal Church grew and and climbed over the three million mark in 1958 with 3,126,662 members. TEC's membership peaked in 1966 with a 3,429,153 baptized souls.

From 1967 until 2003, when gay Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson (IX New Hampshire) burst upon the scene, the Episcopal Church's membership ebbed and flowed -- up one year and down another. Once Bishop Robinson joined the House of Bishops, TEC's worldwide membership has steadily declined from 2,419,562 (2003) to 1,956,042 (2014), a loss of 463,520 souls in just a little more than a decade.

I am sure that defenders of the Episcopal Church respond that other denominations are losing members as well. But pointing out this broad loss of membership cutting across all denominations, while accurate, skirts a major issue raised back when the Episcopal Church began its very public self-immolation. Rejecting the Gospel in favor of trendy progressive positions was supposed to arrest this decline, or so we were told. What happened?

In his 1990 book Living in Sin? retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong made the claim that traditional Christian views on marriage and sexuality were driven by ignorance and misogyny. The Christian church could only be saved if it adapted to the prevailing culture and embraced behavior it once called sinful. Bishop Spong's book is an interesting mixture of Biblical illiteracy and wishful thinking, so perhaps it is not surprising that his prescription has failed.

Thanks to false teachers in the Episcopal Church such as Bishop Spong and Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori the Episcopal Church traded the Bread of Life for a handful of gravel.

I believe the decline in Christianity in western nations is not because of a failure to adapt to modern progressive culture (sorry, Bishop Spong), but is actually the result of the culture's profoundly totalitarian nature. Modern progressivism has a pronounced hostility to any authority except its own and is willing to destroy those it deems Enemies of the People. The rise of the Twitter mob (McCarthyism on steroids), campus speech codes, so-called "hate crime" laws are ways this worldview is enforced. Are you reluctance to embrace the homosexual lifestyle? You must be a homophobe! Does feminism leave you uneasy or abortion make you squeamish? Obviously you hate women! Think Bruce Jenner is just an overexposed celebrity? Hater! The list of thoughtcrimes grows daily, and collaborating with the culture (as the Episcopal Church has done) will not spare you in the end.

This is a depressing point of view, but can anyone reasonably argue otherwise? And if it is correct what should Christians do?

Obviously, we cannot respond in kind. You cannot fight a Twitter mob with another Twitter mob, or craft "hate crime" laws that punish critics of Christianity, or any other type of retaliation. Only the devil wins that kind of battle.

Instead we must pray. Pray to God for forgiveness for own sins and the sins of our nation. Pray that we are spared the coming persecution, but even so pray that God's will be done.

Choose the Bread of Life. Accept no substitutes.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi has been placed in isolation because of concerns for her safety.

Key quote:

Asia Bibi, a Christian woman on death row for blasphemy, has been put in isolation over fears of attacks by vigilantes enraged over a high-profile ruling in another blasphemy case that moderates said struck a blow against religious extremism.

Prison officials and rights activists said this week that they were concerned for Asia Bibi's life due to the security threat and her worsening health.

The move comes after "genuine" threats to her life were issued in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the death sentence for Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who sought blasphemy law reform in a separate, high-profile case.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi's father is granted the right to visit her.

Key quote:

A Pakistani court has directed the Punjab provincial government and police to give the father of death row convict Asia Bibi prison visitation rights, a family lawyer said.

The directive came today, two days after Soran Masih filed a petition in the Lahore High Court demanding access to his daughter, ucanews.com reports.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

The Middle East Forum has an excellent summary of Asia Bibi's case.

Key quote:

Pakistan's authorities appear to have found a solution to at least one of their problems in the international arena: Aasiya Noreen, or "Asia Bibi," a 50-year-old Christian woman and mother of five who has been on death row for six years for allegedly insulting Muhammad.

Instead of executing Asia Bibi and further advertising to the international community that theirs is a savage and backwards nation -- and instead of releasing her and provoking millions of angry Muslims to turn on the government and accuse it of supporting "apostasy" -- Pakistan's authorities appear to be letting time, wretched conditions, severe maltreatment, and beatings slowly kill her

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Pakistan's Supreme Court has overturned Asia Bibi's death sentence.

Key quote:

Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian mom sentenced to hang to death for "blasphemy," will not be executed.

The Pakistani Supreme Court's three-judge panel overturned the death sentence, previously issued by two lower courts, on Wednesday.

Bibi was convicted of blasphemy in November 2010 for telling fellow workers on a berry farm, "Our Christ sacrificed His life on the cross for our sins," and "Our Christ is alive."

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi gets appeal date in Pakistan's Supreme Court.

Key quote:

The first hearing in Pakistan’s Supreme Court on the appeal of Asia Bibi’s conviction for blasphemy and resulting death sentence will be held next Wednesday, July 22, at 9 a.m. in Lahore.

Please pray fervently for Asia and her family, for her attorney, and for the three judges who will hear the case. May God grant justice for Asia Bibi, and may His name be glorified in this process.

The Voice of the Martyrs USA, Open Doors USA, and International Christian Concern have not only been following the situation since her arrest six years ago, but are also actively advocating her release and assisting in other ways as Asia’s case slowly makes its way through the court system.

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.

Update on Asia Bibi

An interview with Asia Bibi's husband.

Key quote:

Ashiq Masih [husband of Asia Bibi] gave an emotional interview to MailOnline in which he said his family had been 'broken' by the pain of living without his wife Asia Bibi, 50, who has been in prison for five years awaiting a death sentence for blasphemy.

Asia is the first woman sentenced to hang under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law, but her husband of 22 years still insists she’s been framed and is begging the Supreme Court to acquit her later this month.

Yet he revealed that even if she is freed, they will never be able to return to their home as clerics want her dead and have put a bounty on her head. They would pay as little as £60 for her to be dead, claimed Ashiq.

A mother of four daughters and one son, Asia was arrested in 2009. Ashiq, 54, worked in the local brick kilns and his wife would go out into the fields near their village, Ittan Wali, in Punjab, to labour as a fruit picker.

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.