Pak's Blasphemy Law not applicable to non-Muslims, women: Supreme Court lawyer

Islamabad, Nov 25 (ANI): Pakistan's Blasphemy Law does not apply to non-Muslims and women, and thus capital punishment under this law cannot be accorded to them, states a petition, which is likely to be filed in the Federal Shariat Court on Friday.

Drawn by Dr Aslam Khaki, a Supreme Court lawyer, the petition states that according to Muslim jurists, capital punishment under blasphemy could not be accorded to non-Muslims or women, the Daily Times reported.

Khaki also disagreed with the concept of pardoning Aasia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death by a subordinate court on charges of blasphemy, by the government, as is being widely speculated, and sending her abroad on asylum.

"If she is sent abroad, she will be a source of negative propaganda against the country and the religion like Mukhtaran Mai," he opined.

Khaki said that if the subordinate court had wrongly awarded capital punishment to Aasia, she could approach the FSC for justice.

Aasia Bibi, a 45 year-old mother of five, who has already spent an year-and-a-half in jail on charges of insulting the prophet Muhammad and the Quran, was due to be executed by hanging on November 8 after a district judge found her guilty of having stated that insects had feasted upon the prophet Muhammad's ear prior to his death and that he married his first wife for wealth, nd that the Quran was written by man and not God. Aasia denied the accusations, claiming ignorance of Islamic knowledge. (ANI)