By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

Pope Benedict XVI made an urgent appeal yesterday to the leaders of Pakistan to spare the life of a Christian mother of five who has been sentenced to death for blasphemy on a trumped up charge of insulting Mohammed.

SIFYNews is reporting that Asia Bibi, 45, was charged with insulting Mohammed after being sent by the wife of a village chief in her native Punjab province to fetch water from a well. Muslim clerics reported her to police after villagers claimed it was sacrilegious to drink water collected by a non-Muslim.

Following a year-long trial, Bibi was sentenced to death Monday by a court in Nankana, about 75 km from Lahore. Her family announced it would appeal the sentence.

The Pope addressed this horrendous injustice yesterday at the end of his weekly general audience.

“I today express my spiritual closeness to Ms. Asia Bibi and her family while asking that, as soon as possible, she may be restored to complete freedom,” he said. “Over these days, the international community is, with great concern, following the situation of Christians in Pakistan, who are often victims of violence or discrimination.”

He also prayed for others “who find themselves in similar situations, that their human dignity and fundamental rights may be fully respected.”

The Italian Bishops Conference has launched a campaign to save Bibi’s life on their television channel. The Mayor of Rome plans to light up the Colosseum today to draw attention to her plight and the City Council has placed a giant poster of Bibi at Rome’s Campidoglio Town Hall.

There have also been protest marches throughout Pakistan by Muslim and Christian women’s associations to show their disapproval of the way Bibi has been treated.  The case has sparked renewed interest by non-governmental organizations for the repeal of the country’s draconian blasphemy law.

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