“Asia says that part of her hope died with Bhatti, but there are other things that give her hope: the support of all Christians in Pakistan and around the world; the visit of her children,” which was recently made possible after bureaucratic problems, according to Bibi’s lawyer.
Bibi’s legal team said that it would be preferable to delay her case before starting the appeal process, given current tensions. They emphasized the need to defend religious minorities in Pakistan.
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for minorities, was murdered by masked gunmen on March 2. He was a Catholic and the only Christian in the country’s cabinet.
On March 7 the Christian Lawyers Association in Pakistan organized a public demonstration in Lahore in response to Bhatti’s murder. Participants marched from the Palace of the High Court to the Palace of the Parliament in Punjab.
The association’s president Akbar Munawar Durrani said that the killing is a tragic testimony to the terrorism and extremism raging throughout the country. He called for the abolition of all discriminatory laws, and a ban on publications which feed hatred against religious minorities.
He also urged the legal prosecution of radical leaders who have publicly called for the deaths of religious minorities because they favor revising the blasphemy law. On Dec. 3, 2010 the imam of Peshawar’s oldest mosque, Maluna Yousaf Qureshi, offered a 500,000 rupee (about $5,800) reward to anyone who killed the woman if the court failed to execute her.
