THE GUARDIAN: Christian woman is on death row under blasphemy laws that Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer had condemned before his assassination
Salmaan Taseer meets with Aasia Bibi after she was sentenced to hang for blasphemy in Punjab province, where Taseer was governor until his assassination on Wednesday. Photograph: The Daily TelegraphHuman rights workers say they fear for the immediate safety of Aasia Bibi, the Christian woman at the heart of Pakistan's blasphemy furore, following the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer this week.
"None of us feel safe, least of all her," said Shahzad Kamran, a Christian charity worker who has visited Bibi in jail several times since last November when she was sentenced to hang for blasphemy.
Bibi, a mother of four who has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the prophet Muhammad, has been in solitary confinement for the past month. But since Taseer was shot multiple times by his own guard in Islamabad on Tuesday, Kamran said he feared Bibi could be killed by a zealot.
"There are many chances. The prison guards could also kill her because they are Muslims and we cannot trust them," he said.
Kamran said he expected that Bibi's "heart was broken" at the death of Taseer, her most prominent defender, and that her plight had reverberated across Pakistan's embattled Christian community.
"Taseer died for the Christians and now we are feeling broke and scared. If they can kill the governor of Punjab then who am I?" >>> Declan Walsh in Islamabad | Thursday, January 06, 2011
