Sunni Ittehad Council warns of 'anarchy' if Aasia pardoned

Leaders of the Sunni group say the punishment cannot be waived.

ISLAMABAD: The Sunni Ittehad Council urged the government on Friday not to pardon a Christian mother sentenced to death for blasphemy, warning that it would lead to nationwide anarchy.

Politicians and conservative clerics are at loggerheads on whether President Asif Ali Zardari should pardon Aasia Bibi, a mother of five sentenced to hang for defaming the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh), under controversial blasphemy laws. While a growing number of moderate politicians have backed calls for clemency for Bibi, religious conservatives have organised a rival campaign.

"The pardon would lead to anarchy in the country," the head of Sunni Ittehad Council, Sahibzada Fazal Kareem, told AFP. "Our stand is very clear that this punishment cannot be waived."

Kareem said that the alliance would lead protests nationwide on Friday against any moves to pardon Bibi. The council opposes Taliban militants, which are fighting government troops in parts of northwest Pakistan, and has also organised a protest march against deadly attacks on Sufi shrines blamed on Islamist hardliners.

Pakistan has yet to execute anyone for blasphemy, but the case spotlights the Muslim country's controversial laws on the subject, which rights activists say encourages extremism in a nation wracked by Taliban attacks. Minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti presented a clemency plea to Zardari late Thursday on the grounds that the case against Aasia was based only on personal enmity.

Pope Benedict XVI has also called for Aasia's release and said Christians in Pakistan were "often victims of violence and discrimination." Aasia was arrested in June 2009 after Muslim women labourers refused to drink from a bowl of water she was asked to fetch while out working in the fields. Days later, the women complained that she made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh).

Aasia was set upon by a mob, arrested by police and sentenced on November 8. Rights activists and pressure groups say it is the first time that a woman had been sentenced to hang in Pakistan for blasphemy. Most of those convicted of blasphemy have their sentences overturned or commuted on appeal through the courts. Only around three per cent of Pakistan's population of 167 million are estimated to be non-Muslim.