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PAKISTAN: SUPREME COURT AGREES TO HEAR CHRISTIAN WOMAN'S BLASPHEMY APPEAL
July 22, 2015: Pakistan's Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by Christian woman Asia Bibi against her death sentence for blasphemy, lawyers said, in a case that has drawn criticism from rights campaigners. Asia, a mother of five, has been on death row since 2010 after being convicted of insulting the Islamic Prophet Mohammad during a row over drinking water with Muslim women with whom she was working in a field.
Bibi's death sentence was confirmed in October 2014 by the high court in the eastern city of Lahore, the capital of Punjab province where the incident took place.
She denies the charges against her and in November appealed against the death sentence. A Supreme Court bench sitting in Lahore on Wednesday (July 22) agreed to consider the appeal in detail -- rejecting the option to dismiss it.
"The Supreme Court today accepted the petition of my client to appeal against death sentence confirmation by the Lahore High Court," Bibi's lawyer Saiful Malook told AFP after the hearing.
The court will fix a date in due course to review the substance of the appeal, Malook said. (Sources: afp, 22/07/2015)
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