ISLAMABAD: For the first time after the country’s top court acquitted her of blasphemy charges in October 2018, Aasia Bibi appeared in online photographs with a French journalist who extensively reported on her case and campaigned for her freedom.
According to the UK-based Guardian newspaper, Bibi plans to launch her memoir, written in collaboration with the French author, Anne-Isabelle Tollet, on Wednesday wherein she recounts her time on the death row which lasted for about eight years.
A Pakistani Christian woman, Bibi was accused of blasphemy in June 2009 while working in the fields in her town after she had an argument with local women. She was sentenced to death in November 2010, and the verdict was also upheld by the Lahore High Court.
Her case received significant international attention and resulted in two high-profile assassinations of a minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, and governor, Salman Taseer, who spoke in her favor and opposed the blasphemy law in their country.
More recently, Bibi was exonerated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and was allowed to leave the country in May 2019.
She has now published her biographical account, “Free at Last,” in French.
“You know my story from the media,” the publisher of the book posted her words on its website in French. “Perhaps you have tried to put yourself in my place to understand what I suffered. But you are far from understanding my day to day existence in prison, or my new life, and that is why, in this book, I tell you everything.”