Asia Bibi (C), a Christian mother listens to Pakistani Punjab province governor Salman Taseer (R) after giving her appeal papers against a death sentence at the prison in Sheikhupura on November 20, 2010. A top Pakistan government official backed a Christian mother's appeal against a death sentence for blasphemy, saying he hoped President Asif Ali Zardari would pardon her. Asia Bibi was sentenced to hang in Pakistan's central province of Punjab earlier this month after being accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed in 2009.

Asia Bibi, centre, listens to the then Pakistani Punjab province governor, the late Salman Taseer. Photo: AFP

A PAKISTANI Christian on death row after being convicted of blasphemy has described how she has to cook her own meals for fear of being poisoned.

The case of Asia Bibi has been taken up by Pakistan's small band of liberal reformers since it was reported in November last year. It has also exposed the power wielded by extremist clerics and the persecution faced by a tiny Christian minority.

In her first interview from behind bars, she described the miserable conditions in prison as she waits for the chance to appeal against her conviction.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death for adultery, poses for a picture before an interview with Iran's English language news station Press TV in Tabriz, 540 km (336 miles) northwest of Tehran in this image released on December 9, 2010. A European human rights group said on Thursday Iranian woman Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who had been sentenced to death by stoning, had been freed, but there was no confirmation from Iran.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was sentenced to death for adultery. Photo: Reuters

''I am allowed to go out for only 30 minutes every day, and allowed to meet my family for one hour every Tuesday,'' she told Life for All, a Christian organisation. ''I am given raw material to cook for myself, since the administration fears I might be poisoned, as other Christians accused of blasphemy were poisoned or killed in the jail.''

She said a guard had been suspended for trying to strangle her.

Meanwhile, an Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery provoked an international outcry could be executed by hanging instead, the country's judicial authorities have indicated.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 44-year-old mother of two, was convicted of conducting an ''illicit relationship outside marriage'' in 2006 and has since been kept in Tabriz prison in the west of Iran.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, head of the judiciary in East Azerbaijan, said the prison did not have the ''necessary facilities'' to carry out stoning. Therefore, he said, authorities were considering hanging.

According to Mr Sharifi, an investigation has been launched to determine whether it is legally and religiously possible to go ahead with the alternative execution.

TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN