And talking of my God, by whose will I’m in this prison now, how long will He make me suffer? I was a good Christian before all this, and the fact that my children miss me so much means I must have been a good mother.

Yet we all know that the Islam advocated by the fundamentalists bears little resemblance to the great religion upheld by Muslims for centuries. In surat 5 of verse 32, the Koran teaches that anyone who kills an innocent person kills all humankind, and anyone who saves a life saves all humankind.

Asia Bibi is a Pakistani wife and mother living under sentence of death. Since 2009 she has been in prison in Sheikhupura, in the province of Punjab, where she is held in appalling conditions unworthy of a democracy. Her crime? She’s a Christian who drank a cup of water from a well used by her Muslim friends.

Pakistan is a great nation and Pakistanis are great people. They are friendly and hospitable and the Islam they follow is a religion that welcomes others, as I know from my own experience. In a population of 180 million, there is only a handful of extremists. But, by instilling terror, those few extremists are holding back the development of the entire country.

Death by hanging – how horrible! And as if killing me wasn’t enough, they’d also said I had to pay a fine of 300,000 rupees! I’ve never had that much money and never will. Why are they doing this to me? Am I supposed to pay to have myself killed?

I often wonder how my neighbours from my old cell are doing. There are around a hundred of us women locked up here, mostly accused of adultery. But in reality many of them have been raped. Although these women are victims, they’re regarded as guilty.