PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Doctors in Pakistan have examined a young Christian girl imprisoned on blasphemy charges to determine her age and mental capacity, with the results due to be presented in court tomorrow.

According to the BBC, her lawyer says the girl, called Rimsha, is 11 or 12 years old and appears to have Down’s syndrome.

“She is being held in a maximum security prison after an angry mob accused her of desecrating pages of the Koran. But her supporters say she has been wrongly accused,” said the BBC.

“Police say the girl was arrested last week in a Christian area of the capital Islamabad, after a crowd of people demanded that she be punished for allegedly desecrating pages of the Muslim holy book.

“It is not clear whether she burned pages of the Koran or was found to be carrying them in her bag.

Attack fears

The doctors' report will be presented at a bail hearing in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Christian leaders say she is as young as 11 but police quoted in some media reports say she may be older and that she had no mental impairments.

Pakistan's Minister for National Harmony, Paul Bhatti, has said she is innocent and should be released.

He told the BBC earlier: “The police were initially reluctant to arrest her, but they came under a lot of pressure from a very large crowd who were threatening to burn down Christian homes.”

According to the BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad, Rimsha’s lawyer said that when he saw her in jail over the weekend she wept and begged to be released.

Her parents have been taken into protective custody following threats, and many other Christian families are reported to have fled the neighborhood.

“There are fears that even if she is released, Rimsha’s family will not be safe in Pakistan. Others accused of blasphemy have been killed by vigilante mobs in the recent past,” concluded the BBC story.

Dan Wooding, 71, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the “Passion for the Persecuted” award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top “Newsmakers of 2011” from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is “Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s.” To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 .