A Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan plans to take her case to the country's highest court after a high court last week rejected her appeal, her attorney says.

Asia Bibi, a mother of five from Punjab province, was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed during a 2009 argument with Muslim fellow field workers.

The workers had refused to drink from a bucket of water she had touched because she was not Muslim.

In November 2010, a Pakistani district court found Bibi guilty of blasphemy. The offense is punishable by death or life imprisonment, according to Pakistan's penal code, and Bibi was sentenced to hang.

On October 16, the Lahore High Court upheld the verdict.

Human Rights Watch described the court's decision as a "disgrace to Pakistan's judiciary."

"Asia Bibi's case is an example of how Pakistan's vaguely worded blasphemy law has led to discrimination, persecution and murder since its imposition almost three decades ago," spokesman Phelim Kine told CNN.

Bibi's attorney, Naeem Shakir, told CNN on Monday that he would file an appeal once he had received a detailed copy of the judgment.

"I have a very strong case, I am sure the Supreme Court will provide us with relief. There is no concrete evidence against Asia Bibi, and the courts are only relying on the statement on those two women," Shakir said.

At a 2010 media conference, Bibi said the allegations against her were lies fabricated by a group of women who didn't like her.

"We had some differences, and this was their way of taking revenge," she said.

An investigation by Shahbaz Bhatti, who was then Pakistan's minister for minority affairs, also found the charges stemmed from religious and personal enmity, and he recommended Bibi's release.

Bhatti was the only Christian member of the Cabinet in Pakistan, where 95% of people are Muslim, and had opposed the blasphemy law. In 2011, he was assassinated in Islamabad.

The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the killing was "a message to all of those who are against Pakistan's blasphemy laws."

Two months earlier, the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, had been shot dead by his security guard because he, too, had supported Bibi and spoken out against the law.

(CNN)