Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 25, 2018
Nightmare of the Christian mother that Britain refuses to give sanctuary to:
Asia Bibi, 52, is in hiding having been threatened with death after her release
She is accused of blasphemy in her native Pakistan and faces being lynched
Following her release, there were angry scenes on the streets of her village
Asia has been offered £3,000 in cash to convert from Catholicism to Islam
Asia Bibi may have escaped the hangman, but her freedom comes with a heavy price. Today, when she should be reunited with her five children, she is being hunted across Pakistan, forced to scuttle under cover of darkness from one safe house to another in fear of her life.
It is a desperate situation – and one not helped by Britain which refuses to offer the mother-of-five sanctuary.
Last month the Supreme Court in Pakistan decided that Asia, 52, who spent eight years on death row, had been falsely accused of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed. While most of the country erupted in fury at her release, nowhere did the anger burn more fiercely than in her home village of Ittan Wali, 40 miles south-east of Lahore, where her extraordinary ordeal began. Following news of her reprieve, women took to the streets to protest, a bus was torched and children ran riot.
Until now, beyond a few sketchy details, little about Asia’s persecution has been forthcoming. But last week The Mail on Sunday travelled to Ittan Wali and interviewed key witnesses, spoke to Asia’s trusted friends and unearthed court documents. What emerged was a story far more shocking than previously imagined.
Our investigation can reveal that, on the day she was seized by villagers and accused of blasphemy:
Asia was paraded through her village with a leather noose around her neck;
A baying mob beat her with sticks during a ‘court’ hearing;
Villagers smeared her face with black ink to humiliate her;
She was promised her life would be spared only if she converted to Islam;
Her life was saved when a schoolteacher rescued her only minutes from death.
Asia’s forefathers have lived in Ittan Wali since before the formation of Pakistan in 1947. For decades, they have been the only Christians among 300 Muslim families.
The village is wholly unremarkable – a collection of mud brick single-storey houses and dirt tracks skirted by open sewers – but it was home to Asia. And although she was frequently harassed and entreated to convert to Islam, she refused to budge.
She lived with her husband, Ashiq Masih, and two stepdaughters, one stepson, and two daughters of her own in a single room mud brick house.
Back in 2009, Asia’s husband was working as a labourer in a local brick kiln. But with four children to feed – the couple’s eldest daughter was married – Asia often worked as a farmhand to bring in extra money.
At dawn on June 14, Asia and 25 other women went to work picking falsa berries, similar to blackcurrants, in a field owned by the village’s richest man Muhammad Idrees. She was paid 250 rupees (£1.50) a day.
That morning was a Sunday, so her husband had no work. She left the house quietly, with Ashiq, now 62, and the four children fast asleep on the large bed they all shared.
At midday, when the baking Punjab heat reached 110F (43C), Asia went to a nearby hand pump and returned with a bucket of water to share with her colleagues and a tin cup. Two sisters, Asma Bibi and Mafia Bibi (who aren’t related to Asia), turned on her, saying: ‘This cup was intended for Muslims, why did you take the water from it?’
They said she had made the water impure, because she was ‘chura’, a derogatory term which means ‘low-caste’, used for Christians.
The two sisters then urged Asia to convert to Islam, so she wouldn’t be chura any more – typical of the religious harassment she faced in Ittan Wali all her life.
For once, instead of remaining meekly silent, Asia stood her ground. She said she would not convert, and asked why she, not her co-workers, should change religion.
It has been claimed that she disparaged the Prophet Mohammed during the heated discussion that followed. She emphatically denies this – and insists the allegations were invented to frame her.
If so, it is a scenario familiar to many of the nearly three million Christians in Pakistan, out of a total population of 165 million. The blasphemy laws, it is widely acknowledged, have long been used against them, not as a system of organised persecution, but simply as a way of settling petty disputes.
After the row, Asia ran back home crying and told Ashiq what had happened. He told her not to worry, and he seemed to be correct as there were no further incidents for the next five days.
But on Friday, the Muslim religious day, Asia returned to work in the falsa fields, unaware that a mile away, the village imam, Qari Muhammad Salaam, was stirring up the villagers by announcing on the mosque loudspeakers that she had committed blasphemy.
The first she was aware of any trouble was hearing a low rumble of voices, then the terrifying chant: ‘Kill the Christian!’
She realised the men were coming for her and soon they appeared on a ridge. She had nowhere to run. In a panic, she stumbled, dizzy with fear, and a minute or so later felt hands roughly grab her arms and shoulders while another man fitted a leather noose around her neck.
Hauled to her feet, she was paraded back to the village – led by the leather strap – and taken to a courtyard in the house of the village leader, where more than 100 people had gathered, including imams from neighbouring villages. It seemed that a makeshift sharia court was being convened.
The village imam was flanked by the two sisters and Asia was flung at his feet. He told her: ‘You’ve made derogatory remarks about our Prophet. You know what happens to people who insult the Prophet. You can redeem yourself by accepting Islam.’
Asia protested her innocence and said she did not want to convert. At this, the crowd became increasingly hostile and began jeering and spitting. Asia was then whipped with sticks and sandals. Then, in a form of ritual humiliation, someone smeared her face with black dye while others held her down.
One of Asia’s daughters tried to intervene but was grabbed by her hair and her face smashed against a door. Another daughter, Isham, then nine, could only watch, terrified and powerless.
At one point Asia begged for water but the crowd shouted: ‘No water for the Christian dog.’ Another voice added: ‘Drink urine!’
Then little Isham ran off to look for water and summon her father, who was out working.
By now Asia was badly bleeding and semi-conscious. But when her husband reached the village, he was held back by the mob. Fearing he would be killed, he ran away.
Witnesses said it was clear that villagers would have killed Asia but for the intervention of a teacher who argued that she should be handed to police.
Two officers arrived 45 minutes later and she was taken away and formally charged with blasphemy.
Two days later, Joseph Francis, of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, a Christian group in Lahore, went to Ittan Wali to investigate.
Villagers told him that Asma and Mafia, previously friends of Asia, were told to argue with her as a way of forcing her to either flee her home or convert to Islam. When The Mail on Sunday visited Ittan Wali last week, we found her house was occupied by another family.
And from the moment of our arrival, our every move was shadowed. It later emerged that villagers had been instructed to tip off police about any Western visitors.
We headed to the imam’s house, next to the mosque. A group of men in their early twenties followed our reporters and stood close by, staring, as we waited for the imam to answer the door. Eventually, a middle-aged man, dressed in a blue shalwar kameez, appeared and walked us to the mosque.
Instructed to sit down on a mat in a courtyard, whose marble floors were caked with dirt, we waited for the imam to appear.
When he joined us he appeared friendly, offering tea and water, though his demeanour changed when Asia’s case was mentioned. He seemed angry at Asia’s reprieve and warned ominously: ‘Everybody is prepared to sacrifice their lives for the respect of the Holy Prophet.’
After Asia was charged with blasphemy, she was transferred to jail in the town of Sheikhupura, about 27 miles away.
In November 2010, she was sentenced to death by hanging in a 30-minute hearing at a court in the town, with no cross-examination of any witnesses. The court erupted with joy as she was sentenced.
The decision was upheld by Lahore High Court in 2014. In her written testimony, Asia insisted that the sisters and the imam conspired in a ‘false, fabricated and fictitious case against me’.
She added: ‘I offered my oath to police on the Bible that I had never passed such derogatory and shameful remarks. I have great respect to [sic] the Holy Prophet as well as the Holy Koran.’
Last month, the Supreme Court acquitted Asia after finding inconsistencies in the evidence of key witnesses, including Asma and Mafia Bibi, and the imam. The judgment said that there was a ‘feast of falsehood’ in their claims.
Joseph Nadim, a friend and guardian of Asia’s family, said that Britain should accept Asia as an asylum seeker, as there is a real danger against her life.
Mr Nadim said: ‘If she stays here longer, she will be killed. I am disappointed that they [the British Government] have not offered her asylum.’
Such is their fear for their safety, Asia’s youngest two daughters wear a niqab veil when they go out so they are not recognised. Isham, 19, and Isha, 23, have previously had to flee a restaurant after being jeered at by other diners.
Because of safety concerns, none of her family were in court in Islamabad to see her freed last month, instead holing up in Lahore.
Mr Nadim recalled that, after the court hearing, he drove to be with them, but got stranded as rioters blockaded all the highways.
‘I had a cross hanging in my car, but I took it down and put it in my pocket. The family were constantly calling me to know if I was OK. I finally made it back.’
Despite the Supreme Court ruling, Asia was still not free to leave the country, as a petition by Qari Salaam was immediately filed against the judgment, demanding that it be reversed on the grounds it was ‘erroneous’.
Pakistan could now face more riots when the petition comes to court, which could be as early as this week. The issue has torn the country apart and two politicians who supported Asia have been assassinated. Punjab governor Salman Taseer was killed by his own bodyguard in January 2011. Three months later, Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, himself a Christian, was killed by militants.
Choudhury Ranjeet Lal, chief of the village of Youngsonabad, five miles from Ittan Wali and where Asia used to go to church, warned : ‘Asia should leave the country as soon as possible, because if they can kill politicians who defended her, they can easily kill her. The longer she stays, the more likely she will be killed.’
Asia was even kept in solitary confinement on death row because fellow inmates wanted to kill her.
Mr Nadim said that Asia would tell him every Easter when he visited that she had forgiven her accusers. ‘She would say whoever did her wrong, “I must forgive them, and I will not say anything wrong for them ever. This is the teaching of Christ.” ’
While on death row, Asia was offered as much as 500,000 Pakistani rupees [almost £3,000], a huge sum for a farmhand, to convert from Catholicism to Islam with the promise that the charges against her would be dropped.
But she refused, said Mr Nadim, because of her unshakeable Christian faith.
He added: ‘Her faith in God made her strong and stronger. Now she wants to celebrate Christmas with her family in the open air, with sunlight and fresh air. Her children celebrated Christmas with her in prison before, but they could not hug her or kiss her.’
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 16, 2018
My Note: I personally know over a hundred such cases. What a pathetic world we’re living in!
Undercover reporting from Lauren Southern shows Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) teaching Muslim migrants to lie about trauma they have experienced, and about being Christians in order to gain asylum status in Europe.
Ariel Ricker, the director of Advocates Abroad, which is a group staffed by legal experts who help those seeking asylum, is heard admitting that “it’s all acting,” and is akin to “theatre.”
In one part of the undercover video recorded in Greece, Ricker is heard giving an example of a story she might feed to an asylum seeker.
“In December 2017, in Izmir, Turkey I was threatened for being a Christian because my boss and his friends jumped me when I was leaving my church,” Ricker makes up. “This is the Bible they tried to tear up (referring to a prop they would be given), this is the crucifix I was wearing that they tried to tear, and it made me feel unsafe as a Christian in Turkey.”
This story is well though out, as it includes an event, date, and location. Ricker explains that is necessary in order to ensure asylum is granted, as it is a very specific answer that meets all necessary criteria.
While this story was made up on the spot, the stories generally fed to asylum seekers all fit the same criteria. Ricker even explains how they have a “fill in the blanks” section where fake stories can be made up much easier.
This is all a part of a full-length movie being created, starring Southern, about the European Migrant Crisis.
The movie, BORDERLESS, will go into further detail on illegal NGO support for Islamic migration, as well as interviews with human traffickers. It is a project which is extremely dangerous to produce, but is described as one that will “blow the European Border Crisis wide open.”
Already, this one segment of the movie has warranted a response from the United Nations Refugee Council, who call the video “alarming.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 16, 2018
Tim Dieppe investigates why Asia Bibi has not been offered asylum by the British government.
Asia Bibi was acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan prompting massive demonstrations across the country. She is currently hiding for fear of her life. Her lawyer has had to flee the country. It is hard to imagine a more deserving case for asylum. Yet the government has refused to make this offer amidst security concerns. It is now apparent that British policy is being dictated by Islamist threats.
The case of Asia Bibi
Has there ever been a more deserving case for asylum than that of the Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi? After spending eight years on death row in Pakistan, Asia Bibi was acquitted of blasphemy by Pakistan’s supreme court on 31 October. She had been sentenced to death on a charge of insulting Muhammad following a row with some Muslim colleagues over a cup of water.
The verdict prompted massive protests by Islamists in Pakistan calling for Asia Bibi to be hanged. Mrs Bibi’s lawyer has fled Pakistan fearing for his life. Asia Bibi herself remains in Pakistan, in hiding for her life. This is clearly not sustainable. At some point she will be found and killed. She and her family need to be offered asylum so that they can leave the country safely.
But Britain has so far failed to offer asylum. Why is this?
Admissions in Parliament
There was a revealing exchange about Asia Bibi in the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on 13 November. The committee, chaired by Tom Tugendhat MP, was questioning Sir Simon McDonald, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service.
Tugendhat stated that Asia Bibi’s case represented “one of the clearest examples of free conscience being challenged today.” Tugendhat then explained that he has heard that the Home Office has suggested that Asia Bibi should be offered asylum since she qualifies on absolutely every ground, but that this has not been done because the head of staff in Pakistan is concerned about the security implications for staff in the British High Commission in Pakistan.
Tugendhat then asked: “Does that not raise the question that either staff should be withdrawn or security increased, because otherwise effectively British policy is being dictated to by a mob?”
Sir McDonald does not deny that asylum has not been offered because of concerns about the reaction in Pakistan.
Later Tugendhat asks: “Are you saying that the policy of the British government is to hope that someone else offers her asylum.”
Sir McDonald responds: “No not to hope, Mr Chairman, to work with others. If the objective is to protect a life and some other country can offer a more complete safe harbour than the UK, why wouldn’t the UK be open to working with that country.”
The exchange concluded in this way:
Tugendhat: “So we are not making an offer because we are afraid of the reaction.”
McDonald: “I am not saying in public exactly what we are doing, because it would be played straight back ….”
Tugendhat: “Would you like to go into private session.”
McDonald: “Yes I think it would help to go into private session.”
At this point the meeting went into private session for an extended period.
British policy dictated by a mob
What this reveals is that, as Tugendhat put it, “British policy is being dictated by a mob.”This is very concerning indeed. Allowing the mob to dictate policy will only encourage mob violence in every other area.
Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association also claims that the government is concerned about potential unrest within our own communities in the UK. This claim appears to be validated by Sir McDonald supposing in the exchange above that“some other country can offer a more complete harbour than the UK.” It appears that he considers that the UK is not as safe as some other countries might be for someone like Asia Bibi and that this is a consideration in their discussions with other nations about her case.
So the situation is that Jihadi brides and ex-ISIS soldiers are welcomed back in the Britain, but no offer of asylum is made to Asia Bibi. This week, Laruen Southern released video evidence of NGOs teaching refugees how to lie about being Christians so that they can claim asylum. They are encouraging Muslims to claim that they have been threatened for being Christians and thus obtain asylum. Meanwhile, the most genuine, clear-cut case, is not receiving the help she needs.
Resignation
On Thursday, Rehman Chishti MP resigned as Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party and PM Trade Envoy to Pakistan over the draft EU withdrawal agreement and the lack of leadership show by the government regarding Asia Bibi. In his resignation letter he stated:
“What I found shocking is that the British Government is failing to put into practice the core values that our country stands for; religious freedom, justice, morally doing the right thing, and that when we see an injustice where an individual’s life is in clear danger and they have been persecuted for their faith, we do all that we can to help them. The Government should not wait to see if another country offers sanctuary, we should have had the conviction to lead on this matter and offer sanctuary ourselves straight away.”
He refers to a letter signed by some 124 MPs and Peers asking the Prime Minister to personally intervene to offer asylum to Asia Bibi. The Prime Minister was asked about Asia Bibi in Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday. Mrs May expressed her concerns for Asia Bibi’s safety, but stopped short of offering asylum.
Johnson letter to Home Secretary
Boris Johnson has written to the Home Secretary about Asia Bibi. In the letter he said:
“I am well aware, as a former foreign secretary, of the constant threat to our overseas missions but we cannot allow the threat of violence to deter us from doing the right thing.
“I do not think it is a dignified position for the UK, given our historic links with Pakistan and the extent of our influence there, to look to others to do what we are allegedly nervous to do ourselves.”
Moral cowardice
It is clear that the government is not prepared to stand up to pressure from Islamists, even when it has a clear moral duty to do so. British foreign policy, is subject to mob pressure. The government repeatedly states that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’. If that is true then why are they so concerned about giving asylum to Asia Bibi?
British policy should not be held to ransom by potential Islamic unrest either here or anywhere. Yet this is what is currently happening. Backing down to Islamic pressure only encourages Islamists.
We should pray that the government recovers the moral courage required to do the right thing, even when it costs. Otherwise it will not be long before government policy is dictated by Islamists.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 14, 2018
Christians have been dragged out of their cars and beaten, and said they are “haunted” with fear of Islamic radicals as the blasphemy case of Christian mother Asia Bibi tears Pakistan apart.
Romana Bashir, a Christian rights activist in Islamabad, said in an interview with CNN that blasphemy laws have been used to target followers of Christ in the Muslim country for years, but the fallout of Bibi’s acquittal has been truly severe.
Hardliners have blocked the streets, burned cars, and rioted through cities, angry at what they perceive to be the Pakistan Supreme Court’s giving in to pressure by deciding to free the Christian mother, instead of confirming her 2010 death sentence.
Peter Jacob, the executive director for the Center for Social Justice in Lahore, said that there have been cases where rioters have asked people in cars to tell them their religion. If they were found to be Christian, “they were taken out of their cars and beaten up.”
He warned that “the mental and psychological scars” that the Christian community are suffering will endure in the “current climate of fear.”
Large-scale Islamic radical attacks in Pakistan have decreased in the past year, though some church-going believers, such as those at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Rawalpindi, have admitted that they are constantly having to be careful.
One gatekeeper at St Joseph, who didn’t wish to share his name, said that he is “grateful for the presence of the military close to the church,” but that the sense of fear has “begun to haunt him” since Bibi’s acquittal.
Christians face discrimination in Pakistan in a variety of different ways, such as being offered only low-skilled jobs and kept at the bottom of society.
The blasphemy laws, which, such as in Bibi’s case, can put believers on death row even if they claim to be innocent, create a whole new dimension of terror, Bashir explained. She said that one of the biggest problems is that when non-Muslims are accused of blasphemy, “the entire community is branded and labeled with the crime.”
“When you are accused you cannot live in the same place, your family is under threat, your entire locality is under threat, you must run, you must leave everything you love behind. The impact is very severe,” she explained.
Bashir, who in 2012 was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to serve as adviser for the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, said that progress in terms of trust between Muslim leaders and Christians is being broken apart due to the blasphemy controversy.
“People on both sides are now afraid to come forth, there is no middle ground for discussion, there is no air for reconciliation, it’s like the bridges of harmony have been burnt in the aftermath of acquittal,” she said.
Bibi’s fate meanwhile remains uncertain, with the Christian mother of five not yet allowed to leave Pakistan, due to the pressure hardliners are putting on the government.
UK ‘Won’t Offer Asylum To Asia Bibi Amid Security Concerns’
The British Pakistani Christian Association said UK government is concerned about “unrest among certain sections of the community.”
A Pakistani Christian woman’s appeal to Britain for asylum has been denied because her arrival in the country may stir civil unrest, HuffPost has been told.
Asia Bibi, a Christian farm labourer, was released from prison in Pakistan on Wednesday after being acquitted of blasphemy. She had spent eight years on death row after an argument with a group of Muslim women in June 2009.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan overturned Bibi’s 2010 conviction for “insulting the prophet Mohammed” last week, saying the case against her was based on flimsy evidence.
But her acquittal sparked violent protests led by Islamic religious hardliners, and the government has now agreed to try to stop her leaving the country.
On Saturday her lawyer, Saif Mulook, fled Pakistan, saying he feared for his life. Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, has also released a video message saying he too fears for his family’s safety.
“I am requesting the Prime Minister of the UK help us and as far as possible grant us freedom,” he said.
But campaigners working to secure Bibi’s move abroad said the UK government had not offered her asylum, citing security concerns.
Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said two countries had made firm offers of asylum, but Britain was not one of them.
“I’ve been lead to believe that the UK government had concerns that her moving to the UK would cause security concerns and unrest among certain sections of the community and would also be a security threat to British embassies abroad which might be targeted by Islamist terrorists.
“Asia and her family have now decided to take up one of the offers for asylum from a western country.”
The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases.
Chowdhry, who once lived just streets away from recently released hate preacher Anjem Choudary, pointed to a number of incidents of Pakistani Christians being violently assaulted.
Tajamal Amar, 46, fled to the UK from Pakistan 10 years ago after being targeted in a drive-by shooting by Islamists who wanted to convert him. He was working as a delivery driver in Derby in October 2017 when he was attacked by “young local Muslim men”.
Amar told HuffPost that it was the third time in 12 months he had been targeted in the UK because of his Christian faith.
He said: “I came to the UK to get away from being attacked and so I never expected that the same would happen to me here.
“This country is still better than Pakistan where anti-minority feeling is in the mainstream.”
No-one has been arrested for the attack on Amar, which left him in a coma and with lesions to his brain, but he believes he knows his attackers.
Chowdhry did say “the majority of the British Muslim population are fine with us”, and said it was a small extremist fringe who were against Pakistani Christians.
According to Home Office statistics there were 8,336 religious hate crimes in the last two years – a 40% rise from the preceding two years.
The statistics showed that there were 264 recorded hate crimes against Christians last year, making up 5% of religious hate crimes – compared to 52% of such crimes being against Muslims.
In Europe the Dutch government has designated Pakistani Christians as a “high risk group”, opening the door for them to receive special considerations as refugees in the country.
But Khalid Mahmood, a Muslim MP from Birmingham, said relations between Pakistani Christians and Muslims in Britain are generally good.
He said: “Yes there may be a tiny minority on the extremist fringes of Islam who might resort to violence against Pakistani Christians but they will attack anyone who isn’t Muslim.
“It would be wrong to suggest that the general Muslim population in the UK is prejudiced against or hates Pakistani Christians.”
He said despite tensions, many Pakistani people living in the UK have a “shared culture.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 8, 2018
Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan, was reportedly on her way to The Netherlands after her release from jail following a recent acquittal of blasphemy.
Bibi’s lawyer Saif-ul-Malook, who already fled to The Netherlands, confirmed reports about her release on Wednesday, November 8, through a Dutch-based foundation helping persecuted Christians.
Dutch officials declined to confirm or deny reports that she was on her way to the European nation. But witnesses in Islamabad earlier saw Pakistani army units near the prison where she was released and an airport in Multan.
Sources said an ambassador from The Netherlands came to accompany Bibi. Several reports said that she and her family are on a plane.
In the Netherlands, the Christian party ChristenUnie (ChristianUnion) welcomed her release. “The release of Asia Bibi is excellent news,” said ChristianUnion Parliamentarian Joël Voordewind in a statement.
PRAYING FOR BIBI
“In the last days, months, years we have been praying for her and today we can give thanks. Now the most important thing is that
Asia Bibi finds safety,” he added.
“Where the Netherlands can do something for her, we must do so. After that, it is important to boost the pressure on Pakistan further to abolish the life-threatening blasphemy laws for Christians.”
Bibi, a farm worker, was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 after she reportedly told Muslim colleagues that Jesus Christ is alive and attempted to drink from the same well as other workers.
Besides “insulting Prophet Muhammad” she was accused “of contaminating” the well by Muslims. It prompted her detention and death sentence, which was finally overturned by a court last week.
Voordewind said that Bibi’s difficulties underscore “the fragile position of Christians and other minorities in large parts of the world.”
Bibi’s expected arrival in The Netherlands came after her husband Ashiq Masih appealed for asylum as angry Muslim mobs demanded her execution.
‘EXTENDING ASYLUM CRUCIAL’
However, Wilson Chowdhry, who leads the British Pakistani Christian Association told BosNewsLife that asylum would have to extend to Bibi’s family and other supporters.
“We call on world leaders to take a stand for truth and justice and open their doors for asylum to Asia Bibi, her entire family, and also the family of Joseph Nadeem their longtime guardian,” he said.
“With the acquittal of blasphemy victim Asia Bibi, it may have been easy to forget that blasphemy laws continue to exist and be supported by the Pakistani government with the full weight of the death penalty.”
The advocacy official stressed that “Timely asylum is desperately needed not only for the family of Asia Bibi but many others who could still suffer extra-judicial killing or prosecution by the state for blasphemy allegations.”
It was unclear in what country Bibi’s family would eventually settle. Her husband had appealed for help from leaders of the United States, Britain, and Canada, countries which have large Pakistani communities.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on November 2, 2018
The family of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan Wednesday after nearly a decade on death row, is “living in straight terror” and seeking a Western country to grant expedited asylum in the face of violent protests calling for her death, the chairman of a charity aiding Christians in the country told Breitbart News on Thursday.
“Asia Bibi has suffered enough, she just needs a country willing to rub away any bureaucracy,” Wilson Chowdhry, the head of the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), explained, adding that Bibi herself is “totally terrified,” and her family – her husband, three adult children, and two dependent children – are currently beginning the asylum process.
Embassies take days and sometimes months to process asylum requests, however, and Chowdhry noted that, given the amount of animosity against Bibi, she may not have that much time before someone attempts to kill her.
To prevent a mob killing, Chowdhry told Breitbart News, the family is requesting that a Western country “remove protocol and just accept them for asylum in the next two days.” He notes that, given the thousands-strong protests demanding her death in Pakistan, her case is an exceptional one with little need to prove she is in danger because of her religion.
The BPCA has launched a petition demanding asylum for Bibi and her family.
The family wishes to go to the West, he added, because outside of the region, Christian persecution is sadly all too common, and her decade-long struggle for freedom is internationally known. Near Pakistan, nations like Afghanistan, India, China, and Iran have extensive histories of persecuting Christians.
Bibi, a Roman Catholic, was arrested in 2009 after a dispute with Muslim colleagues, who accused her of tainting a cup of water by drinking from it as a Christian. The prosecution against Bibi alleged that she responded to abuse from her colleagues by insulting Islam’s Muhammad, a crime carrying the death penalty in Pakistan. She was found guilty and sentenced to hanging in 2010 and remained on death row until Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court acquitted Bibi, asserting the witnesses who testified to her blasphemy had lied and, by using Islam to defame others, had committed their own crime of blasphemy. Chowdhry told Breitbart News that Bibi remains in prison while the bureaucratic process to formalize her release occurs.
In response to the ruling, thousands of Islamists, most of the radical Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan Party (TLP), took to the streets of Islamabad and other major cities demanding her death and the death of the three judges who freed her. Many schools across the country shut down amid roadblocks and violence in the streets:
Experts on religious persecution who spoke to Breitbart News agreed that, in this climate, Asia Bibi’s life remains in imminent danger.
“I definitely agree that Asia Bibi is not safe in Pakistan, nor her family … nor any of the Christians in Pakistan (or those brave Supreme Court Justices) at this point!” Faith McDonnell, international religious liberty director for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, told Breitbart News. “Yes, Asia, her husband, and their children should definitely leave the country, and the U.S. SHOULD offer asylum. This is the perfect example of who SHOULD get asylum! An extremely credible fear of persecution, since the Islamist jihadists have sworn to kill her.”
“Now that Asia is free, it’s up to other nations, especially in the West, to offer her and her family asylum. In this current environment, she wouldn’t last a week in Pakistan,” Most Rev. Joseph D’Souza, founder of Dignity Freedom Network, a group that advocates for marginalized groups in South Asia, told Breitbart News. “Her safety has now become an international humanitarian issue, and the world must respond to it.”
“In the greater scheme of things, Asia Bibi’s case is a reminder that the West must press for reciprocal religious tolerance in its foreign policy,” he continued. “How is it possible for Muslim sheiks from the Middle East and Asia to travel freely to the United States and practice and propagate their faith, yet Christians back in their home countries cannot even meet in public?”
The Associated Press reported that France and Spain have offered Bibi asylum, while some reports named Canada as a potential new home for her. Some human right advocates in India have begun pressuring their country to allow her in, as well. As of press time, reports have not yet mentioned the United States as a final destination at press time.
A MOTHER of two will have her final appeal against her death sentence for speaking to a Muslim heard tomorrow by Pakistan’s Supreme Court.
Asia Bibi, 50, has been on death row in Punjab since she was accused of blasphemy for getting into a disagreement with a Muslim woman seven years ago.
The two women were working in a field when the Muslim woman refused water from Mrs Bibi from the well on the grounds it was unclean because it had been handled by a Christian. But Mrs Bibi defended herself, saying Jesus would have had a different view on the situation.
Her lawyer, Khalil Tahir Sindhu, said: “She has not seen the sun or the moon this year.”
Mr Sindhu said despite the death sentence Ms Bibi has resisted multiple attempts to convert to Islam while she has been incarcerated.
She is likely to be hanged within 30 days of the verdict if her last appeal fails.
Mr Sindhu said: “She is very, very strong in her faith. There were so many attempts to convert her but she said ‘No – I will remain faithful to Jesus Christ’ and she has remained faithful.”
Mr Sindhu said: “Pray for her and pray for me because anything could happen to me. But I’m ready to pay the price and I’m carrying the cross.”
Mrs Bibi’s daughters Esham, 18, and Esha, 17, have travelled twice a month to visit their mother in Multan Jail ever since she was first imprisoned.
Esham said: “We talk to our mama about the things at home. I share my thoughts with her, like mother-daughter stuff.”
She added the visits begin joyfully but end each time with grief. She said: “She becomes sad… her daughters come to meet her from such a long distance and she cannot even hug them.”
Esha, who suffers from mental and physical disabilities, currently lives with their father Ashiq Masih along with her sister Esham. In the wake of the assassinations of the politicians who defended Mrs Bibi the family were forced to stay indoors, living in fear for their lives.
Esham said: “Papa used to tell me not to go out, the situation out there is very bad. We used to stay inside all the time. Someday someone will come and ask me, ‘Are you the daughter of Asia Bibi?'”
Mr Masih has said that even if his wife is released, there is a bounty on her head so their lives could never return to how they once were.
Pakistan is among the most dangerous countries in the world for Christians to live in. Mrs Bibi will become the first woman in Pakistan to be lawfully executed for blasphemy if the death penalty is carried out.
My Note: Wicked Pakistanis, go ahead with your fallible earthly Judgments and execute this wonderful lady. A million BIBIS will come back in SPIRIT to haunt you, to judge you, to punish you!
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