A Free Woman Threatened With Death

"She is a free woman now. Her writ is being heard. When a decision is made, she will go wherever she wants to go. It is a free country; she is a free national."
"She can go wherever she wants to go. No one can object to that. If a free national of Pakistan wants to go somewhere, he/she has to get a visa and go."
"Nothing odd about that."
Mohammad Faisal, Pakistan Foreign Office

A Pakistani supporter of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a hardline religious party, holds an image of Asia Bibi during a protest following her acquittal over blasphemy Credit: AAMIR QURESHI/AFP

"The lives of Asia Bibi and her family are in danger as long as she remains in Pakistan, as the protests following the verdict have shown."

"We ask that Mrs May takes swift action to help secure the safe exit of Asia Bibi and her family from Pakistan, as the situation is becoming increasingly perilous."
Nasir Saeed, director, CLAAS UK - a charity supporting persecuted Christians in Pakistan

Ashiq Masih and Eisham Ashiq, husband and daughter of Asia Bibi. Bibi, Credit: Teri Pengilley

The arrest on charges of blasphemy against The Prophet that Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman was convicted of which led to eight years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, led to other victims in that fundamentalist Islamist society. Influential people in the governmental hierarchy came to her defense, one the Muslim governor of Punjab who petitioned for a pardon and campaigned for the blasphemy law to be discarded and for his efforts he was assassinated by his own bodyguard who riddled his body with 27 bullets from his assault rifle, in 2011.

Asia Bibi committed a dire offence against The Prophet which under Pakistani law merits the death penalty or life imprisonment. Her offence was to offer to her farm co-workers gathering berries on a hot summer day, water from a container she had slaked her thirst with, and which she had herself brought along on orders from their overseer. It is seen as an offence in Islam for non-Muslims to drink from a communal bowl meant for the use of Muslims. When her co-workers refused her offer, she lashed back at the insult, impugning the name of The Prophet.

A crowd was prepared to lynch her but police intervened and took her to prison where she was charged with blasphemy. The Pakistani Minister for Minority Affairs of the Pakistan national government, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, also came to her defence and he too was murdered by Islamist extremists. Although Salmaan Taseer, the Muslim governor of Punjab's assassin was brought to justice, not so with the murderers of Shahbaz Bhatti; he was a Christian, after all.

Asia Bibi's husband has pleaded for asylum from the West, for his wife and their family. He spoke directly of haven, mentioning Canada, the United States and Great Britain, imploring them to help move his wife out of Pakistan and to safety: "I am requesting the Prime Minister of the UK help us and as far as possible grant us freedom." Britain has a huge expatriate Pakistani population, but there is also a smaller Pakistani Christian demographic in Britain.

It doesn't appear likely at this point that Britain will respond affirmatively, obviously not wishing to roil the passions of its own Pakistani population to express their disfavour by riots similar to those that have broken out in Pakistan. Ashiq Masih then turned to the Netherlands, hoping for a visa and safety there, but the response was that Dutch law requires one to be present in the country to request a visa. The U.S. under President Trump is unlikely, given his [fairly accurate] resistance against the entrance to the U.S. of people from "shit countries", to offer haven.

Which leaves the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which has unlimited patience for the unauthorized, illegal entry of economic migrants posing as refugees, from Africa, Haiti and the Middle East streaming across the border from the U.S. into Canada at illegal entry points, clearly posted as such. Asia Bibi has some strikes against her that would be attractive to the 'progressive' in Trudeau; she is a woman and a woman of colour, and she is persecuted. If only she was a member of the LGBTQ2 community he might be inspired to offer Canada's protection.

Pakistan has a population of 202-million, the vast majority of which are Muslim. A recent national poll revealed the presence of ten million Pakistanis willing to themselves kill Asia Bibi as a sacred Islamic duty in punishment for "blasphemy", or to do so because they are attracted to the reward that is offered. A large cash reward has been offered by one Pakistani mullah for anyone who kills the woman, whether while in detention or on the street.

On the street is sufficiently problematical for the government which winces at the reputation it has earned on the international stage for violent intolerance and national laws that victimize non-Muslims that she cannot be released, though freed by order of the Pakistani supreme court which acquitted her of the absurd charges. So there is no longer any fear the state will proceed with her execution, and no guarantees that vigilante mob action won't proceed to mete out their own version of justice to a blasphemer. It's the Pakistani way.

Bibi's lawyer, a man of exceptional courage, saw the expedience of making himself scarce. Saiful Malook fled the country in the wake of the acquittal of his client, because death threats were extended to him and to his family for his part in support of his client and subsequent outrage at the outcome of the supreme court's ruling, dismissing her previous conviction as "nothing short of concoction incarnate".

The streets of the capital and other cities have been rife with protests, screeching accusations against the supreme court, and insistent demands that Asia Bibi be executed. She must be allowed to leave the country and to live elsewhere, in peace and security. What better place than Canada? In 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti visited Canada and met with then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who offered him refuge in Canada, aware his life was in danger. The Pakistani Minister for Minority Affairs thanked the prime minister, but returned to Pakistan where several weeks later he was murdered.

A Christian woman in Pakistan is persecuted and threatened with death as punishment for uttering unguarded sentiments born of a lifetime of persecution. A Pakistani woman living in Canada insists she must insult Canadian mores and values by taking her oath of citizenship while wearing a niqab so no one officiating nor anyone else becoming a citizen of Canada is able to see her face; a clear rejection of the Canadian social contract and an expression of contempt for fellow Canadians. She is given legal clearance to do just that.