That Human Rights Dilemma : Pakistan's Blasphemy Law

A protester holds an image of Asia Bibi in Islamabad. Her husband and children are living at a secret address in fear of their lives. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images

"Britain was concerned about potential unrest in the country, attacks on embassies and civilians."
"They have not offered automatic asylum, whereas several countries have now come forward. The family [of Asia Bibi, Christian Pakistani released from a death warrant] will definitely not be coming to Britain."
"[While Britain was] being helpful [it was] an enduring shame that a country with such a lauded history of helping refugees and asylum seekers, that when the Asia Bibi case has come before them, they haven't been as generous as they have for many victims in the past."
"It does seem to me that Britain is now a country that is unsafe for those who may be tarred with an allegation of blasphemy."
"We are very aware that there are extremist elements in this country. Britain would have been one of their first choices. America, Britain and Canada, these would have been their first choices [for haven]."
Wilson Chowdhry, British Pakistani Christian Association

"The extremists are more emboldened today than at any other time since 9/11. They refuse to accept the possibility that someone can be acquitted after being charged with blasphemy, and feel executing Asia Bibi is the only option."
"Either this or someone kills her extrajudicially like the sixty other Pakistanis accused of blasphemy and murdered before trial in recent years. At the heart of this debate is paranoia among Pakistani extremists that Islam is under threat and the misperception that foreign pressure protects those who commit blasphemy."
"Interestingly, most Pakistanis and more than a billion Muslims worldwide don't share this paranoid extremist outlook. Pakistani extremists see the Bibi case as one of the grand decisive intellectual battles for Islam. However the truth is that it was a brawl between a group of low-educated house cleaners that morphed into a blasphemy case, likely because Bibi is Christian."
Ahmed Quraishi, Daily Pakistan

Asia Bibi at a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, Pakistan. Photograph: AP

Mr. Quraishi, while deploring the frenzied mob demands of Pakistan's vicious religious bigots is unwilling evidently to admit to himself along with his readership that there is rather more than the handful of extremists howling for blood among Muslims than he attributes. The plight of Christians in Muslim majority countries such as Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories among others, is such that their ancient Christian populations have steadily diminished in fear for their lives, seeking haven elsewhere than the geography where Christianity emerged.

The religious fervour and medieval passions that Pakistanis convinced that non-Muslims have nothing better to do than disparage the Prophet Mohammad drives them to demand the death penalty for all those suspected of impugning the honour of the historical figure. Making mention of parts of his autobiography to point out the unsavoury aspects of both his character and his pronouncements held in such esteem by his followers, is enough to ensure that some Muslim crazies will plan murder. And it is not the handful that Mr. Quraishi implies.

A national poll has revealed that at least ten million Pakistanis would be willing to take personal action to kill this woman whose death penalty for ostensibly disparaging the Prophet that the Pakistan Supreme Court had the decency to dismiss on appeal. They too have been threatened with death, as was the lawyer representing this Catholic woman desperate to leave her country of birth, leading him to flee the country for safe haven elsewhere. More influential people than he, coming to the support of this unfortunate woman paid for their courage with their lives.

Supporters of the Pakistani religious Islamist group Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) gather during a protest rally against the release of Asia Bib in early November.  CNN

Asia Bibi, a 54-year-old farm worker, has been on death row for nine long years. In 2009 she mortally offended fellow farm workers when she offered them water --  on a hot day picking berries -- from a communal bowl she had slaked her own thirst from. Two women refused her offer, considering the bowl to have been contaminated by a non-Muslim. They later denounced her to police claiming she had insulted Muhammad, leading her to be charged with blasphemy, a capital offence in Pakistan.

The verdict that freed her from death row convinced violent mobs to threaten her life as they embarked on a public, destructive rage, laying siege to major cities, blocking motorways, torching cars, buses and buildings, threatening the lives of the prime minister, the chief justice and the army chief. No mass arrests from the government. Instead Prime Minister Imran Khan appeared on national television to state that "This is not a service being done for Islam. This is enmity taking place against the country". However, he all too soon backed down.

The fanatic Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik political party agreed it would call off protests as long as the government received their petition to the supreme court protesting the acquittal. At the same time they will not relent in calling for Asia Bibi's death, that the death penalty imposed upon her in 2010 be restored and her life forfeit. To this the craven Imran Khan agreed, so that though Asia Bibi was 'freed' by the Supreme Court, she is not 'free' to leave the country until the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the extremists.

Islamists burn a poster of Asia Bibi in protest at her acquittal for blasphemy. AP