«Breaking News» Christian mother sentenced to death in Pakistan wins appeal and can join daughters in Canada

Christian mother Asia Bibi spent eight years on death row after being accused of blasphemy

A Christian mother who spent eight years on death row for blasphemy has been acquitted after winning her final appeal and can now begin a new life in Canada with her daughters.

Pakistan's Supreme Court rejected challenges against its decision to acquit Asia Bibi after she was cleared last October.

Ms Bibi, who spent eight years on death row and who has been under guard at a secret place since her acquittal last October, was overjoyed at the news.

'I am really gratefully to everybody, now after nine years it is confirmed that I am free and I will be going to hug my daughters,' a friend quoted Mrs Bibi as saying.

She will be reunited with her three daughters who earlier fled to Canada where they were granted asylum.

Islamist protesters (pictured protesting her in November 2018) have called for the 53-year-old to be lynched. One said today: 'She deserves to be murdered, according to Shariah'

The daughters of Mrs Bibi pose with an image of their mother while standing outside their home in Pakistan in 2010

But the ruling has infuriated Islamist protesters who say the 53-year-old 'should be murdered' for her crimes.

They have warned the mother she won't be able to escape, as there are 'Muslims everywhere who want to kill her'.

Her lawyer, Saiful Malook, said: 'I think at this time she is here (in Pakistan) - but by tonight, I don't know.'

He told reporters outside the court that he thought she should flee in the face of danger from the extremists.

'She deserves to be murdered according to Shariah,' Hafiz Ehtisham Ahmed, an Islamist activist linked to the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad.  

Protesters call for Mrs Bibi to be hung during protests in October last year. Today's decision likely means she will be able to seek asylum in Europe or North America

'If she goes abroad, don't Muslims live there? If she goes out of Pakistan... anybody can kill her there.' 

Mrs Bibi's lawyer, who returned to Islamabad after fleeing the country amid death threats, called the decision a victory for Pakistan's constitution and rule of law.

The three-judge Supreme Court panel had 'insisted on very strict proofs of blasphemy' and found none, Mr Malook said.

Pakistan's Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa who led the panel of judges dismissed the petition filed by radical religious leaders.

The extremists had petitioned the court to overturn its acquittal and send her back to prison for execution.

He said in court that Ms Bibi's accusers were guilty of perjury and if the case had not been so sensitive, they should have been jailed for life.

'The image of Islam we are showing to the world gives me much grief and sorrow,' Mr Khosa said.

A supporter of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a hardline religious party, stands over an image of Mrs Bibi as they protest her acquittal last November

The Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party, which led violent protests demanding Bibi's execution after her acquittal, called for its members to be ready today for action in a message sent to journalists.

But most of its leaders remain in detention after a government crackdown, and few protesters could be seen at the court in Islamabad, where security appeared as normal.

That did not prevent those who did show up for the hearing from calling for violence against mother-of-five Bibi, however.   

'It's neither in accordance with Supreme Court's former verdicts nor in accordance with law, it will be dismissed Allah willing,' Mulook said.

Bibi, a Roman Catholic from Punjab province, was sentenced to death in 2010 in what swiftly became Pakistan's most infamous blasphemy case. 

Mrs Bibi was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed when she rejected calls from Muslim women to convert to Islam

Blasphemy remains a massively inflammatory issue in Pakistan, where even unproven accusations of insulting Islam can spark lynchings.

Many cases see Muslims accusing Muslims, and rights activists say blasphemy charges are frequently used to settle personal scores.

Minorities - particularly Christians - are often caught in the crossfire.

The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim women accused her of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under Pakistan law.   

The mother of five was harvesting fruit with a group of Muslim women when a row broke out over a bucket of water. 

The mother of five (pictured) was harvesting fruit with a group of Muslim women when a row broke out over a bucket of water. The women said that because she had used a cup they could no longer touch it, because her faith had made it unclean and a row over religion ensued

The women said that because she had used a cup they could no longer touch it, because her faith had made it unclean.

Prosecutors alleged that in the ensuing row the women said Mrs Bibi should convert to Islam.

It was claimed she made offensive comments about the Prophet in response.

At her home she was given a beating, during which her accusers say she confessed to blasphemy. Police arrested her and she was sentenced to death.

Bibi has denied the charges, and her prosecution rallied international rights groups, politicians and religious figures.

Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor Pope Francis.

Unconfirmed Pakistani media reports claim Bibi's two daughters have already gone to Canada. 

In God's name: How extremists hijacked Pakistan's blasphemy laws 

Politicians have been assassinated, European countries threatened with nuclear annihilation and students lynched, all in the name of combating blasphemy in Pakistan, where the legal punishment for insulting the Prophet Mohammed is death.

Few issues are as inflammatory in the conservative Islamic republic as blasphemy. Here's a brief history of where the law came from and how it has changed the country over the years.

Who made the law? The country's first blasphemy law was originally passed down from Pakistan's former colonial masters and was largely aimed at keeping the peace between different religious communities on the subcontinent.

The framework was later given a boost during the rule of former hardline Islamist dictator Zia-ul-Haq in the mid-80s.

His military government passed a series of new statutes that included a provision for capital punishment in cases where the Prophet Mohammed was insulted.

However, to date no one has actually been executed for blasphemy, with most punishments commuted to life sentences. But mere accusations of insulting Islam have sparked mob lynchings and murders.

What have been the consequences? International rights groups have long criticised the legislation as a tool of oppression and abuse, particularly against minorities.

In recent years, it has also been used to smear dissenters and even politicians.

The topic is so inflammatory that even calls to reform the law have provoked violence, most notably the assassination of Salmaan Taseer - the governor of Pakistan's most populous province - by his own bodyguard in 2011.

His murder was followed the same year by the killing of minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, who had also vowed to maintain his opposition to the laws in defiance of death threats.

The blasphemy issue has also created a new religious extremist movement that has dictated terms to successive governments and paralysed the country at will with violent protests.

In less than two years the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party (TLP) - or the Movement at the Service of the Prophet - has become one of the most powerful groups in Pakistan.

Led by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the far-right religious party has weaponised the ultra-sensitive blasphemy issue in the Muslim-majority nation.

This has sparked fears the TLP is radicalising the country's heartland and opening a dangerous new chapter in Pakistan's brutal confrontation with extremism.

Its leaders have gone on to threaten to "wipe Holland off the face of the earth" with nuclear weapons, call for the assassination of Pakistan's top judges and mutiny in the military ranks.

What's next? Activists have long demanded reform, saying the legislation is too often abused to settle personal scores and target religious minorities.

The law is so vaguely written that defining blasphemy can be difficult if not impossible and criticism of the law could be perceived as blasphemy itself.

Following the murders of Taseer and Bhatti, mainstream politicians have steered clear of renewing calls for reform of the blasphemy law, fearing violent reprisals.

The recent uptick in violence, along with prosecutions of alleged offenders, comes as Washington added Pakistan this month to a blacklist of countries it says wantonly violate religious freedom.

Islamabad later dismissed the US move as politically motivated.

 by AFP

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Christian mother Asia Bibi spent eight years on death row after being accused of blasphemy

A Christian mother who spent eight years on death row for blasphemy has been acquitted after winning her final appeal and can now begin a new life in Canada with her daughters.
Pakistan‘s...

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