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PAKISTAN-RELIGION-BLASPHEMY
Pakistan blasphemy Christian still in jail one week on
ISLAMABAD, Nov 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – One week after the country’s highest
court ordered her release, a Pakistani Christian who has spent eight years on
death row for blasphemy was still in prison Wednesday, with no immediate
prospect of freedom.
Thousands of Islamists poured onto the streets in protest after Supreme
Court judges overturned Asia Bibi’s conviction, in a case that has laid bare
the divisions between traditionalists and modernisers in the devoutly Muslim
nation.
Ultra-conservative Islamists blockaded major cities to demand her immediate
execution, in a three-day stand-off that ended when Prime Minister Imran
Khan’s administration agreed to allow a review of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Critics blasted the climbdown — which came just days after Khan vowed to
confront the protesters — as another capitulation to religious
conservatives.
The deal has left Bibi in legal limbo — and languishing in jail for a
crime of which she has been acquitted.
“Asia Bibi is in Multan jail and has not been released yet. We have not
received orders to release her so far,” Zawar Hussain Warraich, minister for
prisons in Punjab province, told AFP.
“Normally we receive orders in two days after court judgement and if
relatives and lawyers of a prisoner are very active, they can bring it even
within a day, but as far as Asia Bibi is concerned, it has not happened yet,”
Warraich added.
“Supreme Court should issue a directive to send us her release orders. We
will release her as soon as we get it.”
He denied reports that extra security had been laid on for Bibi, saying
“she is already well protected by the jail staff”.
An appeal has been filed with the court against Bibi’s release and the
party that headed the protests demanding her execution, Tehreek-e-Labaik
Pakistan, has warned its hardliners were prepared to take to the streets
again.
Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even
unsubstantiated allegations of insulting Islam can result in death at the
hands of mobs.
The case stems from an incident in 2009 when Bibi was asked to fetch water
while out working in the fields. Muslim women labourers objected, saying that
as a non-Muslim, she should not touch the water bowl, and reportedly a fight
erupted.
A local imam then claimed Bibi insulted the Prophet Mohammed — a charge
she has consistently denied.
Bibi’s husband Ashiq Masih has appealed for Britain or the United States to
grant the family asylum, while her lawyer has fled to the Netherlands.
Masih said the delay in releasing his wife, a mother of five, was adding to
the family’s agony.
“The daughters are weeping. They still haven’t seen their mother. The
family is totally shattered,” he said.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1637 hrs