Asia Bibi in Pakistan - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Puffer Fish
#15132282
How many of you knew about the story involving Asia Bibi in Pakistan?



Excellent discussion about the situation
Nina Shea discussion with Raymond Arroyo

Her lawyer had to fled to the Netherlands, in fear of his life.

Something really notable in that video that I thought jumped out, the lawyer Saiful Mulook said:
"As for as myself is concerned, I being a muslim, it was really very very difficult to us to make the people understanding, that why I'm defending a Christian woman..."

The Pakistani muslims want her dead, and it really looked like she wasn't going to survive.


Just a few highlights from the transcript:

Arroyo: "Now, her lawyer is on the run. Can he really defend her from the Netherlands? When we should say, the Supreme Court has a petition to review the case before it, might the overturning of this case get overturned?"
Shea: "It's quite possible, anything could happen, because as you said, the justice is on the line now, his life is on the line, and there's an ever expanding circle of people: the jailer who lets her out, the driver who drives her to the airport, any of those people could be killed, they have been threatened, anybody who facilitates her escape... And this has happened, there have been acquitted defendants murdered on the steps of the Supreme Court in Pakistan, judges, lawyers killed; and human rights lawyers and journalists are also very much a targeted group over there."
Arroyo: "Give me you sense about these blasphemy laws, we have talked about these in the past... and in Pakistan, from 1986 just to give people some historical perspective, General Zia added a new clause, that mandated the death penalty for anyone who blasphemed the prophet. Now, between 1927 and 1986 there were seven cases. In 2015 alone, it reached 1300 cases, plus. What is happening, and what can we in the West do about it?"
Shea: "Well, these kinds of laws - and by the way, I feel the same way about the hate speech laws, and they are proxies in Europe now for Muslim blasphemy laws - "


Here's a quick review of the entire story:

Asia Bebi was working as a field hand. It was very hot. She was told to go draw some water from a well, and when she got to the well she found an old metal cup and was so thirsty she used the cup to take a drink of water from the bucket. Another of the female workers who saw this got angry and said she wasn't going to drink from the same cup a Christian woman had touched. An argument ensued. The two other women got angry and accused her of blasphemy. This is not an uncommon tactic when muslims get angry at non-muslims in that region, they will make up claims that the non-muslim person who offended them said something that offended Islam.

According to Asia Bebi, the two other women made derogatory statements about Christianity and demanded that she convert to Islam, to which she responded, "I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind? And why should it be me that converts instead of you?"
This enraged the other women all the more.

A mob came to her house, beating her and members of her family before she was taken away by the police.
After spending 16 months in prison, she was sentenced to death, and on top of that a fine that would have completely bankrupted her family.

The governor of Punjab tried to secure a Presidential pardon for her, in the event the High Court refused to overturn the death sentence, but the High Court not only upheld the verdict but also issued a stay order against Presidential pardon.
The governor of Punjab visited Asia Bebi in prison, but he would later be assassinated for his public support of her.
Asia Bebi was held in solitary confinement in an 8 by 10 foot cell without windows.
Knowing that her life was in danger in the prison, prison officials began giving her raw ingredients to cook her own food so she wouldn't be poisoned.
She was held in prison for about 9 years, and the appeals court kept delaying the hearing, hoping that the angry public sentiment would eventually blow over, and then she could be released. There were many people in the public demanding her death.

More than 9 years after she had been put in prison, the Supreme Court finally acquitted her of the blasphemy charges, saying that the two witnesses against her were lying, and made an order that she should be released. However, she was not immediately released.
The government also officially barred her from being able to leave the country (even though she had not been released from prison at the time).
She would have to wait in prison nearly 7 more months.

Eventually, she was finally released from prison in secret.

The UK had refused to grant her asylum because they were afraid it could offend the muslims, and possibly spark attacks in the UK.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...f ... t-attacks/

She fled to Canada, and was reunited with her family there. If they find out where she is, no matter the fact that she has fled to a country as far away as Canada, she will almost certainly be killed.
#15133647
The part impressing me most is the Prison Officials actively seeking the victim's preservation. Sounds like reading novels like Water Margin.
#15138185
Patrickov wrote:The part impressing me most is the Prison Officials actively seeking the victim's preservation. Sounds like reading novels like Water Margin.

I don't think the prison officials wanted to be blamed if one of their prisoners ended up dying from poison food they gave her.
The prison is responsible for providing the food, so if they weren't able to protect the food they served the prisoners from being intentionally contaminated, that is the type of thing that they could lose their jobs for.

Besides that they might have even been concerned that multiple prisoners could have ended up dead. So they wanted to segregate her meal preparation from all the other prisoners. For general security reasons, not just for her sake.

It was also a high-profile case. If they weren't able to keep her from being assassinated in prison, it would have attracted a lot of attention and scrutiny.
Remember, by this time the governor of Punjab and the country's Supreme Court were involved.
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