Christian Mom Jailed for ‘Blaspheming’ Mohammed Heading to Canada After Court Upholds Acquittal

"I am really grateful to everybody. Now after nine years it is confirmed that I am free and I will be going to hug my daughters." Asia Bibi

By Calvin Freiburger
Life Site News

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has rejected a challenge to its acquittal of Asia Bibi on blasphemy charges, ensuring the Christian mother can finally join her daughters in Canada.

In 2009, the farm worker and mother of five from the small town of Itan Wali was arrested for blasphemy over an argument with some Muslim co-workers who allegedly claimed they couldn’t drink from a cup she had touched, as her Christian faith contaminated it. She was accused of making offensive comments about the Prophet Muhammad in the ensuing argument, in response to claims she should convert to Islam.

Bibi was subsequently beaten and allegedly raped at her home, during which her attackers coerced a blasphemy confession out of her. She was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death by hanging. The case quickly garnered international attention, with groups such as the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) fighting on her behalf.

In October, the Supreme Court of Pakistan overturned Bibi’s conviction and authorized her immediate release. “Blasphemy is a serious offence but the insult of the appellant’s religion and religious sensibilities by the complainant party and then mixing truth with falsehood in the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was also not short of being blasphemous,” Judge Asif Saeed Khan Khosa wrote.

The ruling sparked violent protests, and while Bibi was technically free she remained in grave danger, and she and her family had to spend this past Christmas in protective custody in an undisclosed location.

The Supreme Court upheld its October ruling on Tuesday, dismissing a challenge of it for lack of merit, the Catholic Herald reports.

“I feel huge admiration for the Supreme Court justices who, by taking this decision, have been willing to put the rule of law above every other consideration,” Liverpool human rights campaigner Lord Alton said. “We cannot forget that Asia Bibi’s case is one of many, and that, by some estimates, more than 70 people are currently on death-row for alleged blasphemy crimes.”

Bibi was elated by the news that she’ll soon be able to go to Canada to finally be with her daughters, according to a friend speaking anonymously to the Associated Press. She reportedly speaks with them daily, and has been worried for her 19-year-old who struggles with unspecified learning challenges.

"I am really grateful to everybody. Now after nine years it is confirmed that I am free and I will be going to hug my daughters," Bibi said, according to the friend.

Website:Life Site News

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Two Christian Brothers Sentenced to Death for Blasphemy in Pakistan, Charity Warns

A Pakistani soldier keeps guard at the Friendship Gate, crossing point at the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan, March 7, 2017
. | Reuters/Saeed Ali Achakzai/Files

By Samuel Smith

Christian Post

Two Christian brothers have reportedly been sentenced to death in Pakistan after one of them was accused of posting content deemed disrespectful of Islam on their website. The United Kingdom-based charity Centre for Legal, Aid, Assistance & Settlement has raised alarm about the sentencing of Qaisar and Amoon Ayub.

The group explained that the death sentences were handed down last Thursday by Judge Javed Iqbal Bosal after a hearing in a Jhelum jail in the Punjab province.

The brothers, who are from the city of Lahore, were arrested in 2014 after the reopening of a police case stemming from a 2011 allegation. Qaisar had previously explained that he closed down the webpage in question in 2009. However, he claims one of his Muslim friends restored the webpage.

The accusation of blasphemy was made after Qaisar got into an argument with his friends at work. Qaisar then began receiving death threats and went into hiding. Both Qaisar and Amon eventually fled to Singapore before returning after one month, according to Asia News.

Although they would return, they would soon flee again to Thailand because the situation was still not safe for them. As the brothers spent years on the run, they were told that police were looking for him. In Pakistan, blasphemy is a crime that is punishable with the death penalty or life in prison.

Qaisar is married with three kids, while Amoon is married to a teacher.

CLAAS plans to appeal Qaiser's death sentence to the Lahore High Court Bench at Rawalpindi, while the American Center for Law & Justice's Pakistan office is handling the appeal for Amoon. CLAAS asserts that in many blasphemy cases, judges are “under threat from religious fanatics” to “convict those accused of blasphemy.”

“This is a very unfortunate situation as because of threats from hardliners lower courts pass their responsibility to the higher court and then it takes years to prove the accused innocent,” CLAAS Director Nasir Saeed said in a statement.

“We have seen this in the recent case of Asia Bibi, who was similarly convicted by the lower court and it took her years to reach to the Supreme Court to get justice. I am afraid now Qasir and Amoon will have to wait years to get justice.”

After spending over eight years on death row, Bibi, a Christian mother of five, was acquited by a three-judge panel of the Pakistan Supreme Court in October. Because of that decision, thousands of radical Muslims protested in cities across the country calling for the death of Bibi and the death of the justices who acquitted her. A deal was eventually struck with a hardline Muslim organization for the Supreme Court to review Bibi’s acquittal before allowing her to flee the country.

International human rights activists have long called on Pakistan to reform its blasphemy laws, which are regularly abused by Muslims to settle personal scores with religious minorities. The Pakistani government is facing continued pressure.

Last week, the U.S. State Department designated Pakistan a “country of particular concern” for religious liberty. The CPC designation applies to countries where the government “has engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.”

The CPC designation gives the U.S. government the potential to enact sanctions or diplomatic measures to pressure change in Pakistan and the nine other countries on the list.

Over the summer, the U.S. and 14 other nations signed onto a “statement of concern” that condemned blasphemy and apostasy laws throughout the world as often being used “as a pretext to justify vigilantism or mob violence in the name of religion, or as a false pretense to settle personal grievances.”

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