On her way out
Asia Bibi is free to leave, at last.
Asia Bibi, the Christian farm labourer who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy, is expected to leave the country after the supreme court upheld her acquittal.
The court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to October’s ruling brought by an extreme Islamist party, which led violent protests across the country in the autumn and called for Bibi to be killed.
Bibi, who has been held at a secret location since her death sentence was overturned, could be flown out of the country within hours. Two of her children are reportedly already in Canada, which has offered Bibi asylum.
Her lawyer told reporters she will probably leave today. (That seems risky and provocative at first glance, but maybe the idea is to say don’t even bother to riot because you’ll be too late.)
Hafiz Ehtisham Ahmed, an Islamist activist linked to the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad, said Bibi may not be safe wherever she goes. “She deserves to be murdered according to sharia. If she goes abroad, don’t Muslims live there? If she goes out of Pakistan … anybody can kill her there,” she told AFP.
The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, which was formed to defend Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and which led violent protests demanding Bibi’s execution after her acquittal, called on Tuesday for its members to be ready for action.
Murder people for the glory of god – one of the most enduring bad ideas humans have come up with.
Maybe when all the Arab women end up in Canada, the Arab men will get the message? We can hope, right?
Asia Bibi is not an Arab, and neither are her persecutors. The vast majority of Muslims are not Arabs, and do not speak, read, or write Arabic.
That Islam is persistently infected with Arab racism and Arab imperialism is one of its worst aspects.
JtD – point well taken. I really did mean Muslim, but did not express myself correctly. The post was already up and in place before I realized what I had done. (I know, I could have said something and Ophelia would have corrected it – she’s wonderful at saving us from our own failure to write clearly, and from the failures of our equipment to write what we say).
Sometimes I even correct things before being asked, when it’s obvious enough what was meant.
I was going to ask about this one but didn’t get to it.
Mind you, Saudi Arabia is quite happy to see people conflate the two.