Canadian Officials Working To Offer Asylum To Pakistani Christian Tried For Blasphemy

Huffington Post ^ | 01/29/2019 | Amardeep Bassey

[daniel1212]

Pakistan’s top court rejected a challenge to the acquittal of the mother-of-five on blasphemy charges, after she was accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Days after her release, Bibi’s husband Ashiq Masih made an impassioned video plea to British Prime Minister Theresa May asking for asylum in the UK.

But her appeal for sanctuary was denied by the UK’s home office because of fears British embassies and diplomatic staff would be targeted by Islamic extremists.

Several countries have reportedly offered Bibi asylum, including Italy and Australia.

Canada’s Global Affairs department said that Bibi’s case is a “priority” for the Canadian government.

“Canada is prepared to do everything we can to ensure the safety of Asia Bibi,” Global Affairs Canada spokeswoman Brittany Fletcher said on Tuesday. “We urge the Government of Pakistan to take all necessary steps to keep her safe. Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right, and must be fully respected.”

Bibi spent years in solitary confinement after an argument in June 2009 with a group of Muslim women, who accused her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Last fall, Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned her conviction, saying the case against her was based on flimsy evidence.

[daniel1212]

The above are selected excerpts.

After Asia allegedly drank from a water cup reserved for Muslims, her co-workers scolded her and pressured her to convert to Islam — the religion of 95 percent of Pakistan’s population.

Asia was accused of telling her co-workers, in response, that while the Prophet Muhammad is dead, Jesus is still alive. Days later, police filed a First Information Report accusing Asia of blasphemy against Muhammad (no Islamic scholar denies that Muhammad did, in fact, die, and the mullah who reported the offense was not present when the alleged blasphemy occurred). Sections B (blaspheming the Quran) and C (blaspheming Muhammed) of Pakistan’s infamous blasphemy law (Law 295) allow police to make an arrest based on the complaint of just one person alleging blasphemy.

Asia was convicted of blasphemy against Muhammed in 2010 and sentenced to death by hanging. A local mullah told media members he shed “tears of joy” when he heard Asia would be executed...

More than nine years have passed since Asia cooked dinner for her family or hugged her girls as she sent them off to school. NINE YEARS.

There have been too many cases where the courts overturned a 295 verdict, only to have the accused killed outside the courthouse or soon after their release. - https://www.christianpost.com/voice/3-reasons-to-rejoice-at-the-release-of-pakistani-christian-asia-bibi-3-reasons-to-weep.html

Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Christian woman who spent nearly 10 years under a death sentence for alleged “blasphemy” following a dispute with Muslim coworkers, before the Pakistan Supreme Court reversed her conviction (a reversal which was based on a lack of evidence, not a repudiation of the country’s blasphemy laws).

Though some Muslim leaders support Bibi, the opposition and violent voices are the loudest. Islamists proceeded to try to locate and hunt down her family members after the decision was announced.

Throughout the course of the case, multiple high-level leaders who came to her defense were assassinated, including Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the cabinet’s only Christian, and Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who was killed by his own bodyguard. After the reversal of her conviction, hard-line Islamic groups paralyzed the country with protests and forced the government to hold her in the country while the decision is reviewed yet again, while engaging in antics such as calling for the “murder of the three judges on the bench that acquitted Asia Bibi,” urging “Muslim generals to rebel,” and exhorting followers to “oust the ‘Jew’ Imran Khan” (the current prime minister).

While some British Muslim leaders called for asylum to be granted, the country eventually declined due to fears for the safety of its diplomats in Pakistan and that its Muslim community may not take kindly to the decision. This craven capitulation has understandably “led to accusations that Britain’s asylum policy is effectively being directed by mobs in Pakistan, a charge that the government unconvincingly tried to refute.” - https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/on-religious-freedom-day-consider-life-in-countries-without-it

[daniel1212]

Within hours, outraged by the landmark ruling, demonstrators took to the streets demanding one thing - that Asia Bibi be put to death.

For three consecutive days protesters attempted to force their nation and government into submission.

Main roads were blocked, cars and buses were set alight, toll booths ransacked and police officers attacked. Particularly in the eastern province of Punjab, many offices, businesses, and even schools were forced to close as commuting became impossible.

The country watched in horror while their government seemed barely visible.

Immediately after Asia’s release, Khadim Hussain Rizvi and his religious political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) had taken to social media advocating civil disorder and violence.

Salman Taseer....was one of two prominent politicians who were murdered for openly sympathising with Asia and publicly advocating the blasphemy laws be revised.

They called for the judges who acquitted Asia to be killed, and encouraged mutiny within the army, declaring that the chief of the army was an apostate - that he had renounced Islam.

Only a few weeks later, on a cold January day, Taseer was assassinated in broad daylight by his own security guard. In the middle of Islamabad’s busy Kohsaar market, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, a young police commando, shot the governor 27 times at point-blank range.

Overnight Qadri became a hero to millions. Handing himself over to the authorities, Qadri told the police he didn’t have any regrets over killing Taseer - it was his religious duty. -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Asia_Bibi

[Gay State Conservative]

I have no problem with that.It's hard to imagine a worse fate than to be a Christian living in a moslem cesspool country.

[posterchild]

But her appeal for sanctuary was denied by the UK’s home office because of fears British embassies and diplomatic staff would be targeted by Islamic extremists.

Where did the stiff upper lip go?

[Kriggerel]

Turd-Owe Jr. doing something right for a change?

Who woulda thunk it? :P

/But hey, just like those clichés about blind squirrels and broken clocks...

[DesertRhino]

Camel jockeys can stream in at will buy the hundreds of thousands.... but they have to have officials really roll up their sleeves and work long and hard to get ONE Christian facing imminent death in.

[Brilliant]

This is a good case for political asylum. The fact that you’re poor is not.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

We in the US allow Muslims to rush in, flooding Michigan and Minnesota - the result is Muslim members of Congress who are openly anti-Semitic, which makes them natural fits for today’s Democratic Party. Why can’t we offer asylum to this one Christian woman?

[butlerweave]

Didn’t Trudeau bring in over 25,000 Muslims ,so she’s not safe in Canada either

[daniel1212]

Report: UK's Theresa May Personally Blocked Asia Bibi's Asylum ...

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

If it is true that my gubmint is trying to get her released to Canada, then that is really a ‘first’ for this Trudeau cabinet. Unfortunately, I suspect it to be merely more virtue signaling by the gubmint of the 47 year old teenage Prime Minister.

My prayers are with Ms. Bibi.

[daniel1212]

Its a women, and a poor one, thus the interest of women’s rights and immigration is what justifies the attention by HuffPO and Trudeau, not because of concern for persecution of Christians, which they both engage in.

[himno hero]

So true.

With Canada signing onto the UN’s Global Compact, the UN will want to shame Canada for this “islamaphobic” and racist gesture.

The UN has yet to include Christians in their program, but then again, they want to be sharia compliant and repopulate the west.

[morphing libertarian]

Bkmrk

[himno hero]

She has officially removed the Great from Britain, insuring that Londonstan overtakes the British peoples and erases them from history.

yep, erasure of British culture, society and history. That is the islamic way.

[daniel1212]

Didn’t Trudeau bring in over 25,000 Muslims ,so she’s not safe in Canada either

Support for unrestricted immigration and women's rights are the only reason I see for both HuffPo and Trudeau to be particularly concerned over a Pakistani Christian being persecuted by Muslims, but at least Canada actually is offering asylum, versus being effectively ruled by fundamental Islam.

EXCLUSIVE: Did we just kowtow to terror ?

Asia Bibi and the case that makes a mockery of Britain's asylum laws ..

Meanwhile, being acquitted does not mean freedom:

Asia Bibi, in hiding after blasphemy acquittal, is banned from leaving .

[daniel1212]

We in the US allow Muslims to rush in, flooding Michigan and Minnesota - the result is Muslim members of Congress who are openly anti-Semitic, which makes them natural fits for today’s Democratic Party. Why can’t we offer asylum to this one Christian woman?

December 05, 2018: Evangelical groups have urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to offer asylum to her and her family, so far to no avail.- https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/12/05/who-will-give-asia-bibi-asylum-blasphemy-case-pakistan-puts-britain

11/30/2018: “Sadly, while a number of European countries have offered asylum to Mrs. Bibi, the United States has not,” Tim Wildmon, president of AFA, said. “It’s long past time for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to offer asylum to Asia so she can have a place of refuge to live with her family.”

Earlier this month, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also called on President Donald Trump to offer Bibi asylum in the United States. - https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/30/asia-bibi-christian-asylum-1035292

[daniel1212]

February 2, 2019:US Congress introduces resolution to grant asylum to Aasia Bibi

February 2, 2019 A US lawmaker has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to grant asylum to Pakistani woman Aasia Bibi, claiming she was “persecuted” in that country for being a Christian. “Aasia Bibi has been persecuted, jailed and threatened for doing nothing more than being a Christian in Pakistan,” Congressman Ken Calvert said

Meanwhile,

An American has hunted Pakistan’s national animal and rare wildlife species markhor after paying a record USD 1,10,000 permit fee during a trophy hunting season in the country’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.

Which is much more expensive than Islam's permit to hunt and kill Christians.

[Elsie]

... only to have the accused killed outside the courthouse or soon after their release.

Never fear; as there are probably some in CANADA who would be GLAD to do this task when she arrives.

[Elsie]

Are there any out-of-work Allah Akkbar shouters in Canada?