Aasia Bibi: A life hanging in the balance
by Shahid Khan
Imagine a life in a solitary confinement, spending years in a dark dungeon, living with ceaseless agony, torture, uncertainty.
You are isolated from your family and friends. You receive threats not only from the outside world but also from those who are supposed to safeguard you. In Pakistan, for a blasphemy accused, fears are countless and the ones who police you can also be a threat to your life.
These are the traumas for Aasia Bibi, 45, an impoverished mother of five, who never knew what life was going to throw at her after having a heated argument in June 2009, which culminated in a death sentence due to Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws.
Last month the Pakistan courts announced another appeal date for 27 May 2014, after four previous appeal hearings were adjourned due to the mounting pressure from extremist and fundamentalist groups.
The efficiency of any democratic state rests in the institutions that exist to provide unbiased and impartial services to its citizens regardless of their background. Ironically, Pakistan courts succumb to the pressure to provide justice to those accused of blasphemy. Most blasphemy accused continue to battle for their lives, waiting for appeals in courts for years upon years; some are either put to death while in police custody with the official cause being ‘bad health’ or found ‘mysteriously dead’. Even worse, their predators sometimes march into their prison cell and kill them while the guards turn a blind eye.
Despite the international calls for a pardon for Aasia Bibi, the Pakistan Government has not moved a muscle or made any suggestion to end the misery facing this poor mother whilst her life hangs in the balance. Hence the chronology of persecution for Aasia Bibi continues in many shapes and forms to this day.
Human rights groups and advocacy organisations worldwide have been campaigning for the release of Aasia Bibi, staging protests from London to Brussels, from Geneva to New York, petitioning to end the misuse of Pakistan blasphemy laws which are being used to target the members of minorities to settle personal scores and vendettas.
During his recent visit to the UK, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, was urged by his British counterpart David Cameron to ensure protection and promotion of basic human rights. While the UK Government has already demanded transparency, justice, and the rule of law for minorities, the status quo remains for millions who have to battle for their equal, fundamental rights every day. Will justice ever prevail for this vulnerable part of society?
The recent spike in blasphemy cases is a threat to the millions of minority community members in Pakistan. Religious intolerance and escalating extremism has crippled its citizens who, in spite of knowing its horrors, are unable to stop it. According to the most recent report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, 14 individuals are currently on death row over blasphemy and 19 others are serving life sentences.
Hatred spewed by clerics against blasphemy accused is so radicalising that some individuals take the law into their own hands. The most recent example is that of 65-year-old Khalil Ahmed, a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, who was shot dead on 16 May while in police custody by a school boy.
One cannot help but wonder how a school boy was able to get access to a prison cell, let alone a gun? Sadly the police is often found to be in cahoots with those wishing to ‘teach a lesson’ to the blasphemy accused. They must have aided and abetted the incident by not searching Mr Ahmed’s visitor, or allowing him to carry a weapon. The boy, undoubtedly coerced by others, committed an act of self-administered justice thinking that he is doing a favour to the religious ideology to which he must have been indoctrinated, in a hope to receive praise from the rest of the fold.
There is a shocking culture of putting the murderers on a pedestal, garlanding them and naming a mosque or library after them, lauding their killing as holy. This admiration of the ‘holy murderers’ exacerbates religious intolerance, disunity, and damages any efforts towards peaceful coexistence among people from various faith backgrounds.
This glorification of ‘murderers’ in Pakistan is a breeding ground for fuelling extremism and fundamentalism. Such a societal attitude is a trap for teenage boys who yearn to gain acclaim from others. The young assassin, who has not been named for security reasons, is a product of such culture.
Pakistan’s legal system is far from any recognisable democratic values. It persecutes the weak and the vulnerable segments of the society. These people hope against the hope for justice while facing threats to their security, the uncertainty of which must be terrifying to face.
A local radical cleric has put a price of 500,000 Pakistani Rupees, (£3,700, $5,800) on Aasia Bibi’s head for anyone one who will end her life. In the midst of these security concerns, the poor mother was moved from Lahore jail to Multan women’s jail. In the face of all these challenges, on 27 May, Aasia Bibi will hopefully face the panel of judges headed by judge Anwar-Ul-Haq for the first time to appeal against her death sentence.
The constitution of Pakistan provides equal rights to its entire people. The state has a responsibility to protect its citizens including minorities, and as such has to prevent the misuse of Pakistan blasphemy laws. The need of the hour is to start a rational discourse to promote interfaith harmony and to include peace studies in the national curriculum among the students at grass roots level.
The culture of persecution against minorities must end and the prosecution of those who misuse blasphemy laws has to be its first priority. Only then is there hope that rule of law will prevail and the Pakistan court will exist to provide justice to Aasia Bibi, and those falsely accused of blasphemy.
Shahid Khan is vice-chairperson of Global Minorities Alliance, (www.globalminorities.co.uk) a UK based human rights organisation which fights for the rights of minorities. He tweets @shahidshabaz
Myxlplik says
Islam is a criminal conspiracy against life liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Meena says
Solutions : 1) We should stop giving any aid to Pakistan till all persecution of Christians stop. 2) We should also stop giving all types of visas to any Muslim Pakistani till this atrocity stops. 3)It is time that all Muslim Pakistanis here be sent back to Pakistan and trade them with Christians suffering in Pakistan & will never be able to come to US as they are generally poor. 4) All US citizens need to ask their elected representatives about the persecution of Christians & what they are going to do about it. 5) Vote according to the answers they give. 6) Prevent Sharia from ever creeping in & destroying this great country.
I pray that one day the eyes & hearts of His people are sensitive to the atrocities going on in the world and HIS Kingdom come.
David says
Yes, we should all do likewise–those who are in the US and those who are not. A very nice message.
tesa says
i agree with meena,
this goes double for australia,now a secular country rapidly following in the footsteps of our northern western democratic countries with a small population.freedom parties like geert wilder’s in holland should be supported more strongly.
dumbledoresarmy says
Strongly seconding your points 1 and 2 re stopping aid to Pakistan and preventing entry of Pakistani Muslims; and 3 is a great idea though I think is more for the longer term.
Further, you wrote (4 and 5) “All US citizens need to ask their elected representatives about the persecution of Christians & what they are going to do about it. [and] Vote according to the answers they give”.
Not only US citizens to their elected reps; but Australians to *their* elected reps in Federal Parliament; and UK Citizens to *theirs*, and Canadians to *theirs*, and so on.
Since Pakistan is, presently, a member of the Commonwealth, persons resident in other Commonwealth countries – such as Australia, and Canada, and New Zealand, and India – could start agitating for an additional measure: that Pakistan be very publicly suspended from the Commonwealth, and made to sit in the corner, until and unless there is clear evidence that the terrible abuses perpetrated against non-Muslim minorities – Christian, Hindu, Sikh – within Pakistan have *ceased*.
There is precedent for this sort of action: Nigeria was suspended 1995-1999; Pakistan itself was suspended 1999-2004 and for six months in 2007; *Fiji* because of human rights abuses *far less grave* than those perpetrated by Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth and remains on the outer, at present; South Africa was prevented from continuing as a member in 1961, but was readmitted in 1994.
Charli Main says
Meena–Ref: section 2 & 3
Any action of this kind in Britain will lead to your immediate arrest and imprisonment by the police for advocating religious and racial discrimination against Muslims.
Even quoting Winston Churchill is now a criminal offence in Britain. The Muslims have now got the British Government and the MSN as their fully trained water carriers. Every time Abdul says jump, the answer appears to be ” how high do you want me to jump, my Muslim master”
David Cameron frequently makes reference to the ” wonderful contribution that Muslims have made to Britain”.
dumbledoresarmy says
Right now, it is the case of that poor Christian lady in the Sudan, Meriam Ibrahim – who should by rights in the news reports be given her married title, Mrs Daniel Wani – that has managed to get into our mainstream media.
As witness this article from Britain’s Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10844205/Pregnant-woman-given-death-sentence-in-Sudan-is-kept-shackled-in-her-cell.html
and a second article that focused on an apostate from Islam within the UK, but reminded its readers also of the sufferings of Meriam Ibrahim (Mrs Daniel Wani):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10854163/I-renounced-Islam-so-my-family-think-I-should-die.html
with Comments enabled. 421 comments and counting, most of them very aware of the meaning and menace of Islam.
We jihadwatchers need to be seizing every opportunity to talk about *both* women – about Aasia Bibi and Mrs Wani – because *both* show Muslim countries – one in Africa, one in South Asia – applying Islam-by-the-book. The gross mistreatment and blatant injustice inflicted upon both is not some kind of weird aberration but, rather, sharia in action, strictly according to the letter.
One of my FB friends was talking about Mrs Wani’s case and I was able to explain that each of the elements of that case that are so horrifying to us: the *denial* of freedom of conscience to the child of a Muslim father (counted as Muslim even though never raised as such and not *wanting* to be such), and the punishing of Mrs Wani therefore for a/ marrying a non-Muslim and b/ “apostasy” (choosing to profess Christianity), are all normative Islam.
Let us all seize every opportunity to tell our as-yet-unawakened friends and acquaintances (and co-religionists, if we are members of whatever non-Islamic faith) about *both* Aasia Bibi *and* Mrs Wani; and use their stories to teach our hearers about *normative Islam*: that Islam as such, orthodox Islam, requires that those who leave be killed, and that those who “blaspheme” – who question, or criticise, or mock, *any* aspect of Islam whatsoever, most notably the so-called ‘prophet” mohammed – must be killed. Be sure to tell our hearers – especially if they are arty, literary, theatre types – about Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak…and Theo Van Gogh, to show that the Muslim murdering of “blasphemers” is a/ modelled on events in the career of Mohammed and b/ isn’t just something that is done in third world majority-Muslim countries.
dumbledoresarmy says
The appeal is supposed to take place on 27 May 2014.
Instead of futzing around making a fool of himself in the Middle East, Pope Francis I should have solemnly and *publicly* called upon all Catholics – and, indeed, all Christians of every tradition – worldwide to engage in 24 hours of prayer and fasting on behalf of Aasia Bibi: from sunset on the 26th until sunset on the 27th.
He could have included the name of Mrs Daniel Wani (Meriam Ibrahim) also as a subject for immediate and urgent intercession.
Let Meriam the young Christian mother in Africa and her elder sister Aasia in South Asia represent the whole of the Persecuted Church – and *all* persecuted and oppressed and suffering non-Muslims – within the lands ruled, and ruined, by Islam, Islam, Islam.
Neither he nor the Archbishop of Canterbury nor any other leading Christian clergy are likely to issue such a call for worldwide intercession.
But I have decided that *I* will spend May 27 in prayer for Aasia and perhaps my fellow jihadwatchers who are of a religious persuasion may like to do the same.
Will says
Pakistan 99.9999999999999999999999999999 % muslim is chasing after the last Christian cowering in a cellar.
Persecuting 0.00000000000000000000000000001 % of their non-muslim society with a vengeance of koranic proportions !