Asia Bibi, the Christian woman in Pakistan who was accused of blasphemy, sentenced to hang, and finally acquitted by the Supreme Court after spending eight years in solitary confinement, in an 8’ by 10’ prison cell, is still being held by the government, now for her own safety, somewhere in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Muslim mobs in that country, baying for her blood, have been searching for her, in order to carry out the sentence they think she deserves.
In early November, Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, begged Prime Minister Theresa May to grant asylum for his wife and family: “I am requesting the prime minister of Britain to help us exit Pakistan and give us asylum if she can,” he told the Guardian. May did not respond. And what we know now is that Theresa May herself blocked the granting of asylum to Bibi, even overruling the British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who had said that Bibi should be given refuge in the U.K.
When Theresa May was asked by MP Zac Goldsmith if she had “personally intervened” to prevent the government from offering asylum, she gave an evasive answer, replying that he “shouldn’t necessarily believe everything he reads in the paper.” That is not a denial. She added that her primary concern was “the safety of Asia Bibi and her family.” Does she think that Asia Bibi is safer in Pakistan than she would be in the U.K.? May is not thinking of Asia Bibi at all, but only about her own possible tribulations as prime minister, should Muslims in the U.K., enraged by the arrival of Bibi and her family, erupt in violence. That is something she doesn’t want to have to deal with, and consequently, is willing to turn aside the pleas made on behalf of Asia Bibi and her family, who remain in a state of maximum peril.
Theresa May is the daughter of a Church of England vicar, Reverend Hubert Brasier. She grew up as a devout Christian in Oxfordshire. She was an active Christian, so involved in parish life that she often taught Sunday school classes. Interviewed on Desert Island Discs, she chose as her favorite church music the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” sung by a chapel congregation. She recalled being alone in church with her parents, kneeling and singing together.
So what kind of Christian did Theresa May, the devout hymn-singing vicar’s daughter, turn out to be? Not a very good Christian, I’m afraid, in turning her back on Asia Bibi and her family, leaving them to endure still more torment, with Bibi herself needing constant protection against those hundreds of thousands of maddened Muslims who would gladly murder her, while her family members live in terror of being killed themselves.
And while she prevents Asia Bibi and her family from settling in the U.K., and has continued to bar islamocritics such as Robert Spencer from visiting the U.K., Theresa May’s government has allowed in several preachers of Jihad. Robert Spencer notes that among them have been Syed Muzaffar Shah Qadri, whose “preaching of hatred and jihad violence was so hardline that he was banned from preaching in Pakistan, but the UK Home Office welcomed him into Britain.” And “the UK Home Office recently admitted Shaykh Hamza Sodagar into the country, despite the fact that he has said: ‘If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things. One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest. Second – burn them to death. Third – throw ’em off a cliff. Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth – a combination of the above.’”
Now the lawyer for Asia Bibi, Saif ul-Malook, who has risked his life by representing her, and remains under a permanent death threat for having done so, has applied for asylum in the U.K. In his first interview with a British newspaper, ul-Malook criticized the Prime Minister, insisting that she “should be a brave prime minister while deciding about Asia Bibi’s case, instead of taking into consideration what may or may not happen. As far as Asia is concerned, I am certain the apprehensions are ill-founded. Bring her here [to England] and give her to me. I will keep her safe.”
Theresa May could still change her mind, and offer asylum to Bibi and her family. It would be a dramatic moment:
“After careful consideration, I have decided that Asia Bibi and her family should be granted asylum, and admitted to the United Kingdom. My government’s previous rejection of her family’s appeal was, quite simply, wrong. I was wrong, for in the end it was my decision, one that I now deeply regret. Asia Bibi spent eight years in solitary confinement, in a tiny cell, under a sentence of death, until finally being acquitted. She has endured enough. There are those, and I was one of them, who worried about the reaction of extremists in this country should she be given asylum. I also worried about attacks on our diplomats abroad. But I now realize we cannot allow ourselves to make policy on the basis of such fears. We cannot allow the extremists to win. I will be pleased, as prime minister, to welcome Asia Bibi and her family to our country.”
Is there much of a chance that Theresa May might have such a change of heart? Most unlikely, given her record of appeasing Muslims, but on the other hand, strange things happen every day. Perhaps this vicar’s daughter will prove to be, in the case of Asia Bibi, a good Christian after all.