{"id":17670,"date":"2019-05-08T21:10:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T21:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=17670"},"modified":"2019-05-08T21:10:03","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T21:10:03","slug":"asia-bibi-arrives-in-canada-after-leaving-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=17670","title":{"rendered":"Asia Bibi arrives in Canada after leaving Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian woman freed last year after spending eight years on death row for blasphemy<\/strong>
\nBy Michael Safi<\/strong>\u00a0in Delhi and Shah Meer Baloch<\/strong> in Islamabad (The Guardian<\/strong>)
\nAsia Bibi, a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy before she was freed last year, has flown to Canada where she has reunited with her family, her lawyer has said.
\n\u201cIt is a big day,\u201d Saiful Malook told the Guardian. \u201cAsia Bibi has left Pakistan and reached Canada. She has reunited with her family. Justice has been dispensed.\u201d
\nWilson Chaudhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association said the family were living under assumed identities and with security in Canada that he expected would be beefed up with Asia\u2019s arrival.
\n\u201cI think when time moves on and tensions ease they would be living as normal people without security,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cFor sure they would live with some new identities there. They would not use same identities which they have had back in Pakistan.\u201d
\nThe Canadian government declined to comment on the circumstances under which the family would be living in the country.
\nBibi\u2019s arrival in Canada could mark the end of a nine-year ordeal for the farm labourer whose case \u2013 based on a dubious accusation she had insulted the prophet Muhammad \u2013 became linked to the assassinations of a provincial governor and a cabinet minister and a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre among Christian and human rights activists.
\nShe has been in protective custody since she was\u00a0released from prison last yearafter Pakistan\u2019s top court acquitted her of blasphemy. By the afternoon of the verdict on 31 October, demonstrators wielding clubs had blocked highways and were pelting police with stones in cities including the capital, Islamabad, and Karachi.
\nIslamist groups including Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP), a movement dedicated to upholding Pakistan\u2019s harsh blasphemy laws, protested for three days after the verdict, paralysing parts of the country until the government struck an agreement that included a promise the case would be appealed. The supreme court\u00a0upheld the acquittal\u00a0in January.
\nCanada had offered Bibi asylum, but close friends had told the Guardian the woman was being\u00a0prevented from leaving\u00a0by authorities. Her children left for the country late last year.
\nMalook said Bibi\u2019s safe arrival in Canada was the result of hard work by activists, foreign diplomats and others \u201cwho stood by Bibi in hard times and worked for her freedom\u201d.
\nBibi, a Roman Catholic from the village of Ittanwala near Lahore, was accused by Muslim villagers of insulting the prophet in a row over a cup of water in June 2009. The supreme court judgment said there was no evidence to support the charge.
\nFive days after the altercation, a local mosque broadcast allegations she had committed blasphemy and Bibi was dragged from her home by a mob and beaten in the presence of police officers before she was taken into custody.
\nBibi was sentenced to death in 2010 in what became Pakistan\u2019s most infamous blasphemy case. She always maintained her innocence.
\nOne of Bibi\u2019s highest-profile supporters, the governor of Punjab Salman Taseer, was killed by one of his own security guards in January 2011 after he publicly appealed to the president of Pakistan to pardon Bibi.
\nTaseer was shot 27 times at close range by Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, who was showered with rose petals by supporters when he appeared in court. He was executed in 2016.
\nPakistan\u2019s first federal minister for minority affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti,\u00a0who also supported Bibi\u00a0and called for the reform of blasphemy laws, was killed by self-described Taliban gunmen in March 2011.
\nThe only Christian in the cabinet at the time, Bhatti had predicted his own death and recorded a farewell tape that was released to television channels after he was killed, in which he vowed to fight for Christian and other minority rights whatever the cost.
\n\u201cI will die to defend their rights,\u201d he said on the tape released to the BBC and al-Jazeera. \u201cThese threats and these warnings cannot change my opinions and principles.\u201d
\nBlasphemy is a highly inflammatory issue in Pakistan, where even unproven accusations of insulting Islam can spark lynchings. Human rights activists say blasphemy charges are frequently used to settle personal scores.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian woman freed last year after spending eight years on death row for blasphemy By Michael Safi\u00a0in Delhi and Shah Meer Baloch in Islamabad (The Guardian) Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy before she was freed last year, has flown to Canada where she has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}