Ben Stansall—AFP
Ashiq Masih criticizes government’s deal with religious hardliners as ‘wrong’
The husband of a Pakistani Christian woman at the center of a divisive blasphemy case has pleaded for international help to leave the country, saying he feared for his family’s safety.
The request by Aasia Bibi’s husband Ashiq Masih came a day after he criticized a government deal with hardline Islamists that left her in legal limbo, and called on authorities to protect her.
Bibi—who had been on death row since 2010 on blasphemy charges—was acquitted by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, triggering large street protests by ultra-conservative Islamists who paralyzed Pakistan for three days, blocking roads and disrupting traffic.
The government reached a deal on Friday to end the protests by agreeing to a travel ban preventing Bibi from leaving the country, and saying it would not object to hardline movements appealing the verdict. An appeal has now been filed with the court against Bibi’s release.
Masih criticized the government deal, saying it was “wrong.”
“I request President Donald Trump to help us to leave [the country], and I request the prime minister of the U.K. to do their level best to help us, to grant us freedom,” said Masih, in a video message, seen by AFP, also requesting help from the Canadian prime minister. Wilson Chowdhry, of the British Pakistani Christian Association, told AFP that the family was resting its hopes on the U.S., Britain or Canada to grant them asylum and help them reach a place of safety.
“These nations have the largest Pakistani Christian communities,” Chowdhry said, added that Masih also wants asylum for some members of the extended family and those who have helped with his wife’s case, one of whom could speak English. “If Aasia Bibi leaves the country, every family member, every person associated to her, will be killed,” he said.
Chowdhry said the family’s initial relief at Bibi’s acquittal has turned into anguish. “The daughters are weeping. They still haven’t seen their mother. The family is totally shattered,” he said. “They absolutely don’t know when they will see their mother. Since [the court decision], with the violence and the protests, it is too dangerous for them to see their mother in jail.”
Blasphemy is a hugely inflammatory charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam can spark attacks and killings at the hands of vigilante mobs.
Masih on Saturday told German Deutsche Welle radio the court had been “very courageous” to acquit his wife, an illiterate mother in her 50s who was accused of blasphemy a decade ago. “The current situation is very dangerous for us. We have no security and are hiding here and there, frequently changing our location,” he told the German radio station, saying he was worried his wife would be attacked in prison.
The case began in June 2009 when Bibi was asked to fetch water while out working in the fields. Muslim women laborers objected, saying that as a non-Muslim, she should not touch the water bowl, and reportedly a fight erupted. A local imam then claimed Bibi insulted Islam’s Prophet—a charge she has consistently denied.
Bibi’s lawyer fled Pakistan on Saturday, fearing for his life. “In the current scenario, it’s not possible for me to live in Pakistan,” Saif-ul-Mulook, 62, told AFP before boarding a plane to Europe.
Masih demanded the government reinforce Bibi’s protection in prison, worrying that she may be attacked. He cited the case of two Christian men who were shot dead after a court acquitted them in another blasphemy case.
Pakistan’s leading rights watchdog slammed Islamabad over the deal, saying it was “appalled at the government’s failure to preserve the writ of the state and the sanctity of the rule of law.”
“The TLP [Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan] called openly for murder and mutiny, made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, and appears to have assumed all the while that its methods were legitimate means of dissent,” the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in a statement on Sunday.
But information minister Fawad Chaudhry insisted the government was not ignoring the actions of the Islamists. “No one should have this wrong impression that the state will ignore this behavior,” he told reporters on Sunday. “The state will not ignore the rebellion.”
Police in Islamabad on Sunday arrested 12 people for violence and incitement and were seeking another 32 who had been identified. Reports had been “registered against more than 100 protestors who were involved in vandalism in Islamabad,” senior city official Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat said on Twitter, adding some 500 people had been accused over the unrest.