Asia Bibi, the 47 year-old Catholic mother of 5 children, acquitted by Pakistan’s Supreme Court on October 31 after being sentenced to death in 2010 on a false charge of blasphemy, was released on Wednesday and transferred to an undisclosed location in the capital. Amid tight security, Asia Bibi left a prison in Multan, Punjab province, for a flight to Islamabad. Troops guarded the roads leading to the airport from which she flew out.
Authorities last month said they arrested two prisoners for allegedly conspiring to strangle her and since then additional police and troops have been deployed to the facility in Punjab. Officials said Asia Bibi will be safer at the new facility in Islamabad. Since the Supreme Court verdict, groups linked to the hardline Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, who want the Christian woman hanged publicly, paralyzed many of the country’s cities with demonstrations, roadblocks and threats.
Asia Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, pleaded with the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Italy for asylum, saying it would be too dangerous for his family to stay in Pakistan. Asia Bibi’s lawyer, Saiful Mulook, who fled Pakistan this week and sought asylum in the Netherlands, confirmed she was no longer in prison. In perhaps Pakistan’s most famous blasphemy case, Asia Bibi was arrested and imprisoned in June 2009 on allegation of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, following an argument with Muslim women over her use of a drinking vessel meant for Muslims. She and her family have denied the allegation. The following year she was sentenced to death.
