From picking Phalsa berries in a field as a poor labourer in a small village outside Lahore a little over a decade ago to the centre of a deadly storm of radical Islamist violence that threatens to engulf Pakistan, 53-year-old Asia Bibi’s story could have been foreseen by no one.
What did she do?
Ms. Bibi, a diminutive mother of five, had taken a break to make some Phalsa juice, but when she offered it to some co-workers, an argument broke out. Her co-workers claimed she had insulted the Prophet and the Koran and an FIR was filed against her a few days later. Ms. Bibi said the women, who refused to touch the vessel of juice as she was from a different faith, had been keen to convert her and she had snapped at them, but denied the charge of blasphemy. From that point on, however, the facts of the case became irrelevant. Ms. Bibi was jailed and sentenced to death, and anyone who sought to defend her or ask for a rational hearing was killed or threatened with mob violence. A judge recused himself from hearing Ms. Bibi’s case, others adjourned the matter, as the threats grew. When Ms. Bibi was acquitted by the Supreme Court last month, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, leader of the radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), called for the immediate assassination of the judges who delivered the verdict.
Why did it lead to violence?
Others paid with their lives. In 2011, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard for appealing on Ms. Bibi’s behalf after meeting her in prison and for calling for a review of what he called the country’s “Black” anti-blasphemy laws. A month later, Pakistan’s only Christian Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was gunned down for suggesting the same. Each time there has been talk of revising the laws or freeing Ms. Bibi, mobs led by both the mainstream and fringe Islamist parties, like the TLP and Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa, have taken to the streets, bringing major cities to a standstill with their violence, looting and burning property. Mr. Rizvi, a wheelchair-bound former government ‘Auqaf’ official in the Punjab state religious affairs department, himself is a creation of the case, and rose to his current power when he was sacked for publicly defending the man who killed Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri, and instigating mobs to protest Qadri’s execution violently.
What is the government stand?
On each occasion that Mr. Rizvi has raised the banner of revolt against the Pakistani state, the government, and even the Army, has backed down, adding to his influence in the country. In the latest instance, the Imran Khan government agreed to the demands made by TLP mobs that ran through Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi after Ms. Bibi’s acquittal on October 31, including a signed statement that it would not oppose a plea to review the acquittal and promising to stop her from leaving the country.
Through it all, Ms. Bibi has remained in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, while her husband and children fled to the U.K. Her lawyer Saif Ul Malook fled to the Netherlands this week, warning that if he did not receive help, no lawyer in Pakistan would help others like Ms. Bibi who faced blasphemy charges, which are often levelled against minorities, who make up less than 8% of the population, while the charges are used mostly as a cover to settle personal scores and property disputes, according to Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission.
What’s in store?
Oblivious to the wider politics surrounding her case, Ms. Bibi told journalists in a telephone call from prison that she was “overjoyed” by the verdict letting her go free.
However, she may never actually be free of the fear that haunts her family and of the danger that has stalked all who tried to raise their voice in her favour, and might always remain a prisoner to the threats raised by religious extremist groups who have chosen to make this powerless, hapless woman the target of their fanatical fury.
