The appeal of the Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan, while we see a glimmer of hope for the judicial solution of the case.
“Brothers and sisters, pray and fast with me”, this is the heartfelt appeal that Asia Bibi is making today from the Multan’s female prison, inviting Christians and people of good will around the world to share with her a special day - Friday 27 April - of prayer and fasting to ask God for freedom and peace on .
The Christian woman sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy and in prison since 2009 was recently able to see her family members: her husband Ashiq, daughters Eisham and Esha, and the tutor of the family Joseph Nadeem, head of the “Renaissance Education Foundation” in Lahore. Asia was moved to learn of the recent announcement by the President of Pakistan’s Supreme Court claiming that Saqib Nisar would be personally involved in the case and would soon set the date for the next, decisive, hearing before the country’s highest judicial body.
Joseph Nadeem reports to Vatican Insider, “We found Asia in good health. She was very happy to meet her family. When we told her about the hearing, she was thrilled and full of hope, she reacted with great faith, giving praise to God. She really is an example and a symbol for all of us. Then she wanted to personally invite all those who care about her and who are close to her, all over the planet, to live together, in spiritual communion, a day of fasting and prayer for her freedom scheduled on Friday 27 April. We believe a lot in the weapons of fasting and prayer, so we will join her, and I am sure many will do too”.
Even Ashiq, Asia’s husband, hopes that “on April 27, many people around the world will pray and fast to ask God to enlighten the mind of the judge who will examine Asia Bibi’s case”. Asia deserves our love and our support. We count on the support of many communities of baptized people, in truly universal prayer,” Nadeem says.
The Christian community in Pakistan clearly perceives that the hope for Asia has been rekindled. The Council of Bishops of Pakistan, a body that brings together more than 40 Pastors of various Christian denominations, such as Pentecostal, Evangelical, Adventist, Methodist and other denominations, working in close collaboration with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, expressed appreciation for the decision of the President of the Supreme Court, and recalled that “there are many other cases of innocent people who have been in prison for a long time and await justice”.
The demand for Asia and the other innocent victims of the blasphemy law, which is still being misused, often to strike at opponents in private disputes, is that of genuine justice. Asia Bibi, in fact, is the victim of a machination warped against her by some Muslim women and by a local imam that the judges should uncover and objectively recognize, setting her free and prosecuting them.
But in Pakistan the situation is tremendously complicated because of pressure coming from Islamic extremist groups who are expressly calling for the hanging of Asia. The pressure on the judicial system is extreme, as even extrajudicial murders have affected some of the Muslim magistrates who bravely exposed themselves, by judging neutrally and acquitting Christians falsely accused of blasphemy.
The province of Punjab is the area in which there is an extraordinary incidence of blasphemy cases in Pakistan in the last three decades, as explained by the Centre for Social Justice, an NGO led in Pakistan by the Catholic Peter Jacob. The Centre recalls the assassination of retired judge Arif Iqbal Bhatti, guilty, according to radicals, of acquitting Christians considered blasphemous.
The abuse of the blasphemy law continues to be a cancer of society: “Hundreds of people have been tortured, imprisoned, evicted. Properties worth billions of rupees have been destroyed with impunity by crowds of radicals, but economic loss is only the tip of the iceberg compared to the social, political and cultural consequences,” he notes.
According to recent studies by Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, “the blasphemy law is widely abused to perpetrate hate crimes on the basis of religion, a way to regulate personal vendettas and perpetrate economic injustices”. Lawyers and judges have fought for years in a hostile social environment. Now it is urgent that leaders and public institutions have the courage and wisdom to hear the cries of innocent people like Asia Bibi.
