How many more “kaafirs” have to die before the thirst of Pakistan’s Islamist jihadis is quenched? As you read this, a Christian girl, no more than 14 years of age, gifted with the pure innocence of Down’s Syndrome, stays locked up in a maximum security prison in Pakistan, charged with the offence of ‘blasphemy,’ facing a death penalty or a life sentence in prison, despite evidence she was framed.

This child’s name is Rimsha Masih, the daughter of a dirt-poor Christian family who until last month lived in a one-room house in Islamabad’s shantytown suburb of Mehrabad. Inhabitants of this township are mostly Christian families who work endless days as sweepers and janitors in Pakistan’s capital.

On August 16, as she did every other day, Rimsha was collecting waste paper when a Muslim neighbour stopped her, claiming she had burned pages of an Islamic textbook in a plastic bag, and that this amounted to an “insult to Islam.” Shortly after the accusation, a Muslim mob went to Rimsha’s home and beat the child and her mother before police took the girl into custody, charging her with blasphemy.

As outrage swept across the globe, France “urged the Pakistani authorities to release this young girl,” adding “the very existence of the crime of blasphemy infringes upon fundamental freedoms, namely the freedom of religion or belief, as well as the freedom of expression.” In the U.S., New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez and five of his bipartisan colleagues, blasted the blasphemy law of Pakistan in a letter to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, demanding Rimsha be set free.

But in Pakistan, people wanted to burn the girl alive. The lawyer for the man who accused the girl of blasphemy told reporters, “This girl is guilty.” Then he warned, “If the state overrides the court, then God will get a person to do the job,” reminding everyone of the murder of two Pakistani politicians who had sought the release of another Christian woman rotting in prison on similar charges.

As a climate of fear swept the slum, Christians fled for safety with 500 families taking refuge in a nearby forest. When all seemed lost, an eye-witness emerged, claiming it was the Imam of a local mosque who had torn pages of the Qur’an and sneaked them in Rimsha’s shopping bag. He said the girl had no idea she was being set up by the mulla.

This fresh evidence led police to arrest the mulla, and hopefully, lift the false charges against her. In the words of Father James Channan, director of the Catholic Peace Centre in Lahore, Rimsha was a “lamb to the slaughter, who had been saved by the grace of God.”

But the threat of jihadi vigilante reprisals is serious. On September 3, when everyone was expecting the child to be released on bail, considering the new evidence, the scared judge buckled to the bullying of the Islamist lawyer and postponed the bail hearing.

The continued detention of Rimsha has drawn sharp reaction from leaders of Canada’s Muslim community.

Salma Siddiqui, president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, has asked for an urgent meeting with the Pakistani High Commissioner in Ottawa. “I’ll let him know in no uncertain terms that if Rimsha is not released immediately, the MCC will lobby the Canadian government to suspend all aid to Islamabad and expel Pakistani diplomats from Canada immediately,” said Siddiqui.

In the meantime, will it be too much to ask the United Church of Canada to show some interest in the affairs of a Christian girl in solitary confinement in an Islamic land? Or is it just Israel they monitor for human rights violations?