Labourer whose blasphemy death sentence was overturned has been transferred to Karachi

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Pakistani authorities have moved Asia Bibi, a Christian woman recently acquitted of blasphemy charges, to a new “secure area” and are barring her from leaving the country, a close friend and rights campaigner has claimed.

Bibi, who spent eight years on death row, was transferred from a location near the capital to a house in the southern port city of Karachi, her friend Aman Ullah told the Associated Press. She and her husband are locked in a single room in a house where the door opens only “at food times”, he added.

Canada has offered her asylum and she wants to join her daughters there. Pakistani authorities have said she is free to travel, but Bibi, 54, says she is being prevented from going.

“She has no indication of when she will leave,” said Ullah, who added that Bibi was frightened and frustrated. “They are not telling her why she cannot leave.” He spoke to her by telephone, after the threats from extremists angered by his assistance to Bibi forced him to flee the country on Friday.

Ullah has been liaising with diplomats over the case, and he says they were told Bibi’s departure would only come “in the medium-term”.

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Publicly, Pakistani authorities insist that Bibi is free both inside Pakistan, and to leave it. “She is living with her family and given requisite security for safety,” the information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, told the AP in an email.

He said the government was responsible for taking “all possible measures” to protect her and her family, adding that “she is a free citizen after her release from jail and can move anywhere in Pakistan or abroad.”

Violent Islamists have threatened to track her down and kill her, some even suggesting that they will pursue her abroad if she leaves.

A farm labourer, Bibi was sentenced to death in 2010 in what swiftly became Pakistan’s most infamous blasphemy case. She had been accused by Muslim villagers of insulting the prophet Muhammad in a row over a cup of water. She always insisted she was innocent.

Blasphemy is a highly inflammatory issue in Pakistan, where even unproven accusations of insulting Islam can spark lynchings. Human rights activists say blasphemy charges are frequently used to settle personal scores.

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After the supreme court overturned Bibi’s conviction, cities across Pakistan were paralysed for several days by violent demonstrations with enraged extremists calling for her beheading.

In a deal to end the violence, the government, led by the prime minister, Imran Khan, struck a deal allowing the petition seeking an appeal against the supreme court’s judgment. Khan was accused of capitulating to the extremists’ demands.

In January the supreme court rejected that challenge to their October ruling; at the time it was thought Bibi could leave the country within hours.