Paul KeenanChristian woman’s appeal postponed again
The appeal hearing of imprisoned Christian woman Asia Bibi has again faltered at a Pakistani court.
On May 27, and for the fifth time since February, when Mrs Bibi’s legal representatives commenced an appeal against her conviction for blasphemy, the Court of Appeal in Lahore, Punjab, failed to convene for the hearing, this time not even bothering to provide a reason for the delay.
If there is anything to be gained from the continuing suffering of Mrs Bibi – she has been in prison since 2010 – it must surely be that the longer her case drags out, the more the hypocrisy of Pakistan’s approach to its blasphemy law for the so-called better protection of Islam is exposed by the incidents arising since she was imprisoned.
Take, by way of example, the case of teenager Rimsha Masih, who was arrested in 2012 on charges of blasphemy levelled by cleric Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, placing her under an immediate threat of death and forcing her to flee Pakistan with her family. It was later revealed that Chishti had manufactured the evidence against the girl, specifically by performing the act of blasphemy (burning pages of koranic text) that served to damn Rimsha.
Rimsha was subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing, but so too was Chisthi, despite his act of blasphemy having been witnessed by at least two people.
The court cited a lack of evidence in his case, which is interesting given that he stood accused by the same number of witnesses as in the Bibi case, and perhaps more importantly, the burned pages stand as physical evidence missing from the Bibi charges, yet enough to condemn her and free him.
More recently, and virtually simultaneous to the latest failed Bibi hearing, news emerged from Faisalabad (also in Punjab) of a blasphemy charge levelled against a Christian road sweeper, Mansha Masih, who was spotted with burned pages of the Koran in his sweepings and set upon by a lynch mob. Luckily for Masih, a Muslim human rights activist, Farhan Sadiq, was nearby and intervened not only to save Masih from the mob, but to become involved in an investigation into the source of the ruined pages. He subsequently discovered two madrassa students who confessed to the koranic desecration on the basis that they did not want to attend a study period at their mosque that day.
Physical evidence
Under the blasphemy law, the confessions and physical evidence to hand are more than enough to proceed. Yet the students have not been arrested and Masih remains under threat from citizens determined to ignore the evidence. Not to labour the point, but in addition to a lack of physical evidence in the Bibi case, there is no confession of wrongdoing under the law from Mrs Bibi.
Returning to Mrs Bibi’s case, it has been noted locally that the timing of her appeal is inconveniently close to another case of blasphemy, levelled against participants in a talk show on Geo TV who stand accused of uttering blasphemies against the family of the Prophet Mohammad on air. Inconvenient because, according to the Pakistan Christian Post, authorities are hoping to avail of a decree from clerics which rules that if a Muslim apologises for an act of blasphemy that is enough to free them, while forgiving them is an Islamic act.
The clash of legal cases could go some way to explaining the sinister silence from the Appeals Court in Lahore. Then again, it could also be that the judiciary lacks the words to weasel through the hypocrisy illuminated by Asia Bibi’s case.