The British Government will not help Asia Bibi because it believes “less is more” in her case, Theresa May’s religious freedom envoy has declared.
Mrs Bibi, a Catholic mother of five, has been in hiding with her family in Pakistan since her death sentence for blasphemy was overturned by the country’s Supreme Court last month and she was freed from prison after eight years in solitary confinement.
The judge who freed her, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, visited London last week and told MPs that she was not on an exit control list and was free to leave Pakistan with her family at any time.
But Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Prime Minister’s special envoy on freedom of religion and belief, said the Government would simply continue to press for her safety in Pakistan, a country in which she is in danger of being murdered by a lynch mob, instead of granting her asylum in the UK.
“It is entirely appropriate that maybe less is more,” he said in the House of Lords during the launch of a report on global religious persecution by Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians.
“But in saying that, it does not mean that we are not doing anything,” he said. “We are doing a great deal.”
He continued: “We are working both with Pakistani authorities and like-minded countries so that whatever Asia Bibi and her family chooses to be, however that can be supported, that the British Government will continue to extend its support in that regard.”
The remarks of Lord Ahmad, an Ahmadi Muslim of Pakistani descent, came in response to a challenge to the UK’s position by imam’s son Rehman Chishti, the Conservative MP for Gillingham and Rainham.
Earlier this month Mr Chishti, who is also of Pakistani origin, quit as Party vice-chairman and trade envoy to Pakistan because of the Government’s refusal to offer refuge to Mrs Bibi and her family.
“The Lord Chief Justice has said Asia Bibi is free to leave Pakistan,” Mr Chishti told Lord Ahmad.
“She is free to leave but she needs a country to come forward, to morally and ethically do the right thing.
“I say this as clearly as I can – for the United Kingdom to say which other country would Asia Bibi like to go to is completely and utterly unacceptable, irrespective of what any other country may offer.
“We have a moral obligation,” he said. “Why have we, in God’s name, not done the right thing to say – irrespective of what anyone else offers – we, the UK, will do the right thing in line with our great British values?”
He added: “It was right for me to step down last week, when you try to get the Government to do the right thing and it would not do the right thing.”
He said that the Government willingly gave asylum to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani Muslim shot by the Taliban for her work in campaigning for the education of girls, in spite of threats of reprisals.
He also rebuked Lord Ahmad for failing to meet Mrs Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Mashi, and her youngest daughter, Eisham Ashiq, 18, when they visited London in October.
He questioned why not a single British minister would meet the pair even in private, and said that Eisham had “tears in her eyes” when he had to tell her that none was interested in hearing her story.
Mrs Bibi’s ordeal began in June 2009 when she was accused of blasphemy after Muslim women, who were working alongside her picking berries, objected to her sharing water because she is a Christian.
She was beaten by a mob in front of her children and rescued by police, only to be sentenced to hang for violating Section 295C of the Penal Code, which makes insulting Muhammad, the founder of Islam, a capital offence.
No one has been executed under the law so far, but Christians who are falsely accused often are lynched or spend many years in prison.
So far, Canada and Germany have indicated that they may be willing to grant asylum to Bibi and her family but no visas have been issued as yet.
Last week, Australian leaders said they would consider an asylum plea if Bibi’s efforts to flee to Canada were unsuccessful.
According to a report in the Mail on Sunday, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt are both in favour of granting asylum to Mrs Bibi but were over-ruled by Mrs May.
The refusal of the UK to offer asylum has left many British MPs and peers astonished, among them Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and a Catholic, who said that Mrs Bibi was eligible for asylum in the UK “on every possible metric”.
Speaking to the BBC, he said there was concern among MPs that the Government appeared scared of the reaction of Pakistani mobs, adding that it must ask itself “very serious questions about who it was bowing down to”.
He said that the Government had willingly helped persecuted Muslims in the Balkans and defended the rights of homosexuals in countries where they are not tolerated.
“The idea that we shouldn’t change our policy in Pakistan simply because she is a Christian and simply because we are afraid of the mob strikes me as extremely odd,” said Mr Tugendhat.
Lord Alton of Liverpool said that the Government should not only grant asylum to Mrs Bibi and her family but should also suspend £380,000 of aid money it gives to Pakistan each day until she is safely out of the country.
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