Asia Bibi Is Set to Be Released from Pakistan in Two Weeks

The Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy against Islam and kept in Pakistan will be released soon.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said this week that Asia Bibi will be allowed to leave the country “in a couple of weeks.”

Earlier this month, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the U.K. Parliament that Bibi’s freedom was being negotiated.

“Making sure that she is safe and has somewhere safe to go is a top priority for this government,” Hunt told legislators. “We have had numerous discussions in private with [the] Pakistani government about how to progress on this. We are making progress, and I’m very hopeful that this will have a positive outcome.”

According to The Jerusalem Post, Bibi’s travel documents are ready for her when she is released.

“She is all set to travel abroad. We are waiting for the green signal from concerned authorities in this regard,” a senior government official told The Media Line.

Bibi had been on death row in Pakistan since 2010. She was accused of blasphemy in 2009. 

Bibi was working and picking berries near her village when another worker asked her to fetch water from a well. On her return from the well, she took a sip of the water before she gave it to her Muslim co-workers.

In Pakistan, most Muslims do not eat or drink with people from other faiths, and the Muslim workers told Bibi she insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

Days later, she was arrested on suspicion of blasphemy and in 2010 she was sentenced to death.

Bibi said she was innocent.

In 2018, the court finally acquitted the Christian woman and she was moved to a safe house because of death threats.

“I am missing her so much,” Bibi’s youngest daughter, Eisham Ashiq, 18, told The Daily Mail. “I think about her all the time and I speak to her on the phone all the time. I say to her, ‘Have faith in God, because if God can release you from jail, God can release you from where you are now. He will bring you out.’”

Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Ahsan S.