The daughters of Asia Bibi pose with a photo of their mother at their residence. With the announcement that persecuted Christian Asia Bibi is to be released from Pakistan in a matter of weeks, a prominent human rights charity has said there should be no assumptions made about her safety until she is in a secure country.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told journalists last week that Ms Bibi, who was last year acquitted of blasphemy charges, will soon leave the country and be reunited with her family.
Commenting on the news, the National Director of the organisation Aid to the Church in Need Ireland, Dr Michael Kinsella, told The Irish Catholic that he is not “overly-optimistic” about the promise of Ms Bibi’s release, but that Christians can hold out hope that it will come to fruition.
“I would hope that we can assume some degree of good faith on the part of Imran Khan when it comes to the treatment of Christians generally, but in the specific case of Asia Bibi she is a pawn in a much wider political gambit by Islamic fundamentalists who are looking to set a precedent, and that precedent is Sharia law, which is the overriding factor when it comes to any and all consideration of human rights,” he said.