Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Christian who spent years in prison before her acquittal.
Sheikhupura (Pakistan):
Younus, the brother-in-law of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian who spent years in prison before his acquittal, was killed on Monday in Sheikhupura, in Punjab province, Pakistan.
According to the FIR, Younus had visited his farms on May 24 and had not returned home at night. Her body split in the throat was found on the farm the next morning.
In 2011, influential Punjab governor Salman Taseer was assassinated after making headlines in the press for forgiveness from Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
A month after Taseer’s death, the minister of religious minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the laws, was shot dead in Islamabad, highlighting the threat posed by lawbreakers.
Asia Bibi is now living in exile after the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her on the basis of insufficient evidence in October 2018.
Recounting the infernal conditions of eight years spent on death row for blasphemy but also the pain of exile, Asia Bibi recently broke her silence to give her first personal glimpse of a test which caused international indignation.
French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who co-wrote a book about her, was once based in the country where she ran a support campaign for her.
“You already know my story through the media,” she said in the book. “But you are far from understanding my daily life in prison or my new life,” she said.
“I have become a prisoner of fanaticism,” she said. In prison, “tears were the only cellmates”.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are punishable by death for anyone who insults Islam. Critics say they have been used to persecute minority religions and unfairly target minorities.
No government in Pakistan has changed the blasphemy law for fear of a backlash.
