ISLAMABAD: A Christian woman acquitted in Pakistan after eight years on death row for blasphemy plans to leave the country, her family said Thursday as radical Islamists mounted rallies for a second day against the verdict, blocking roads and burning tires in protest.
The developments followed a landmark move by Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday that overturned the 2010 conviction against Asia Bibi for insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The charge of blasphemy carries the death penalty in this majority Muslim nation.
Bibi’s acquittal immediately raised fears of religious violence — and presented a challenge to the government of new Prime Minister Imran Khan who came to power this summer partly by pursuing the Islamist agenda. Khan warned Islamist protesters on Wednesday night not to “test the patience of the state.”
Bibi remained at an undisclosed location Thursday where the 54-year-old mother of five was being held for security reasons, awaiting her formal release, her brother, James Masih told The Associated Press.
Masih said his sister simply would not be safe in Pakistan.
“She has no other option and she will leave the country soon,” he said. Masih would not disclose the country of her destination but both France and Spain have offered asylum.
Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, had returned from Britain with their children in mid-October and was waiting for her to join them, the brother added.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Islamists blocked a key road linking the capital, Islamabad with the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, demanding Bibi be publicly hanged. Authorities deployed paramilitary troops, signaling they could move in to clear the roads.
Protesters, rallied by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, also set up roadblocks and burned tires in the southern port city of Karachi while hundreds of Islamists clashed Thursday with police in various parts of eastern Punjab province.
Many parents kept their children from school, fearing more violence.
The Islamists also called for the killing of the three judges, including Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who acquitted Bibi.
The three are on the hit list of Rizvi’s Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, which has demanded a public execution for Bibi. Rizvi has managed to turn out tens of thousands of supporters in the past, often forcing authorities to bow to his demands on religious matters.
Tehreek-e-Labbaik claimed Thursday that two of its supporters were killed by police fire during overnight clashes in Karachi. No government official could immediately confirm any casualties.
In his televised speech, Prime Minister Khan warned the Islamists: “Let me make it very clear to you that the state will fulfil its responsibility.”
Bibi’s lawyer, Saiful Malook, has gone into hiding as the extremists had threatened his life as well.
On Wednesday, cleric Afzal Qadri, with Rizvi by his side, urged a crowd of supporters outside the Punjab provincial parliament in the city of Lahore to revolt against army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and overthrow Khan’s government.
Bibi’s acquittal, however, has been seen as a hopeful sign by Christians in Pakistan, where the mere rumor of blasphemy can spark lynchings. Religious minorities, who have been repeatedly targeted by extremists, fear the law because it is often used to settle scores and to pressure minorities.
In 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was shot and killed by one of his guards for defending Bibi and criticizing the misuse of the blasphemy law. The assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was hanged for the crime, but later was hailed by religious hard-liners as a martyr, with millions visiting a shrine set up for him near Islamabad.
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for minorities was also killed in 2011 after he demanded justice for Bibi.
Bibi was arrested in 2009 after she was accused of blasphemy following a quarrel with two fellow female farm workers who refused to drink from a water container used by a Christian. A few days later, a mob accused her of insulting Islam’s prophet, leading to her 2010 conviction.
Bibi’s family has always maintained her innocence and says she never insulted the prophet.
Christian woman acquitted in Pakistan to leave country
Christian woman acquitted in Pakistan to leave country
- Asia Bibi’s acquittal immediately raised fears of religious violence
- Prime Minister Khan ha warned the Islamists: ‘Let me make it very clear to you that the state will fulfil its responsibility’
AstraZeneca to withdraw COVID vaccine globally as demand dips
- AstraZeneca says initiated worldwide withdrawal due to “surplus of available updated vaccines”
- Drugmaker has previously admitted vaccine causes side effects such as blood clots, low blood platelet counts
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it had initiated the worldwide withdrawal of its COVID-19 vaccine due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines” since the pandemic.
The company also said it would proceed to withdraw the vaccine Vaxzevria’s marketing authorizations within Europe.
“As multiple, variant COVID-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines,” the company said, adding that this had led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied.
According to media reports, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker has previously admitted in court documents that the vaccine causes side-effects such as blood clots and low blood platelet counts.
The firm’s application to withdraw the vaccine was made on March 5 and came into effect on May 7, according to the Telegraph, which first reported the development.
The Serum Institute of India (SII), which produced AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine under the brand name Covishield, stopped manufacturing and supply of the doses since December 2021, an SII spokesperson said.
London-listed AstraZeneca began moving into respiratory syncytial virus vaccines and obesity drugs through several deals last year after a slowdown in growth as COVID-19 medicine sales declined.
Ex-national security adviser criticizes UK PM for not suspending arms sales to Israel
- Lord Peter Ricketts: ‘Pity’ govt ‘could not have taken a stand on this and got out ahead of the US’
- American decision to pause delivery of weapons seen as warning to Israel to abandon or temper plan to invade Rafah
LONDON: A former UK national security adviser has condemned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for failing to suspend weapons sales to Israel, The Independent reported on Wednesday.
After the US paused a delivery of bombs, Sunak has yet to follow suit despite mounting pressure from within his own Conservative Party.
Lord Peter Ricketts, a life peer in the House of Lords and retired senior diplomat, said Britain should have been “ahead of the US” in ending arms sales to Israel.
The US decision to pause the shipment of bombs is seen as a warning to Israel to abandon or temper its plan to invade Rafah in southern Gaza.
More than 1 million Palestinian civilians are sheltering in the city after being forced out of northern sections of the enclave.
Ricketts said it is a “pity” that “the government could not have taken a stand on this and got out ahead of the US.”
Conservative MP David Jones made the same call in comments to The Independent, saying: “We should give similar consideration to a pause.”
He added: “Anyone viewing the distressing scenes in Gaza will want to see an end to the fighting. Hamas is in reality beaten. Now is the time for diplomacy to bring this dreadful conflict to an end.”
At Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, Sunak faced a flurry of questions over Britain’s potential ties to an Israeli invasion of Rafah. He said the government’s position remains “unchanged.”
Taliban deny Pakistani claims of Afghan involvement in attack on Chinese workers
- According to Islamabad, suicide attack that killed 5 Chinese in Pakistan was planned in Afghanistan
- Afghan Defense Ministry says the March attack showed weakness of Pakistan’s security agencies
KABUL: The Taliban on Wednesday rejected allegations of Afghan involvement in a recent deadly attack on Chinese workers in neighboring Pakistan.
The five Chinese nationals, who were employed on the site of a hydropower project in Dasu in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, were killed alongside their driver in a suicide blast on March 26.
Pakistan’s military said on Tuesday that the attack was planned in Afghanistan and that the suicide bomber was an Afghan citizen.
Maj. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s army, also told reporters that Islamabad had “solid evidence” of militants using Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan, that since the beginning of the year such assaults had killed more than 60 security personnel and that authorities in Kabul were unhelpful in addressing the violence.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Defense responded on Wednesday that the claims were “irresponsible and far from the reality.
“Blaming Afghanistan for such incidents is a failed attempt to divert attention from the truth, and we strongly reject it,” Enayatullah Khwarazmi, the ministry’s spokesperson, said in a statement.
“The killing of Chinese citizens in an area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is under tight security cover of the Pakistani army, shows the weakness of the Pakistani security agencies or cooperation with the attackers.”
The Dasu attack followed two other major assaults in regions where China has invested more than $65 billion in infrastructure projects as part of its wider Belt and Road Initiative.
On March 25, a naval air base was attacked in Turbat in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, and on March 20, militants stormed a government compound in nearby Gwadar district, which is home to a Chinese-operated port.
Pakistan is home to twin insurgencies, one by militants related to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan — the Pakistani Taliban — and the other by ethnic separatists who seek secession in southwestern Balochistan province, which remains Pakistan’s poorest despite being rich in natural resources.
While the attacks in Balochistan were claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army — the most prominent of several separatist groups in the province, no group claimed responsibility for the one in Dasu.
Blaming it on Afghanistan, however, was “baseless,” according to Naseer Ahmad Nawidy, an international relations professor at Salam University in Kabul.
“The insurgency in the region has existed for very long now and cannot be attributed to a specific area or country. Pakistan looks at the Islamic Emirate in its current form as a threat to its interests. The Pakistan government needs to develop its relations with the Islamic Emirate based on equal rights and goodwill for stability in the whole region,” Nawidy told Arab News.
“Stability in the region requires mutual cooperation and trust. The governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan must end the relations crisis at the earliest. Repeating such claims will further increase the tensions and may cause enmity between the two countries.”
Abdul Saboor Mubariz, a political scientist and lecturer at Alfalah University in Jalalabad, said that Pakistan’s claims were meant to put pressure on the Taliban to help Islamabad in its campaign against the TTP.
“Pakistan’s government is using different forms of pressure such as forcible deportation of Afghan refugees, claims about security threats from Afghanistan, closing border points and creating challenges for Afghan traders,” he said, adding that accusations and claims of links to attacks were affecting the Taliban administration as it still sought recognition from foreign governments.
“The claims are critical for the Islamic Emirate as it is seeking engagement with the countries in the region and across the globe, while the government remains unrecognized by all world countries.”
India PM Modi’s party deletes X post accused of targeting Muslims
- Video featured opposition politicians scheming to abolish programs for marginalized Hindus, distribute them to Muslims
- India’s PM Modi, expected to win polls, has made controversial remarks in election speeches, referring to Muslims as “infiltrators”
New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party on Wednesday deleted a cartoon video posted on social media platform X that was criticized for targeting minority Muslims during an ongoing national election.
India’s election code bans campaigning based on “communal” incitement but the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has frequently invoked the country’s main religious divide on the campaign trail.
The video, posted by an official BJP account, featured caricatures of opposition politicians scheming to abolish special affirmative action programs for marginalized Hindu groups and instead distribute them to Muslims.
The election commission wrote to the platform’s Indian office on Tuesday saying the “objectionable” post violated Indian law.
On Wednesday the original post had disappeared from the platform, with a notice saying it had been deleted.
A police complaint filed by the opposition Congress party accused the video of promoting “enmity between different religions.”
Modi, who is widely expected to win a third term in office when the six-week general election concludes next month, has made similar claims to the video in campaign appearances since last month.
He has used public speeches to refer to Muslims as “infiltrators” and “those who have more children,” prompting condemnation from opposition politicians, who have complained to election authorities.
On Tuesday he again said that his political opponents would “snatch” affirmative action policies meant for disadvantaged Hindus and redirect them to Muslims.
Modi remains widely popular a decade after coming to power, in large part due to his government’s positioning of the nation’s majority faith at the center of its politics, despite India’s officially secular constitution.
That in turn has made India’s 220-million-plus Muslim population increasingly anxious about their future in the country.
The BJP last month published another contentious animated video on Instagram in which a voiceover warned that if the opposition came to power, “it will snatch all the money and wealth from non-Muslims and distribute them among Muslims, their favorite community.”
The video was removed after several users reported it for “hate speech.”
UK says to expel Russian defense attache as ‘undeclared military intelligence officer’
- Interior minister James Cleverly told parliament the UK would also remove the diplomatic status of several Russian-owned properties
- UK is currently a staunch NATO backer of Ukraine
London: The UK government on Wednesday raised tensions with the Kremlin by announcing it would expel a Russian defense attache for being “an undeclared military intelligence officer.”
Interior minister James Cleverly told parliament the UK would also remove the diplomatic status of several Russian-owned properties, including one in Sussex, southern England, and another in London “which we believe have been used for intelligence purposes.”
There would also be new restrictions on Russian diplomatic visas such as a cap on the length of time Russian diplomats can spend in the UK, he added.
The move comes with the UK concerned at an apparent increase in “malign” Russian activity on UK soil, including an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked business allegedly orchestrated by the Kremlin.
A British man who it is claimed has links to the Wagner Group was charged in connection with that case last month.
London has previously accused Moscow of being behind the poisoning of two Russian former agents on UK soil, and of a spate of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.
The UK is currently a staunch NATO backer of Ukraine, providing training for troops and military equipment in the fightback against Russia.
Cleverly said the new package of measures was intended “to make clear to Russia that we will not tolerate such apparent escalations.”
He warned that Moscow would make accusations of Russophobia and spread conspiracy theories in response to his announcement.
“This is not new and the British people and the British Government will not fall for it, and will not be taken for fools by (President Vladimir) Putin’s bots, trolls and lackeys.
“Russia’s explanation was totally inadequate. Our response will be resolute and firm.
“Our message to Russia is clear: stop this illegal war, withdraw your troops from Ukraine, cease this malign activity.”
