Asia Bibi’s family pursued by vigilante Islamists in Pakistan

THE family of Asia Bibi are being pursued by vigilantes in Pakistan as they await her release from custody on blasphemy charges, a church charity has said.

Hardline Islamists have been knocking on doors in the neighbourhood where her husband and daughters live, raising fears that they could be killed before she can leave Pakistan.

The disclosure came from the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a Christian charity that hosted her husband during a recent visit to the UK to campaign for Mrs Bibi’s acquittal.

John Pontifex, the charity’s spokesman, who spoke to family representatives last weekend, told The Daily Telegraph: “They said that some mullahs had been going round their neighbourhood showing their pictures and asking residents if they knew where they lived. [The family] are having to move from place to place.”

The charity’s comments will add to public concern over Britain’s failure to offer Mrs Bibi and her family political asylum.

Last week MPS accused the Foreign Office of giving in to “mob” rule after officials admitted that they were worried it could lead to attacks on British embassy staff in Pakistan.

Mr Pontifex added: “If we continue to wring our hands over this case, there is a possibility that we will wake up one morning and find the family are dead.”

Mrs Bibi was acquitted last month of blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge that carries the

‘If we continue to wring our hands over this case ... we could wake up one morning and find the family are dead’

death sentence in Pakistan. She is in protective custody, pending an appeal lodged by a religious party.

Mr Pontifex spoke out ahead of the launch today of Aid to the Church in Need’s annual Religious Freedom report, which assesses threats to Christians and minority faiths worldwide.

It identified some positive trends, with the defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in northern Iraq allowing Christians to return in large numbers to Christian-majority cities such as Qaraqosh. There was also a drop in attacks on Christians in Kenya, where the Somali terror group alshabaab had carried out several massacres in the last five years.

However, the report said that military gains against Nigeria’s Boko Haram terror group, which had targeted Christians across the country’s north, had been offset by attacks on Christian farmers by armed Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria’s central belt.

Coptic Christians in Egypt also remained under Islamist threat, following a massacre of 29 worshippers last year as they travelled to a monastery.

The report also found that the persecution of Christians in Africa and the Middle East was increasingly ignored in a “religiously illiterate West”.

It warned: “In the eyes of Western governments and the media, religious freedom is slipping down the human rights priority rankings, being eclipsed by issues of gender, sexuality and race.”

Mr Pontifex said that such attitudes seemed to be exemplified by the British Government’s conduct in Mrs Bibi’s case.

“Britain has issued a lot of pious words about standing up for religious freedom abroad,” he said. “It should match those words with action.”