Asia Bibi Granted Asylum in Canada

Canada :canada: had already accepted two of this lady’s five children for asylum.

She is free to leave Pakistan per court overturning of her conviction, ending a 10 year stay on death row that most likely resulted from office water cooler gossip.

Good.

I am glad to hear that Canada has given her asylum.

It would be interesting to see if anyone in the media will ask former President Obama about this case, given his famous pronouncement at the UN back in 2012:

“The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam”

There is nothing to ask him, not if the speech is actually taken in context. He also said;

It is time to leave the call of violence and the politics of division behind. On so many issues, we face a choice between the promise of the future, or the prisons of the past. And we cannot afford to get it wrong. We must seize this moment. And America stands ready to work with all who are willing to embrace a better future.

The future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians in Egypt — it must be claimed by those in Tahrir Square who chanted, “Muslims, Christians, we are one.” The future must not belong to those who bully women — it must be shaped by girls who go to school, and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons.

The future must not belong to those corrupt few who steal a country’s resources — it must be won by the students and entrepreneurs, the workers and business owners who seek a broader prosperity for all people. Those are the women and men that America stands with; theirs is the vision we will support.

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam . But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.

Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims and Shiite pilgrims. It’s time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, that’s the vision we will support.

some how Conservatives in Canada will be upset about this.

According the article in the OP, Asia Bibi, is a Christian who “had been accused by Muslim villagers of insulting the prophet Muhammad in a row over a cup of water”. She was convicted and sentenced to death under Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

Obama said that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” A death sentence certainly assures that people who are convicted of insulting the prophet have no place in the future. The media should ask for clarification from Obama on the apparent support for the actions of Pakistan’s courts.

This is a major story but this happen almost every day in America and Canada, we welcome people of all faith who have been victims of persecution and give them the ability to live their lives peacefully in safety.

There is no clarification required and no apparent support for said actions in giving her the death penalty, it was a general statement made perfectly clear by what I quoted above.

Let us know when this happens.

If Trudeau has anything to do with it a segment of Canadian will hate it, he is almost as polarizing as Trump.

A literal reading of Obama’s quote appears to say that execution for slandering the prophet of Islam is fine so long as the Pakistan government makes at least token condemnation against desecration Christian images and against the destruction of churches and doesn’t formally deny the holocaust.

My experience is that the media ignores statements like this from Obama but would be hyperventilating if a conservative would make statements with similar ambiguities.

1 Like

You are willfully misinterpreting what he said in it’s fuller context. Have fun with it.

I wish the US had spoke up first.

Like the poor Sudanese woman sentenced to death for “Apostasy” (she had always been Christian, never a practitioner of Islam), I’m glad Asia Bibi & family have a new home.

It’s a shame Pakistan is such a backwards society in some ways. Most people I’ve known from the Indian Subcontinent are genuinely decent people.

She could have gone to the U.S, who also offered but she had extended family in Canada.

Didn’t we just have a huge dust up about taking things out of context and not learning the whole story before we open our mouths?