ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Wednesday maintained that Aasia Bibi has the right to travel anywhere after the Supreme Court’s verdict absolved her of the blasphemy charges.
On Tuesday, the top court rejected a review petition challenging its October 2018 decision to acquit Aasia Bibi, a peasant Christian woman enmeshed in a years-long blasphemy row.
The FO spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal said that Aasia can travel inside Pakistan or make a foreign visit as she has been cleared regarding all charges by the highest court of the law.
Aasia, who is currently in Pakistan, was recently offered asylum by Canada. She has reportedly accepted Canadia Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s offer of asylum.
The Trudeau government has the support of Canada’s opposition Conservative Party, who have urged him to “use every mechanism at his disposal to offer the Bibi family asylum”.
In November Trudeau told reporters while in Paris: “There is a delicate domestic context that we respect which is why I don’t want to say any more about that, but I will remind people Canada is a welcoming country,” he added.
VERDICT:
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel dismissed the petition against their last October’s decision to free Aasia Bibi from death row, where she languished for eight years.
“Based on merit, this review petition is dismissed,” Chief Justice Khosa told a hearing at the apex court, which overturned Asia Bibi´s death sentence for blasphemy last year.
“You could not point out [even] a single mistake in the Supreme Court’s verdict,” the top judge told the petitioner’s lawyer.