Aasia Bibi to meet President Macron to seek asylum in France

UN should appoint her international envoy for human rights, says Aasia's counsel Advocate Saiful Malook

ISLAMABAD: Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges by the Supreme Court of Pakistan after spending eight years on death row, will meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Advocate Saiful Malook, who pleaded blasphemy case in the apex court, has confirmed to The Express Tribune that she will meet the French president to seek asylum in France.

"Aasia deserves to be granted asylum, he said, adding that the United Nations should appoint her as an international ambassador for human rights.

“My great desire is to live in France,” Aasia said in an interview with RTL radio – her first trip to France since fleeing with her family to Canada in 2018.

"France is the country from where I received my new life.... Anne-Isabelle is an angel for me," she said, referring to the French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who waged a long campaign for her release and later co-wrote Aasia Bibi's book – Blasphemy: A Memoir: Sentenced to Death over a Cup of Water.



The Christian woman was on death row since November 2010 after she was convicted on charges of committing blasphemy during an argument with two Muslim women in Punjab's Sheikhupura district.

Her plight gained international prominence after the then-Punjab Governor Salman Taseer pleaded for a retrial of her case and was subsequently shot dead by one of his security guards, Mumtaz Qadri, in January 2011.

She challenged the verdict in October 2014 but the Lahore High Court upheld the death sentence.

The Supreme Court stayed the execution in July 2015 and a three-judge special bench, headed by then chief justice Saqib Nisar, took it up after a three-year gap and acquitted her.

It is also learnt that she will receive her diploma as a Citizen of Honour of the city of Paris, a title she was awarded in 2015.

Aasia along with her family was living in Canada since her departure from Pakistan where they were granted permanent stay.

Sources said the European Union Parliament has also expressed concerns over the security arrangements of her counsel in Pakistan.

According to Malook, Pakistan's ambassador to EU Zaheer Janjua has assured a European lawmaker in a meeting in Germany that he would raise the matter of his security with officials in Islamabad.