Asia Bibi case exposes Britain’s craven anti-Christian elites

Of all the shameful episodes in Britain’s recent history of managed decline, few have been so humiliating and amoral as the Government’s refusal to grant asylum to Asia Bibi, the Catholic woman farm worker falsely accused under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, sentenced to death and finally acquitted by that country’s supreme court.

Despite the acquittal, Asia Bibi and her entire family are in acute danger of being murdered by Islamist mobs. She has been placed under protection at a secret location by the Pakistan government while the members of her family are reportedly moving from house to house in an effort to stay ahead of the lynch mob.

The supreme court judges who acquitted her have similarly been threatened with death and Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan, in an attempt to placate mob violence, has agreed to an appeal against the supreme court judgement, which is unconstitutional, and denied Asia Bibi permission to leave the country. Such deference to the threats of terrorists is the hallmark of a failed state, which is what Pakistan is becoming. Unfortunately it is a failed state with nuclear weapons.

Yet the British government is tainted with the same appeasement of terror. The Foreign Office opposes the granting of asylum to Asia Bibi and her family on the grounds that diplomatic and consular staff in Pakistan could not be guaranteed protection from attack if Britain granted her asylum. Sir Simon McDonald, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, insisted on giving his evidence on the subject to the foreign affairs select committee in private.

His remarks on the record, however, give us some insight into the mentality prevailing in King Charles Street today: “If the objective is to protect life and some other country can provide some more complete safe harbour, why should the UK not be open to working with that country?”

There’s a fearless, human rights defending philosophy for you.

Campaigners trying to help Asia Bibi claim that the fears of the government also relate to possible disturbances in Britain, which raises the question what kind of people the government has been admitting into this country. The authorities concede 400 returning jihadis have entered Britain; knowing the authorities’ economy with the statistical truth on such matters we may safely multiply that figure to arrive at a more realistic assessment.

For years Britain has thrown open the gates to every kind of bogus asylum seeker. Now, when the most urgent and utterly genuine asylum case in the world appeals for help, Britain is closed to her and her family. It is no coincidence that this victim is Christian. People unaware of the attitudes of the United Nations and Western governments were puzzled, at the height of the Syrian crisis, by the character of the Syrian refugees shown arriving in the media.

Isis was militantly Islamist, Syria’s Christian communities were in mortal danger, yet the asylum seekers being interviewed were called Mahomet and their wives wore the hijab. Where were the Christians? The answer was obtained only via a FOI request by a Christian charity which obtained an order from the Information Commissioner’s Office threatening the Home Office with contempt of court proceedings in the High Court.

During the first three months of this year, out of 1,358 Syrian refugees recommended by the UNHCR for resettlement in the UK, only four were Christians. All four were rejected although 1,112 others were accepted. Of the 7,060 Syrian refugees recommended to the UK last year, just 25 were Christians and only 11 of them were accepted, making Christian Syrians 0.23 per cent of resettled refugees.

How does the most endangered section of the population come to be excluded from asylum? The explanation is the malignant anti-Christian climate prevailing at the UN and among Western governments, notably Britain’s. Asia Bibi is the latest victim. She has spent nine years in prison, under constant danger of violent death, has suffered beatings and humiliations of every kind under the accusation of false witnesses, as the Pakistan supreme court recognized.

Britain must give a more robust response to the uncivilized conduct of Pakistan. If the safety of diplomatic personnel cannot be guaranteed then, in the words of Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, does this not “raise the question that either staff should be withdrawn or security increased or otherwise UK policy is effectively dictated to by a mob”.

Lord Alton of Liverpool also suggested an effective remedy: give Asia Bibi sanctuary and suspend aid to Pakistan – amounting to £463m last year – until that country upholds the rule of law and protects minorities. But suspension is not enough: aid to Pakistan should be abolished permanently. Over the past two decades Britain has given £2.8bn of taxpayers’ money to Pakistan, a nation that can afford nuclear weapons.

This kind of nonsense must end and so must the increasingly lethal consensus in the West that makes Christians second-class citizens whose lives are of little account.‎