Preseli MP Stephen Crabb and a cross-party group of MPs have written to the High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom condemning the treatment of religious prisoner Asia Bibi.
Asia Bibi is a Catholic woman who was acquitted of blasphemy after spending eight years on death row in Pakistan. She has since been offered asylum by Canada but is being held in ‘protective custody’ and is unable to leave Pakistan.
In the letter to Mohammad Nafees Zakaria, High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom, Stephen Crabb said the Pakistan’s Government behaviour ‘falls short of what we would expect from a member of the Commonwealth’.
Reports from Asia Bibi’s friend, who fled Pakistan earlier this month, say that Bibi and her husband are locked in a single room, where the door only opens ‘at food times’.
Commenting on the continued imprisonment of Asia Bibi, Mr Crabb said: “The treatment of Asia Bibi for her religious beliefs is outrageous and flies in the face of the UN Convention on Human Rights. It is persecution of the worst kind”.
“I have received many letters and emails from Preseli Pembrokeshire constituents who, like me, are concerned with the treatment of Asia and other Christians in Pakistan.
Stephen has previously spoken out in Parliament against human rights abuses in Pakistan and questioned why the UK government continues to give large amounts of aid to Pakistan when it fails to respect basic human rights.