₦airaland Forum

The final judgment said that one of Noreen's accusers violated the Ashtiname of Muhammad , a "covenant made by Muhammad with Christians in the seventh century but still valid today". Judge Khosa also stated that the two women who made accusations against Noreen “had no regard for the truth” and that the claim that she blasphemed Muhammad in public was a “concoction incarnate”. The Supreme Court of Pakistan's ruling cited “material contradictions and inconsistent statements of the witnesses” that “cast a shadow of doubt on the prosecution’s version of facts.”

Response

Asia Noreen was reading the Christian Bible when she heard the news, upon which exclaimed "I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really? ... I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it." Noreen's daughter Eisham Ashiq, said that the news of the acquittal was “the most wonderful moment in my life ... I want to hug my mother and then celebrate with my family. I am grateful to God for listening to our prayers.”

International Response

UNITED NATIONS: UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said that the United Nations "welcome[s] the decision of Pakistan’s Supreme Court".
UNITED KINGDOM: Theresa May, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, stated that "the news would be welcomed around the world, and the UK was committed to the global abolition of the death penalty."
UNITED STATES: The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chair Tenzin Dorjee lauded the ruling, saying “The case of Asia Bibi illustrates the extent to which blasphemy laws can be exploited to target minority communities. These laws seek to protect entire religions rather than the individual, as should be the case under international human rights standards. It is deeply troubling that Bibi’s case even reached this level, where she almost became the first person in Pakistan’s history to be executed for the crime of blasphemy.”
FRANCE: Marine Le Pen , president of the
National Rally in France called on her government to grant Asia Noreen asylum.
The European Centre for Law and Justice lauded the ruling as well, and advocated the "abolition of the crime of blasphemy in Pakistan". Several countries including France and Spain have offered Asia Noreen asylum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Bibi_blasphemy_case

BACKGROUND
Aasiya Noreen was born and raised in Ittan Wali, a small, rural village in the
Sheikhupura District of Punjab, Pakistan, thirty miles outside of Lahore. Noreen, who is a Roman Catholic, worked as a farmhand in Sheikhupura to support her family. She married Ashiq Masih, a brick laborer who had three children from a previous marriage, and had two more children with him. Noreen and her family were the only Christians in the village. Before her incarceration, she had been repeatedly urged by her fellow workers to convert to Islam.


In June 2009, Noreen was harvesting falsa berries with a group of other women farmhands in a field in Sheikhupura. She was asked at one point to fetch water from a nearby well; she complied but stopped to take a drink with an old metal cup she had found lying next to the well. A neighbor of Noreen, Musarat, who had been involved in a running feud with Noreen's family about some property damage, saw her and angrily told her that it was forbidden for a Christian to drink water from the same utensil from which Muslims drink, and that some of the other workers considered her to be unclean because she was a Christian, referring to the caste system in Pakistan. Noreen recounted that Musarat said to her: "That’s right, you’re just a filthy Christian! You’ve contaminated our water and now you dare speak for the Prophet! Stupid bitch, your Jesus didn’t even have a proper father, he was a bastard, don’t you know that?" Noreen recounts that when they made derogatory statements about Christianity and demanded that she convert to Islam, she responded, "I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind? And why should it be me that converts instead of you?" An argument ensued.

Prosecution and Imprisonment
Noreen denied that she had committed blasphemy and said that she had been accused by her neighbor to "settle an old score". In November 2010, Muhammed Naveed Iqbal, a judge at the court of Sheikhupura, Punjab , sentenced her to death by hanging. Additionally, a fine of the equivalent of $1,100 was imposed.
With the verdict, she became the first woman condemned to death in Pakistan on blasphemy charges.

Appeals
On 16 October 2014, the Lahore High Court dismissed Noreen's appeal and upheld her death sentence. On 20 November 2014, her husband appealed to the President of Pakistan for clemency. On 24 November 2014, her lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court.
On 22 July 2015, the Supreme Court of Pakistan suspended Bibi's death sentence for the duration of the appeals process.

Supreme Court Acquittal
On 31 October 2018, the Supreme Court in a 56-page detailed judgement authored by CJP Nisar, with a separate concurrent opinion note from Justice Khosa, acquitted Asia Bibi of blasphemy charges after accepting her 2015 appeal against her sentence. The court also ruled that "she was free to go, if not wanted in connection with any other case". In his verdict, Judge Asif Saeed Khan Khosa noted:

The statements made by Muhammad Idrees (CW1) and Muhammad Amin Bukhari, SP (Investigation) (PW6) before the trial court revealed that the alleged blasphemy had been committed by the Christian appellant after her Muslim co-workers had insulted the appellant’s religion and had injured her religious sensibilities only because she believed in and was a follower of Jesus Christ. According to the Holy Qur’an a Muslim’s faith is not complete till he believes in all the Holy Prophets and Messengers of Almighty Allah including Jesus Christ (Isa son of Maryam) (Peace Be Upon Him) and all the revealed Holy Books of Almighty Allah including the Holy Bible. From that perspective insulting the appellant’s religion by her Muslim co-workers was no less blasphemous. — Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Senior Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/84180.jpg?w=400

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Bibi_blasphemy_case

CilicMarin:
He is going nowhere.....Dont fall for this propaganda

LOL. By virtue of being former vice president, I doubt they'd arrest him (or let's assume he was banned while he was still VP). Sso if they decide to grant him a visa, it's an indirect statement that he's safe.

Purchased court order! Nigeria's judiciary are so confused that they can almost grant any injunction no matter how ridiculous such order is. I'm waiting for a day they'll grant a temporary injunction for a man to stop sleeping with his wife "until the suit has been entertained".

Has Atiku bribed the US officials or political lobbyists or the US is trying to play underhand politics in Nigeria? Have the charges been dropped and if yes, why?

From all I have read since this case began, I've come to the conclusion that this man is a very smart criminal. Garba Shehu said the man has introduced a lot of reforms since he assumed office that has led to the FG saving more than 2bn yearly and some people seem to have conspired against him for it.
But the truth is most likely that he's using the so-called reforms as a smokescreen while he continues to steal which he thought would be undetected by anyone.

Everything seems to point to the possibility of this man's impeachment and removal from office with the way the house of assembly is progressively following the scandal. How would he defend himself tomorrow when he appears before the assembly? Will he throw in the towel and ask for soft landing that'll shield him from prosecution (it's a norm worldwide - in the 1970s, US president Nixon resigned and he wasn't prosecuted thereafter)? What a fall.

The man is in politics to "while away" time and keep himself busy. He may have made his money through ritualistic means.

SEXYBILLIONAIRE:
another idiot still believes in rituals. can naija allow guys to handle guys like usa so i can trace brainless idiots like this one and just waste his miserable life

Next time, don't come to my mentions with your hate and unbridled tongue. You can't drag me into the gutter with you.

SarkinYarki:
Will you shut up ? Do you even know why Dubai was chosen ? Do you know the meeting Atiku holds with representatives of western leader daily who are now supporting ending Buharis bad leadership

Shallow reasoning and one that's a product of inferiority complex to so-called Western leaders. We're trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with those imperialists, but some of you keep on driving us backwards with comments such as this.

MODIFIED
cc Seun. This is a fantastic idea. But pls first and foremost employ two or three full time Web programmers into Nairaland. Upgrade this website into something big, where we can even have verified accounts like it obtains on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Other features could include: >>blocking someone from being able to follow you (to put an end to cases of trolling); >>block posts from certain people, especially those who are agents of hate and tribal slurs, implementing hashtags and >> "at" feature. @Daviddson .
The UI needs a total overhaul.

Imagine each oil producing state in the south making an average of ₦100 bn monthly from oil in a restructured Nigeria where each state controls its resources independently of the FG. Rivers would compete with UAE if someone like Amaechi is governor. But will they appropriate it well or share it among themselves?

The handouts states go to collect from Abuja every month, is a travesty.

The IMN are no doubt terrorists just like boko haram. They already had their private army before the encounter with the military in 2015. And the stories of how they had been a pain in the necks of Kaduna people is not hidden from anybody.
But why can't we deploy antiriot policemen rather than always calling our military to counter minor protests? We're abusing the military institutions, no doubt. That's why some people even go to their Barracks to bribe them with cash and take them to harass fellow citizens - they learned it from the govt.

LIES! They were tagged in the tweet; they didn't retweet it. It's just the same way you tag your Facebook friends on your photos you took with them. Say no to fake news. Lalasticlala, the content of this thread is different from its title.

Every state ought to make laws to regulate house rent charges. That's one element of a developed society - order in the way everything is done, no matter how minor it might seem.

Jesus Christ ONCE rubbed moist sand on a blind man's eyes and told him to go wash them off and begin regain his sight. He did and the man was healed from blindness. I don't have any grouse with this kind of instruction as long as they do not become norms we have now permanently employed.

OneCorner:
U still carry dz ur mumu Christian and Muslim bigotry go Canada.
I hope u mess up or wrongly caught and get deported

How old are you? You've carried your bile and hate from Politics Section to this place. You're a big ethnic jingoist and hate spreader, but here you're seeing someone's innocent wish to meet a "Christian Nairalander" as a sign of bigotry. How old are you, again?

This is even very civil compared to what takes place on Nairaland. But it's still very awful and childish just like those universities war we witnessed last week. Lazy Nigerian youths.

There's no doubt about it that Dino lied then to whitewash Buhari and put himself in the good book of APC and of course, to further the campaign propaganda.
Why would Buhari reject ₦23m monthly pension when he has children schooling in the UK? What was he supposed to use to take care of their needs?

Fake news. Mynd44

Racoon:
See the shame of a nation. A president being the number one image of Nigeria have continued to disgrace the country with reckless abandon with his silly utterances.

You should actually be ashamed of yourself and your education (if you had any ) for believing this. Many of you can comment on any thread just for the sake of likes no matter how very ridiculous and fake it looks.

To some people, they don't mind using bad means to fight what's bad. I'm sure many people in the APC or who support APC, are in this category of people. They said the era of PDP was marked by brazen looting of the treasury and very little to show for the huge supply money earned through crude oil and taxes. This is VERY true.
But, the question I've been asking myself is, 'are the so-called saints in APC not also going to use govt moneys (even if Buhari wants to feign ignorance) to run their campaign?' And now, we're seeing it.

Hmmm

I can't forget that second one. I was a grandmaster in it those days. I could still recall the day I stopped playing it because my playmate changed location. It was as if the world had ended.
The table tennis too...we would buy several packets of biscuits and run a championship until two people go to the final and a winner and a runner-up emerge. It was so fun and interesting then. How time flies.

dVIA:
And a few days later, the man who issued it was murdered in cold blood.
Something is wrong somewhere bro,

Really? I'm hearing this for the first time. I think you're confusing this with Kano REC who died under questionable circumstances (house inferno) days after election.

This shouldn't be an issue again. A statement of result was issued to him before the last election by his Katsina high school, so why should we start going over this afresh, making news where there's none?

In part, the NSA is right. But the truth is that these killings have always been happening since decades ago. The difference now is that social media now makes the news to travel faster and reach wider audiences than before, even though there are still people who take advantage of this to use pictures of events that happen in other African countries.

This election will go in the annals of Nigeria's history as the most contested election - much more than 2015's due in part to the two main contenders coming from the north and that the era of writing fictitious results are gone.

I don't support illegality but I must say that what the govt did at that time was a very good thing.

Just imagine the ethnic coloration this case would have assumed if the person had been a southerners or Christian. This goes a long way to show that you can never fully please everybody at the same time.

Peter Obi can stand head to head with Prof Osinbajo. He's no doubt someone who knows his onions. At least, his antecedents as governor speak loud for him. I can vouch for this man that he can make a good president with a steel will to fight corruption more than Buhari thinks he's doing.

annnikky:
Is it possible uncle liar?

At least, know how to spell 'Mohammed' first before throwing shades at Lai who never made that fake news statement.

Ngene aka Cilicmarin has evolved into Chrismafian and littering Nairaland with shameless support for Ganduje without even providing a near-sensible counterattack. What a life.