{"id":79318,"date":"2018-11-03T13:38:19","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T08:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=79318"},"modified":"2018-11-03T13:38:19","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T08:38:19","slug":"asia-bibis-lawyer-leaves-pakistan-citing-threats-to-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=79318","title":{"rendered":"Asia Bibi&#8217;s lawyer leaves Pakistan citing threats to his life"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"template__main  clearfix    modifier--open        px-1  modifier--widedefault  modifier--blockquote-center-narrow  \">\n<div class=\"story__content          pt-1  mt-1\">\n<p>Islamabad, Nov 03 (TNS): The lawyer who\u00a0saved Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy, from the gallows left the country on Saturday, saying his life was under threat.<\/p>\n<p>Saiful Mulook&#8217;s latest victory saw the freeing of Asia Bibi, who spent nearly a decade on death row, after the Supreme Court overturned her sentence on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The decision sparked protests across the country, with major roads blocked in Lahore and Islamabad as religious hardliners called for the death of the judges and those who helped acquit Bibi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the current scenario, it&#8217;s not possible for me to live in Pakistan,\u201d the 62-year-old told AFP before boarding a plane to Europe early Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI need to stay alive as I still have to fight the legal battle for Asia Bibi,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday night, the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party (TLP), which has largely led the demonstrations,\u00a0announced an end to mass protestsafter reaching a deal with the government.<\/p>\n<p>A five-point agreement seen by AFP, signed by both parties, said the government would not object to an appeal of the verdict, filed earlier in the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the outcry, Mulook said it was \u201cunfortunate but not unexpected\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat&#8217;s painful is the response of the government. They cannot even implement an order of the country&#8217;s highest court,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cthe struggle for justice must continue\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>According to the agreement, which came after a failed first round of talks, legal proceedings will follow to impose a travel ban on Bibi and stop her leaving the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer life would be more or less the same, either inside a prison or in solitary confinement for security fears\u201d until a decision on the appeal, said Mulook.<\/p>\n<p>The deal was criticised by local media and the country&#8217;s oldest newspaper\u00a0<em>Dawn<\/em>\u00a0called it \u201canother surrender\u201d in an editorial on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYet another government has capitulated to violent religious extremists who neither believe in democracy, nor the constitution,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n<p>The TLP, founded in 2015, blockaded the capital Islamabad for several weeks last year calling for stricter enforcement of Pakistan&#8217;s controversial blasphemy laws.<\/p>\n<p>That protest forced the resignation of the federal law minister and paved the way for the group to poll more than 2.23 million votes in the July 25 general election, in what analysts called a \u201csurprisingly\u201d rapid rise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Islamabad, Nov 03 (TNS): The lawyer who\u00a0saved Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy, from the gallows left the country on Saturday, saying his life was under threat. Saiful Mulook&#8217;s latest victory saw the freeing of Asia Bibi, who spent nearly a decade on death row, after the Supreme Court overturned her sentence on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79320,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79318\/revisions\/79320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}