Rimsha Masih’s Accuser Goes Free

Do you remember Rimsha Masih? She is the Pakistani Christian teenager who was accused of blaspheming against Islam in August 2012. In a great turning of the tables that promised justice and vindication, Masih was exonerated of all charges by the Islamabad High Court in November 2012, and her accuser, Muslim cleric Khalid Jadoon Chishti, became the first person in Pakistan’s history to be charged with fabricating evidence in a blasphemy case. and was imprisoned. Unfortunately, last Saturday, August 17, Chishti was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence by the district court of Islamabad.

In August 2012, a Muslim neighbor of Masih’s reported to Chishti  that Masih, who comes from an extremely poor Christian family in Mehrabadi, Islamabad, was carrying burned pages of the Koran in her shopping bag. Chishti called the authorities and filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the girl. The imam also demanded that Masih, who is believed to be developmentally disabled, be handed over to the Islamist mob that had quickly gathered and be burned alive.

Masih was arrested and charged under section 295-B of Pakistan’s penal code, a charge that carries a sentence of life imprisonment. Because of an international outcry on her behalf she was cleared of all charges by the Islamabad High Court. But in the intervening months, Imam Chishti made life hell for the impoverished Christian community in Maherabad.

According to the Barnabas Fund, “the alleged incident was broadcast over the loudspeakers of the mosques in the area.” Barnabas Fund reported that enraged Muslims severely beat the young girl and members of her family, and torched the houses of two Christian families. In addition, most of the Christians in the area (some 600 families) had to flee their homes and hide in the woods, since what passed for Friday prayers at the mosques was a pep talk against Christians by the imams that ended with Muslims taking an oath to drive the Christians out of the area. Barnabas Fund reveals that Muslim shopkeepers vowed not to sell food and other essentials to Christians and that Muslim landlords would end tenancy agreements with them. In fact, the Pakistani government insisted that Masih be incarcerated in a maximum security prison while awaiting trial, and that her family go into hiding, for their own protection.

Things changed when some members of the local Mehra Jaffer mosque, including three of the imam’s own deputies, informed the police that Chishti had himself placed desecrated pages of Koranic material in Masih’s bag to get rid of the community’s Christians and seize their property. On September 2, 2012, The Guardian reported that one deputy, Hafiz Mohammad Zubair “told Geo TV that he witnessed Chishti putting two pages of the Qu’ran into a plastic bag of ashes in order to strengthen the case against the girl. Zubair said: ‘I asked him what he was doing and he said this is the evidence against them and this is how we can get them out from this area.'”

Chishti was arrested on September 2, 2012, but sadly reminiscent of what takes place in the trial of a drug lord or a gang leader, the witnesses that testified against him later withdrew their statements and claimed that they had been “coerced by the police.”

Tahir Ashrafi, an Islamic cleric who heads the Pakistan Ulema Council, told Christian news service World Watch Monitor, that “he was disappointed at the court’s decision and that he had hoped Chishti’s case would serve as a warning for those who abuse Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws.” He said that the Council has “hoped that exemplary punishment would be given to those who framed a minor girl in a blasphemy case for vested interests, but Jadoon’s acquittal has disappointed many.” Ashrafi added that the state had “failed to provide sufficient protection to the witnesses, which is why they retracted their statements.”

The Guardian said that “Chishti had made no secret of his distaste for the several-hundred-strong Christian community of Mehrabadi, even appearing on national television to bemoan the noisiness of church services which he said had disturbed Muslim residents, the overwhelming majority in the area. He also welcomed the panicked departure of most of the Christians from the area following the furor. He had reportedly made an announcement from the mosque’s loudspeaker telling them to leave the area. ‘We are not upset the Christians have left and we will be pleased if they don’t come back,’ Chishti told the Guardian on 18 August.”

The good news is that Rimsha Masih and her family are out of harm’s way from Chishti and those like him. They were granted asylum in Canada last year. The bad news is that Chishti is free to once again harass and persecute Christians in Islamabad. Meanwhile, several Christians are still in prison in Pakistan for “allegedly hurting Islamic feelings,” reports BosNewsLife.