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| Saiful Malook |
Radio 4's Sunday featured a fascinating interview with Saiful Malook, the lawyer for Asia Bibi, the Christian woman sentenced to death under Pakistan's Sharia-guided blasphemy laws.
He had to flee the country after Muslim fanatics threatened his life too, and had stringing criticism for Pakistan's Islamist-indulging PM Imran Khan and our own government for wriggling out of taking his client in.
He had to flee the country after Muslim fanatics threatened his life too, and had stringing criticism for Pakistan's Islamist-indulging PM Imran Khan and our own government for wriggling out of taking his client in.
Knowing the story was coming on, I actively listened out to see if the BBC presenter, in typical Sunday fashion, would tiptoe around the religious angle with carefully chosen language, avoiding words like 'Muslim' and 'Islamic' and 'Sharia'. And she did. So much so that she even avoided the word 'Christian'.
This, then, is Emily Buchanan's introduction to the interview:
Asia Bibi, the Pakistani woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, has written her autobiography. In it she says, "How could I ever imagine I would become a global symbol of the fight against religious extremism?" After her eventual acquittal she settled in Canada but not before two prominent Pakistani politicians lost their lives defending her. And now her lawyer, Saiful Malook, visiting Wales, has told me about the threats he's received from religious hardliners.
