Good news, or at least I hope it is from Pakistan. It seems that the last legal hurdle preventing a Christian woman from leaving Pakistan where she had been under threat of death for blasphemy has been removed.

The Daily Telegraph said:

Catholic farmhand wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for blasphemy finally faces freedom after Pakistan’s supreme court removed the last legal barrier to her release.

Pakistan’s top court on Tuesday morning dismissed a petition against Asia Bibi’s acquittal last year, apparently leaving her free to leave the country and seek asylum abroad.

The decision by a three-man bench headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa ends a 10-year-ordeal.

The mother-of-five was wrongly sentenced to hang in 2010 after she was accused of defaming the Prophet Mohammed during a quarrel with fellow villagers. Mrs Bibi spent eight years on death row in a case which deeply divided Pakistan, highlighting both its harsh blasphemy laws and mistreatment of minority Christians.

Two senior politicians who tried to help her and reform the laws were assassinated by religious hardliners.

This is very welcome news and will be greeted with rejoicing not just by Christians, but by anyone who cares for the concept of religious freedom. The way is now cleared for Ms Bibi to leave the Islamic craphole of Pakistan and seek sanctuary in a civilised nation. If she manages to get asylum elsewhere then she will no longer face the threats of death that have come not just from Pakistan’s judicial system, but also from the vast number of foaming Islamic extremists that populate this benighted land.