According to the Huffington Post, the British Government has refused to offer asylum to Asia Bibi, a Christian farm labourer who has just had her conviction for blasphemy quashed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The mother-of-five spent eight years on death row for "insulting the prophet Mohammed" - something which is alleged to have happened during an argument with some of her neighbours. Since the announcement of her acquittal on the grounds of there being insufficient evidence, there has been a wave of violence from the Islamist mob, and it has become abundantly clear that she and her family cannot stay in the country and remain safe.
This is a clear case of persecution (by the state who kept her incarcerated for eight years, as well as the mob) where I would have expected my country to offer asylum. No, let me rephrase that. This is a clear case of persecution where I would once have expected my country to offer asylum. Not now of course. Since we are now run by cowards and poltroons, I actually fully expected this decision.
On what basis has the decision been taken, you might ask? I mean, I'm well aware that we don't have to offer anyone and everyone asylum. Perhaps there was a good reason for this decision. To the contrary.
According to the Huffington Post, the reason my country is not prepared to offer this poor, mistreated woman, who has had a death sentence hanging over her for eight years, who was attacked in prison, and who would be lynched by the mob if she went back to her home, is "fear that it might stir up civil unrest".
"But campaigners working to secure Bibi's move abroad said the UK government had not offered her asylum, citing security concerns. Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said two countries had made firm offers of asylum, but Britain was not one of them:What can we say to this?
'I've been led to believe that the UK government had concerns that her moving to the UK would cause security concerns and unrest among certain sections of the community and would also be a security threat to British embassies abroad which might be targeted by Islamist terrorists. Asia and her family have now decided to take up one of the offers for asylum from a western country.'
The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases."
As I say, it is the decision of cowards and poltroons, and this is only confirmed by the usual bureaucratic spinelessness offered by the Home Office, who always find a way not to comment on cases that are embarrassing. They could, of course, have offered Mrs Bibi and her family asylum, given them all new identities, housed them far away from any potential mob, and said nothing about what they had done. Nobody has to know what country Mrs Bibi ends up in. But apparently they won't do this.
Instead they apparently think that asylum can't be granted because of potential civil unrest. In other words, they are essentially admitting that Britain is now the kind of place where the sorts of people who are currently stirring up civil unrest in Pakistan, and whose presence means that Mrs Bibi is not safe there, now dwell here too. Ironic, no?
What makes it all the more galling is the fact that this same Government recently offered asylum to 100 members of the organisation known as the White Helmets. Just in case you are late to the party and don't know, the White Helmets are a jihadi propaganda outfit, who have spent the last several years embedded in various places in Syria with Islamist terrorist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra. Of course, Western journalists like to pretend that they are some sort of Syrian version of the Red Cross, but the fact that they were always located in areas where not one single Western journalist dared to tread, for fear of being kidnapped or having their heads removed from their bodies, is a big clue to who they actually are.
Then there is the disturbing story of Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, who was "allowed" to travel to Libya in 2011, where he took part in the Islamist uprising fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi. I put the word "allowed" in inverted commas, because the British Government was at that time, operating a policy of releasing radical Islamists from control orders, so that they could go and fight in Libya, and then allow them back in the country. In the case of Abedi, when back in Britain he was reported to the authorities for his extremist views on no less than five occasions, but no action was taken. He then went on to kill 22 people on 22nd May 2017 at the Manchester Arena. I suppose this to be because toppling the Governments of other countries that have not threatened us is deemed to be more important to the authorities than ensuring that this type of person is not around to let bombs off in British concert venues. But I expect they've got an explanation for it.
And so that's what we've become. A country which would once have jumped at the chance to offer asylum to a poor woman whose life has been, and continues to be a living hell, now will not do this because it might cause civil unrest on the streets of Britain. And who would be causing that civil unrest? Why, exactly the sorts of people that are driving Mrs Bibi from Pakistan - the sorts that our authorities have allowed to enter and remain in our society.
In a nutshell: Britain - A safe haven for Islamists who would probably cause civil unrest if they knew that a persecuted woman had been granted asylum; a barred gate for a persecuted woman whose life is under threat from Islamist fanatics.
Disgust and contempt are probably not strong enough words.
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