Devil Soul
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LAHORE - Teenage blasphemy accused Rimsha Masih and her family have been granted religious asylum in Canada, Pakistan Today learnt on Friday.
The 14-year-old resident of Meherabadi in Islamabad was detained when a neighbour claimed she had burned pages of the holy Quran. She spent three weeks on remand in an adult prison.
However, she was freed on bail after witnesses said she had been framed by a local prayer leader.
The case, involving an illiterate Christian girl, sparked calls for reform of the blasphemy laws, which carry the death penalty and which are used frequently to settle personal scores. Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Iqbal Hameed-ur Rehman threw out the case, citing a lack of witnesses.
Rimshas arrest - as an angry mob surrounded her home in the Christian slum just outside the federal capital - set off a deep period of soul searching in a country where blasphemy remains a hugely sensitive issue.
Thousands are arrested each year on flimsy evidence and anyone daring to call for reform faces the threat of assassination. Rimsha and her family were in hiding since she was freed on bail in September last year.
Hafiz Khalid Jadoon Chishti, the imam who first gave police the burned holy papers as evidence against her, was arrested for desecrating the holy Quran and tampering with evidence. An official medical report classified Rimsha as "uneducated" and aged 14, but with a mental age younger than her years.
Her lawyers had claimed that she was as young as 11 and suffers from Down's Syndrome. Pakistan Today made repeated attempts to contact her lawyer Tahir Naveed Chaudhry but his phone remained unattended. - See more at: Rimsha Masih, family get asylum in Canada | Pakistan Today | Latest news | Breaking news | Pakistan News | World news | Business | Sport and Multimedia
