Free but forced to flee: Aasia Bibi recounts years spent in prison, heartbreak of living in exile

By counting the hellish conditions of eight years spent in death row on charges of blasphemy, but also by the pain of exile from Pakistan, Aasia Bibi has broken her silence to give her first personal vision of a test that caused outrage international.

Bibi, who belongs to the Christian minority community, was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges by a trial court in 2010, but then, in a historic trial, she was acquitted in 2018. She now lives in Canada in an undisclosed location.

The French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who has co-written a book about her, was once in the country where she led a support campaign for her.

She is the only reporter who met Bibi during her stay in Canada.

In the book Enfin free! ("Finally free"), published in French on Wednesday with an English version that will be released in September, Bibi recounts his arrest, prison conditions, relief of his release, but also the difficulty of adapting to a new life.

"You already know my story through the media," he said in the book.

"But you are far from understanding my daily life in prison or my new life," he said.

& # 39; Depths of Darkness & # 39;

"I became a prisoner of bigotry," she said. In prison, "tears were the only companions in the cell."

She described the horrific conditions in squalid prisons in Pakistan, where other detainees kept her chained and mocked.

Read: Aasia Bibi isolated in prison for security fears

“My dolls are burning me, it's hard to breathe. My neck […] it's locked in an iron collar that the guard can tighten with a huge nut, "he wrote.

“A long chain creeps across the dirty floor. This connects my neck with the handcuffed hand that pulls me like a dog on a leash.

“Deep inside me, a deaf fear leads me into the depths of darkness. A lacerating fear that will never leave me.

Many other prisoners did not pity him. “I am surprised by the scream of a woman. & # 39; To death! & # 39; The other women join. & # 39; Hangman! & # 39; Hung up! & # 39 ;. "

& # 39; At what price? & # 39;

Blasphemy is a very sensitive issue in Pakistan. The country has never executed anyone under the charge, but there have been several cases of violence, perpetrated by vigilant mobs, against anyone convicted, or even accused, of insulting Islam.

His acquittal of the charges, which resulted from an incident in 2009 when he argued with a Muslim co-worker, resulted in violent protests that paralyzed the country led by cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi.

Bibi, who vehemently denied the charges against him, argued in the book that the Christian minority in the Muslim majority in Pakistan still faces persecution.

"Even with my freedom, the weather (for Christians) does not seem to have changed and Christians can expect all kinds of reprisals," he said.

"They live with this sword of Damocles over their head."

And although Canada gives him a safer and safer future, Bibi also has to accept that he will probably never step on his homeland again.

“In this unknown country, I am ready for a new game, maybe for a new life. But at what price?

"My heart broke when I had to leave without saying goodbye to my father or other family members."

“Pakistan is my country. I love my country but I am in exile forever, ”he said.