A young Christian girl accused of burning pages of Islam's holy book
was freed Saturday from a jail near the Pakistani capital where she had
been held for three weeks, a jail official said.
The release, a day after a judge granted her bail, is another step
closer to ending an episode that has focused an uncomfortable spotlight
on Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, which can result in life in prison
or even death for defendants. Many critics say the laws are misused to
wage vendettas or target Pakistan's vulnerable minorities like the
Christians.
The jail official, Mushtaq Awan, said the girl left the prison in
Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad, amid tight security.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene said she was taken from the
prison in an armoured vehicle and whisked to a waiting helicopter while
covered with a sheet to protect her identity.Police escort blindfolded Muslim cleric Khalid Jadoon as he is brought before a judge at a court in Islamabad. (Faisal Mahmood/Reuters)A
Muslim cleric from her neighbourhood was arrested last week for
planting evidence to incriminate the girl, an about-face in a case that
has drawn strong international condemnation.
Even in Pakistan where there is significant support for punishing
people accused of desecrating the Qur'an or insulting Islam's prophet
Muhammad, the girl's age and questions about her mental state have
earned her a degree of public sympathy often lacking in other blasphemy
cases.
Her lawyers say they will now push to have the case against her thrown out entirely.

'She has been taken to a safer place'"Her
parents were with her when she was freed from the jail, and she has
been taken to a safer place," said a member of her legal team, Tahir
Naveed Chaudhry.
The girl's release came a day after a judge in Islamabad granted bail
to the mentally challenged girl, a move hailed by the human right
activists and representatives of Pakistan's minority Christian
community. Bail is rarely granted in blasphemy cases, and the decision
signals a degree of sympathy that could result in all the charges being
dropped.
The girl, who medical officials believe to be between 11 and 14 years
old, was arrested August 16, shortly after hundreds of angry Muslims
surrounded her house, and accused her of burning pages from the Qur'an,
an act punishable by life in prison. Her lawyer has denied the
allegation.
But in a sudden turn-around, police arrested a cleric after a
follower from his mosque accused him of stashing pages of a Qur'an in
the girl's bag to make it seem as if she burned them. He allegedly
planted the evidence to push Christians out of the neighbourhood and is
now being investigated for blasphemy himself. He has denied the
allegation.
The arrest was applauded as a rare occurrence when blasphemy accusers are held responsible for false claims.


In his ruling granting bail, the judge wrote that the arrest of the
cleric cast serious doubt on the prosecution's case. He also said she
was a minor, had mental challenges and that it was "not believable" that
she had intentionally burnt the verses from the Qur'an. On those
grounds, he decided to grant the bail.
The tight security present during her release is a sign that
authorities are taking her safety seriously in light of previous attacks
on people accused of blasphemy. Two prominent politicians were gunned
down last year for suggesting the blasphemy laws should be amended to
prevent misuse. The killer of one of the politicians was later lauded by
supporters who threw rose petals whenever he appeared at court.
A man in the central Pakistani city of Bahawalpur was beaten to death in July by an angry mob after he was accused of blasphemy.




© The Associated Press, 2012