“Although we will miss our country, we are happy to finally be somewhere safe. Hopefully, the blasphemy laws in Pakistan will soon be abolished, so others won’t suffer the same fate as Shagufta and I,” Shafqat Emmanuel said.
The couple had faced death threats after news broke of their acquittal and release from death row.
Emmanuel said he and his wife are grateful to ADF International and the Jubilee Campaign, a non-profit organization promoting human rights and religious liberty for minorities, for helping them and bringing them to safety.
“We are delighted that Shagufta and Shafqat have, at long last, been released and have reached safety,” said Tehmina Arora, director of advocacy for ADF International in Asia.
“Sadly, their case is not an isolated incident but testifies to the plight that many Christians and other religious minorities experience in Pakistan today,” she said.
In 2013, the poor Christian couple were living with their children on a mission compound of the Gojra Church in Punjab, Pakistan, when allegedly blasphemous text messages were sent to a cleric and a lawyer from a cellphone allegedly registered in Shagufta Kausar’s name.
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