Pakistani woman facing Sharia death sentence after deportation from Canada

A Pakistani woman who fled to Canada in 2007 as a refugee after receiving death threats has been deported by Canada’s immigration authority in spite of an ongoing UN Human Rights appeal.

Jamila Bibi, 60, accused of adultery and arrested in Pakistan in 2007, fled to Canada after she was granted bail, and had been living in Saskatoon until her deportation earlier this week. According to her lawyer, Bashir Khan, the accusation was false, and stemmed from a land dispute judgment which awarded property to her rather than to her husband’s family.

The adultery charge is still outstanding, meaning that Bibi is facing the Sharia Law punishment of death by stoning should she return to her home town or be arrested anywhere else in the country. She is now a target for honour killing, and has already received threats, says her lawyer.

Bibi’s attempt to gain refugee status in Canada was rejected in 2011, and a deportation order was issued. Khan took her case to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who ordered immigration to halt the deportation until a full review had been conducted.

In spite of the UN’s order, Bibi was arrested and the deportation went ahead. In a statement, Citizenship and Immigration minister Chris Alexander said that Canada’s asylum system operates in a fair and generous manner, but does not give in to political pressure, adding that decisions are made according to the facts of each case.

Amnesty International’s Gloria Nafziger told CTV that her organisation had urged the Canadian government to reconsider Bibi’s deportation as it was a clear breach of her human rights. She added that the government should at least have waited to hear the UN’s judgment before final decisions were made.