Reports Saturday say that Rimsha Masih, the Christian girl of Pakistani nationality who faced blasphemy charges in 2012, has successfully sought political asylum in Canada. A Pakistan TV outlet Geo TV says the Down Syndrome child has reached Canada. Her age is given variously as 12 and 14. The family is said to have made the journey to Canada arriving at a location in Toronto, according to Peter Bhatti, who runs a Christian organization that is helping them settle in Canada. Bhatti says that Rimsha, her parents and her brother and sister had to leave Pakistan in order to have safe, secure lives, the CBC said. Mr.Bhatti also said the girl and her family are “”thriving”” in their new Toronto home. Rimsha’s case became an international crusade to have her released when she was charged last year, because she was said to have burned pages of the Holy Quran. The court had granted her bail and later blasphemy charges were dropped for want of evidence. Witnesses had told the judge that the cleric had given false evidence and framed the girl. For its part, the Immigration Department would not confirm that Rimsha is in the country. A lawyer who represented Rimsha in Pakistan said that the girl and her family left Islamabad for Canada on March 14, 2013. He said the family had been forced to keep on the move for fear of the type of attack suffered by Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani woman who was hunted down by the Taliban and shot while on a school bus. Malala is now recovering from her wounds in the United Kingdom.
