Hundreds of radical Islamists protested in Pakistan Thursday and Friday against the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was just acquitted after eight years on death row for blasphemy.  In June 2009 the Pakistani mother of five was out picking fruit in the fields. At midday she went to the nearest well, picked up a cup, and took a drink of cool water, and then offered it to another woman. Suddenly, one of her fellow workers cried out that the water belonged to Muslim women and that Bibi—who is Christian—had contaminated it. “Blasphemy!” someone shouted, a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. In that instant, with one word, Bibi’s fate was sealed. First attacked by a mob, Bibi was then thrown into prison and sentenced to be hanged.  Pakistan’s 295-C blasphemy law is based on sharia (Islamic law), which mandates execution for those found guilty of committing blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed.

Ever since then Asia Bibi has been imprisoned.  Her family members fled their village under threat from vengeful extremists, and the two brave public figures who came to Bibi’s defense—the Muslim governor of the Punjab and Pakistan’s Christian Minister for Minorities—have been brutally murdered. Bibi had been accused of insulting Mohammed, the founder of Islam, which she has always denied.  Bibi says she was falsely accused and is very respectful of Muslims and Mohammed.  Human rights activists had been actively seeking her release over the past several years and to repeal the Pakistani court’s death sentence. No Pakistani Christian had been held on blasphemy charges longer than Bibi. If she had lost her final appeal, she could have been put to death.

Last year, the Pakistani Supreme Court overturned her death sentence, but she remained in prison awaiting a new hearing.  Even now, tho released from prison and declared by the court to be free, Bibi is not safe. Other prisoners freed on blasphemy charges have been murdered by Islamic extremists. Muslim radicals assassinated former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Shabbaz Bhatti in 2011. Both men supported Bibi and had called for an end to Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law. Her husband, Ashiq Masih, praised the court’s decision. “I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent,” he said.

The response to her acquittal was unsurprising. Global media and human-rights organizations cheered, while Pakistani fundamentalists demonstrated and hung Asia Bibi in effigy. The outrage spooked Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan into making it more difficult for her to leave the country. Facing the risk of extrajudicial killing, Bibi remains in hiding. Her lawyer Saiful Malook fled to Europe. Protests greeted his arrival.

The other day in Frankfurt, Malook called on the German government to provide Asia Bibi and her family with documents that would allow them to exit Pakistan. Why no Western government has yet granted her asylum is something of a mystery. It is possible that Bibi and her family may be using the negotiations to secure the release of additional people whose safety they feel is also in jeopardy. European governments, including the United Kingdom’s, may also worry that Asia Bibi’s arrival would provoke a backlash from their own militant Islamists. Nor is Europe exactly the global standard in free speech.

Bibi’s family says she plans to leave the country as Islamists raged for a second day against the country’s Supreme Court verdict, blocking roads and burning tires. Protesters are calling for her to be publicly hanged. “Clearly she will need asylum in a western country where she can live out the remainder of her days in peace,” Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christians Association, told CBN News. “These charges have been proven false time and again and it is time for her to return home to her family.”

Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says Australia could give asylum to Asia Bibi. Britain initially suggested it would offer Bibi asylum but then pulled out, reported for fear of unrest from Muslims in the UK and of threats to diplomats in Pakistan.   Peter Dutton says that Canada is now in discussions to bring Bibi there. “If the discussions with Canada fall through, we will facilitate bringing Asia Bibi to Australia.”

The church in Pakistan is urging believers around the world to pray for Bibi and her family

In 2016, her family gave a statement from Bibi to an Italian newspaper, La Stampa, saying, “I forgive my persecutors, those who have falsely accused me, and I await their forgiveness. Although I have been in prison for seven years,I do not hate those who did me wrong.”

Asia Bibi belongs in the United States. This is a country founded on religious freedom.  Giving a home for this Christian whose faith put her life in danger would seem an obvious choice.  It is an especially obvious one during Thanksgiving week.