Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wrote Tuesday that the United States should deny any aid to Pakistan while Asia Bibi, a Christian who was arrested for blasphemy, is unable to leave the country.
“I’ve made it a personal mission of mine in office to stop the United States from funding or being allied with places that persecute Christians,” Paul wrote in an article for Breitbart.
He notes that Bibi was arrested and put “on death row for blasphemy” from 2010 to 2018. “She was recently released from Pakistan prison, but she is not free.
“Amid protests in Pakistan from the extremist TLP party, the government has now refused to let her leave the country, putting her on their no-fly list. The protests and threats continue. It is only a matter of time before she is killed,” Paul wrote.
The senator has called on President Donald Trump “to personally intervene and to urge the Pakistani government to release Asia Bibi to the United States,” and has “introduced legislation to directly go after Pakistan’s foreign aid and turn up the pressure on them.”
He adds that “until Asia Bibi is freed, Pakistan should not receive a penny of U.S. aid! Not one penny should go to any nation that persecutes or kills Christians!”
According to Paul, a piece of legislation he pushed in 2014 to prevent foreign aid going to countries that impose “the death penalty or life in prison [on] Christians for religious choices,” but it failed to pass the committee after members of both parties voted against it.