SHE OFFERED THEM WATER. THEY SENTENCED HER TO DEATH FOR IT.
Asia Bibi was an illiterate Christian farmhand in Pakistan when, on a sweltering day in 2009, she was sent to fetch water for her fellow farmworkers. Two Muslim women refused to drink from the same container as her, believing it had been made unclean by a Christian's touch. An argument broke out, and days later the women accused Bibi of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, a charge that carries a mandatory death sentence in Pakistan and one she denied from the very beginning.
Bibi was convicted in 2010 and spent the next eight years on death row, largely in solitary confinement, while her case became one of the most watched in the world. Two Pakistani officials who publicly defended her, provincial governor Salman Taseer and federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, were both assassinated in 2010 for taking her side. In October 2018, Pakistan's Supreme Court finally overturned her conviction in a landmark ruling, citing serious concerns about the fairness of her original trial. The acquittal triggered days of violent nationwide protests from radical Islamist groups demanding her execution regardless of the court's ruling.
Even after being declared innocent, Bibi couldn't simply walk free. She spent months in secret protective custody, unable to leave a hidden room, while authorities negotiated her safe exit from the country amid ongoing death threats. She finally left Pakistan in 2019, reunited with her family, and was granted asylum in Canada. She later said simply, "I was accused because of the name of Jesus, and I knew I would be freed because of Jesus."
Do you think you could have held onto that hope through eight years on death row?
#AsiaBibi #PersecutedChurch #FaithUnderFire