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Asia Bibi: Pakistan’s First Woman on Death Row for Blasphemy by Noor Shahid
It’s June 2009, a hot summer day in Ittan Wali, a rural village in Sheikhupura, just outside of Lahore, Pakistan. After sending her two daughters to school, Asia Noreen (pronounced Aa-si-ya) makes her way to the farm, where she joins a few other women at work. Today, they are harvesting falsa berries to make squash. One of the women tells Asia to fetch water from a nearby well for the group. She does so, and stops on the way back to take a sip from the metal cup. It is, after all, the peak of the scorching summer Pakistan is known for.
It is this sip of water, this quench of thirst, that acted as the catalyst for a truly nightmarish unfolding of events across the next decade – this sip of water that triggered hundreds of violent protests, eight years in jail and two cold-blooded assassinations.
Asia Noreen would never return to Ittan Wali.
Asia’s family were the only Christians in the village, an accurate makeup mirroring the wider country. In the midst of Pakistan’s majority Muslim demographic, Christians make up just under two percent of the population. Asia and her family’s faith had always been under fire for differing from the norm. The married couple, along with their five children, had remained steadfast against multiple pushes from the rest of the village to convert to Islam. Set against the context of a very homogenous, religious backdrop, it is easy to see how and why the story unfurled from this mere cup of water.
Asia’s neighbour, Musarat, saw Asia drinking from the shared metal cup and all hell broke loose. Musarat was livid, claiming Asia had “contaminated” the water as a Christian, and should have allowed the rest to drink first. The group of women got angrier as they yelled, referencing hangovers from old caste system rules, where lower-class Christians were to be avoided because of impurity. Interestingly, Asia and Musrat had already been involved in multiple property disputes, setting the stage for animosity.