- While working as a farm laborer on a hot day, Asia Bibi was told to fetch water. When she returned, Muslim coworkers refused to drink from the water, saying it was unclean because a Christian had touched it.
- Six years later, Asia Bibi still has not been executed. Instead, sick, isolated, and regularly beaten by both prison guards and Muslim inmates, she has evidently been left to rot to death.
- Every time any Western organization calls for her release, Pakistani Muslims threaten to take Sharia law into their own hands. One mosque prayer leader has even offered $6000 to anyone who kills her -- a strong incentive, since many in Pakistan would probably kill her for free.
- According to Islamic law, the word of a Christian is not valid against the word of a Muslim. Accusations of blasphemy against Christians by Muslims routinely result in the Christians being imprisoned, beaten, and sometimes killed -- in some cases even without evidence. Pakistan does not require proof of a crime, only allegations -- often made for extraneous reasons, and totally unfounded.
Pakistan's authorities appear to have found a solution to at least one of their problems in the international arena: Aasiya Noreen -- or "Asia Bibi" -- a 50-year-old Christian woman and mother of five, who has been on death row for six years for allegedly insulting Muhammad.
Instead of executing Asia Bibi and further advertising to the international community that theirs is a savage and backwards nation -- and instead of releasing her and provoking millions of angry Muslims to turn on the government and accuse it of supporting "apostasy" -- Pakistan's authorities appear to be letting time, wretched conditions, severe maltreatment, and beatings slowly kill her.
Instead of executing Asia Bibi and further advertising to the international community that theirs is a savage and backwards nation -- and instead of releasing her and provoking millions of angry Muslims to turn on the government and accuse it of supporting "apostasy" -- Pakistan's authorities appear to be letting time, wretched conditions, severe maltreatment, and beatings slowly kill her.
Recent reports state that she is deathly ill and "so weak she could hardly walk." Mission Network News says that Asia Bibi has "internal bleeding, abdominal pain, and is vomiting blood. If she does not receive immediate medical care, she could die."
According to Bruce Allen of Forgotten Missionaries International, "She suffers terrible pain, and she can hardly eat. ... Here's this woman, languishing in a prison under this death sentence for a crime that she vehemently denies."
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