Australian Newspaper article on Asia Bibi

We can’t let Asia Bibi die for her Christianity in Pakistan

Rita Panahi, Herald Sun

October 17, 2016 6:02pm

Mother-of-five Asia Bibi is likely to be hanged for the “crime” of being Christian in a Muslim country, after she was sentenced to death in a Pakistani court on trumped-up charges of blasphemy.

Even if the farm worker were guilty of insulting the prophet Muhammad — and the evidence suggests she was not — it is obscene that she should be facing the death penalty for such a spurious “crime”.

Also obscene is that the country that wants to carry out this savagery is the beneficiary of tens of millions of Australian dollars.

Pakistan will receive $55.8 million in aid from Australia this year. It receives much more from other Western nations, such as Britain.

Why should Australian taxpayers’ hard-earned be sent to a despotic nation that not only tolerates horrific abuse in the name of Islam but plans to kill a woman for supposedly insulting their religion?

This isn’t a crazed mob carrying out a lynching but a death sentence to be carried out by the state.

Bibi and her family are precisely the type of people Australia should be helping through diplomatic channels — we should also be offering them asylum.

As Christians, they face significant dangers in Pakistan, not just from law enforcement authorities but from neighbours and co-workers who see them as less than human.

Christian women and girls are regularly abducted in Pakistan. Some are killed, others forced to convert and marry, and many are never heard from again.

If Pakistan does carry out the execution or refuses to release Bibi, Australia should cut all aid and consider further sanctions, including sporting bans.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have signed petitions demanding justice for Bibi but perhaps banning Pakistan’s cricket team from touring Australia would send a stronger message.

Australian teams no longer tour Pakistan owing to security concerns, and we should not hesitate to ban their sporting teams from competing in Australia.

Bibi’s nightmare began in mid-2009 when she was working as a farmhand in the province of Punjab. In searing heat, she was sent to fetch water from a well.

Her crime was to use a cup shared by the other farm workers to drink some of the water.

Another female farmhand, who already had a feud with Bibi, claimed she had “soiled” the utensil and the water supply with her unclean, Christian hands. Bibi was accused of “defiling the water”.

Bibi recounts what happened: “She said: ‘Listen to me, she has soiled the glass with her hands and dirtied the water in the well. We can’t drink the water any more because of her’.

"It was so unfair. For once, I decided to defend myself and to hold my head high.

“I said: ‘I think Jesus would have a different viewpoint to Mohammed’.

"The woman replied: ‘How do you dare to question the Prophet, dirty animal?’ Three other women joined in, shouting ‘it’s true, you’re nothing but a dirty Christian’.”