Blasphemy
Subtitle: the true, heartbreaking story of the woman sentenced to death over a cup of water
By: Asia Bibi
Publisher: Virago
Published: 2012
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 137
ISBN-13: 9781844088881; 9780748132539
Subjects: Blasphemy (Islam); Religious discrimination; Death row inmates; Women death row inmates; Christian women; Todesurteil; Christian biography; Gotteslästerung; History; Verurteilung; Biography; Islam
Description: Punjab, Pakistan, June 2009. The temperature is 45 degrees and Asia has been out picking fruit for several hours. It's exhausting, sweaty work, but Asia and her husband have five children to feed. At midday she goes to the nearest well, picks up a cup and takes a long drink of cool water. She refills the cup, drinks some more and then offers it to another woman. Suddenly one of her fellow workers cries out that the water belongs to the Muslim women and that with her actions, Asia, who is Christian, has contaminated it. An argument ignites and in an instant, with one word, Asia's fate is sealed. 'Blasphemy!' someone shouts. In Pakistan this is a charge punishable by death. First attacked by a mob, Asia was soon after thrown into prison and then sentenced to be hanged. Since then she has been kept in a windowless cell. Her family have had to flee their village, under threat from vengeful extremists. In the wave of accusation that followed, only two public figures came to Asia's defence: the Muslim governor of the Punjab and Pakistan's Christian Minister for Minorities. Both have since been brutally murdered. Here, in equal measures shocking and inspiring, Asia Bibi, who has become a symbol for everyone concerned with ending the violence committed in the name of religion, bravely speaks to us from her prison cell.
Table of contents: title: 1. A black hole; title: 2. Blasphemy; title: 3.I can no longer see the stars; title: 4. Death by hanging; title: 5. The Christian minister; title: 6. Happy Christmas; title: 7. The Pope's message; title: 8. They kill the governor; title: 9. They kill the minister.