Rita Panahi: We can’t let Asia Bibi die for her Christianity in Pakistan
As Pakistan prepares to execute a Christian woman on trumped-up blasphemy charges, Australia has a duty to add its voice to the global outrage.
Rita Panahi
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rita Panahi. Followed categories will be added to My News.
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’.”
The workers made a complaint, and soon a mob confronted Bibi and her family, and beat them before police arrived.
MANY accused of blasphemy in Pakistan are not so fortunate and are killed before they are formally charged. Others have been killed in prison while awaiting trial.
In a memoir, Blasphemy: Sentenced To Death Over A Cup Of Water, Bibi describes the moment police came to arrest her.
“I am bleeding. I am half stunned,” she explains.
“I can do nothing other than suffer and pray that it stops. I look at the crowd, which seems to triumph at my feeble resistance.
“I stagger. The blows fall on to my legs, on to my back, behind my head …
“‘Do you want to convert, to belong to a religion worthy of the name?’
“‘No, please, I am a Christian. I beg you …’
“And with the same fury, they continue to beat me. One arm is really hurting. I think it may be broken. ‘Death to the Christian!’ the angry mob scream.”
After more than a year behind bars, Bibi was charged with blasphemy. In November 2010, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. She describes the jubilation in the court as crowds gave the judge a standing ovation.
Appeals have been lodged but the death sentence has thus far been upheld.
The final appeal was to be heard last Thursday but the case was adjourned when one of the judges had to recuse himself due to his involvement with a related case. Judge Iqbal Hameed ur Rehman was involved in the case of Salmaan Taseer, a politician who was murdered by his bodyguard for demanding justice for Bibi. Another politician, Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, spoke against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws after Bibi’s arrest and was also shot dead.
Many others in Pakistan, including the imam of her village, want Bibi to die and have pledged to kill her if she is released.
Thousands have protested against her, and the prison where she is kept is regularly sprayed with bullets. All this because a parched farmhand working in the heat had a drink of water.
For more than six years, Bibi has been in solitary confinement in a tiny cell, while her husband and children live in hiding after receiving death threats.
Since her arrest, she has refused to convert to Islam, saying: “I will not convert. I believe in my religion and Jesus Christ.”
It’s a decision that may cost Asia Bibi her life.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
Human cost of pandemic goes much further than virus
Whether you are pro or anti-lockdown the grim, unintended consequences of the fixation on coronavirus are undeniable, as other diseases — including cancer and heart disease — go unchecked, and despair from joblessness, poverty and financial stress rises, writes Rita Panahi.
Will buck really stop with Dan after disastrous decisions?
While Daniel Andrews repeats the “we’re all in this together” mantra, the reality is only the private sector is making huge financial sacrifices as he refuses to face up to scrutiny over the hotel quarantine fiasco and contact tracing chaos, writes Rita Panahi.