Picking fruit with a group of Muslim women, Bibi was ordered to fetch water for them – and drank a bit of it herself in the stifling heat. A Muslim woman rebuked her for doing so, saying to the other women: “Listen, all of you, this Christian has dirtied the water in the well by drinking from our cup and dipping it back several times. Now the water is unclean and we can’t drink it! Because of her!”Spencer goes on to say that many Christians and Christian organizations are afraid to speak out against the barbarism this woman is suffering for fear of offending Muslims with whom they are in "inter-faith dialogue." He also expresses doubts, mixed with hope that he's wrong, that Pope Francis will be inclined to take up her cause.
Bibi stood up to her, responding: “I think Jesus would see it differently from Mohammed.” That drove the Muslim women into a fury, and they started yelling at Bibi: “How dare you think for the Prophet, you filthy animal!” That’s right, you’re just a filthy Christian! You’ve contaminated our water and now you dare speak for the Prophet! Stupid bitch, your Jesus didn’t even have a proper father, he was a bastard, don’t you know that. You should convert to Islam to redeem yourself for your filthy religion.”
The embattled woman stood her ground, responding: “I’m not going to convert. I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind? And why should it be me that converts instead of you?”
Several days later, she was arrested for blasphemy as an enraged mob beat her and screamed, “Death! Death to the Christian!” She has been in prison ever since, awaiting execution for her “crime.”
In her letter to Pope Francis, Bibi wrote: “I do not know how long I can go on and on. If I am still alive, it is thanks to the strength that your prayers give me. I have met many people who speak and fight for me. Unfortunately still to no avail. At this time I just want to trust the mercy of God, who can do everything, that all is possible. Only He can liberate me.”
It's ironic that many Americans think that Muslims are discriminated against in this country. Most of these people are apparently ignorant of what real discrimination looks like. They evidently believe that it's discriminatory to express a negative or critical view of a particular religion or ethnic group. They should ask Asia Bibi and the hundreds of thousands of other Christians who are being persecuted, tortured, and killed in communist countries like North Korea and throughout the Muslim world how discrimination, bigotry, and other forms of stupidity and hatred cash out in the lives of the people who are victimized by it.
They would do well to read a book like Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea which documents a portion of the persecution suffered by so many Christians around the globe and then they might realize that being the object of anxious glances in an airport is hardly comparable to the misery inflicted by communists and Muslims on Christians almost wherever Christians are politically powerless.