“To pardon or overturn the verdict against Asia Bibi, self-confessed blasphemer is the commission of blasphemy itself and is crime against Islam and the Constitution of Pakistan.” So read a handout distributed by the hardline Islamist group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan in rallies all over Pakistan last week. The group threatened to paralyze the country with protests if the mother of five were to be exonerated by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, members of the group dispatching to all the major areas of the country.



Going by the laws of evidence and due process, Asia Bibi should be freed rather than put to death as ordered in 2010. Stemming from a dispute over a drinking cup, the case has huge evidentiary holes, violations of due process and factual fabrications. And as it has proceeded to the supreme court in Pakistan, it has become an emblem of how longstanding hatreds and vague laws have enabled minority persecution.

The story began in the small village of Katanwala, in an area known as Nankana Sahib, which stands 30 miles from the Pakistani city of Lahore. There, on the afternoon of June 14, 2009, four women working in the fields got into a terrible argument over a drinking cup. Asia Bibi, the only Christian among them, allegedly grabbed the communal cup and drank from it before the other three could do so. The others claimed she had “contaminated” the cup and that they should have been permitted to drink first. The argument escalated and more fieldworkers gathered. In an interview to BBC Newshour, Bibi’s daughter recounted how she ran to get her father. When they returned, however, Bibi had already been taken away. Within days a blasphemy case had been registered against her by the village cleric, who additionally claimed she had “confessed” to the crime.

The question of drinking order is a vestige of the Hindu caste system.

The question of drinking order is a vestige of the Hindu caste system that has lingered in the area even after most of the population converted to Islam over a hundred years ago. Christians, believed to be converts from the lowest classes of Hinduism, continue to be treated as untouchables in parts of Pakistan. For high caste Hindus, using the same utensils as someone from a lower caste represented contamination or impurity. It seems the women in the field with Asia Bibi on that ill-fated June day believed this as well.

The case seemed tailor-made for hardline parties looking to mobilize communities against religious minorities. Similar recent blasphemy cases have been brought against Shia Muslims and members of the Ahmediyya sects. The country is rapidly transitioning from a mostly rural to mostly urban milieu. With caste and status in flux, clinging to some imagined superiority based on religion can be an attractive prospect—even if it only confers the privilege of drinking from a cup before a Christian.