ASIA BIBI

El 14 de julio de 2009, tras varias horas de cosecha en el campo, Asia Bibi tuvo sed, se acercó a un pozo y bebió. En ese momento, una vecina gritó que el agua era de las mujeres musulmanas y la estaba contaminando. El tono de la disputa fue subiendo hasta que surgio una acusacion:"¡Baslfemia!". En Pakistan, esa palabra significa muerte. La suerte de Asia estaba echada.Tras propinarle una brutal paliza, la encarcelaron. Un año despues fue condenada a la horca. Hoy, a la espera de una apelacion, se pudre en una celda sin ventana. Su familia ha tenido que huir del pueblo, amenazada por los extremistas. Los dos hombres que quisieron ayudarla, el gobernador del Pendjab, musulman, y el ministro de las Minorias, cristiano, han sido asesinados.Desde el fondo de su prision, Asia Bibi nos cuenta como era su vida antes de aquel incidente y como es ahora.Una historia que la ha convertido en icono mundial para cuantos luchan por la libertad religiosa.

Prix Littéraire des Droits de lHomme 2020 « Je nai pas la mémoire des dates, mais il y a des jours quon noublie pas. Comme ce mercredi 9 juin 2010. Je suis arrivée, avant que le soleil ne se couche,

Punjab, Pakistan, June 2009. The temperature is 45 and Asia has been out picking fruit for several hours. Its 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, Asias 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 Asias defence: the Muslim governor of the Punjab and Pakistans 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.

"I was going to die because of a cup of water."After drinking water from the same cup as Muslim women, Asia Bibi, a Christian, was sentenced to hang by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 2010 on charges of blasphemy.Bibis case polarized all of Pakistan and mobilized international support from across the globe, including politicians, journalists, and countless organizations and supporters who fought for her freedom. For nine long years, Bibi awaited death in prison until she was formally acquitted in January 2019. Now a political exile, Bibi is reunited with her family in the West, but she will never be allowed to return to her homeland.In Free at Last, Asia and journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who championed Asias cause for nearly a decade, share her storyone that reveals the heart and mind of a woman who refused to renounce her faith and unwittingly became the global symbol of the fight against religious extremism.