Asia Bibi, a Christian farm laborer from a village in Punjab, Pakistan, was sentenced to death under Pakistan's blasphemy law in November 2010 following a dispute with Muslim coworkers about a shared water container. According to the account that reached international attention, Bibi had been refused water because, as a Christian, she was considered ritually impure. A subsequent argument escalated into an accusation that she had insulted the Prophet Muhammad — an accusation she denied.

The blasphemy laws under which she was convicted carry a mandatory death sentence for insulting the Prophet. The trial was conducted in an atmosphere of local religious hostility that human rights organizations described as incompatible with a fair proceeding. Her conviction was upheld by successive courts over the following years.

Her case became the focal point of a broader international debate about Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which have been used disproportionately against religious minorities — Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus — and against Muslims accused by neighbors or rivals seeking to resolve personal disputes through a legal mechanism with devastating consequences. Amnesty International and other human rights bodies had documented dozens of cases in which blasphemy accusations appeared to be instrumentally motivated rather than expressions of genuine religious grievance.

Two of the most prominent Pakistani politicians who spoke publicly in defense of Bibi and in favor of reforming the blasphemy laws — Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti — were assassinated in the months following her conviction. Taseer's killer was celebrated in some quarters of Pakistani society, garlanded with flowers by supporters at his court appearances.

Bibi remained on death row for years. Her case became a measure of whether the Pakistani state was capable of protecting its religious minorities from mob justice delivered through the legal system.