A series of anti-blasphemy measures introduced in Pakistan in the 1980s made it illegal to insult Islam.
People have been accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, tearing pages of the holy Koran or writing offensive remarks on the walls of mosques. Sometimes, the law has been used to settle a personal dispute.
Asia Bibi, a Christian who spent eight years on death row under Pakistan’s divisive blasphemy law, had her conviction overturned on Wednesday in Islamabad by the country’s highest court.
She was convicted in 2010 under the law after she was accused of insulting the Prophet. Days earlier, two fellow female farmworkers had quarreled with her after she drank from a cup. They argued that the cup was unclean because of her faith.
Bibi plans to leave the country, her family said on Thursday, as radical Islamists mounted rallies for a second day against the verdict, blocking roads and burning tires in protest.
The charge of blasphemy carries the death penalty in this majority Muslim nation.
Bibi’s acquittal immediately raised fears of religious violence—and presented a challenge to the government of new Prime Minister Imran Khan, who came to power this summer partly by pursuing the Islamist agenda. Khan warned Islamist protesters on Wednesday night not to “test the patience of the state.”
Bibi remained at an undisclosed location on Thursday where the 54-year-old mother of five was being held for security reasons, awaiting her formal release, her brother James Masih told The Associated Press.
Masih said his sister simply would not be safe in Pakistan.
“She has no other option and she will leave the country soon,” he said. Masih would not disclose the country of her destination but both France and Spain have offered asylum.
Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, had returned from Britain with their children in mid-October and was waiting for her to join them, the brother added.
The Islamists also called for the killing of the three judges, including Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who acquitted Bibi.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Islamists blocked a key road linking the capital Islamabad with the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, demanding Bibi be publicly hanged. Authorities deployed paramilitary troops, signaling they could move in to clear the roads.
Hundreds also blocked another key motorway linking Islamabad with major cities, such as Lahore and Peshawar, chanting slogans against Bibi and demanding her execution.
At least 1,472 people were charged under the law between 1987 and 2016, according to the Center for Social Justice, an advocacy group. Of those, 730 were Muslims, 501 were Ahmedis—a sect that is reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics—while 205 were Christians and 26 were Hindus.
Some other cases over the years:
• In 2002 the high court ordered the release of Ayub Masih, a Christian sentenced to death four years earlier for blasphemy. His attorney said Masih had never made the allegedly blasphemous statements, but instead was a victim of a plot to steal his land.
• In 2012 a man accused of desecrating a Koran was dragged by a crowd from a police station in Bahawalpur, a city in the deeply conservative central Pakistan. They beat him to death and then burned his body. They also burned several police cars, as well as the possessions and furniture of a local police chief.
• Mohammad Mansha, from a village in south Punjab, was targeted because he had fought with members of one village who accused him of blasphemy. He served nine years before authorities decided he was innocent but they couldn’t release him in 2017 because they feared a riot.
• An 11-year-old girl with Down syndrome was accused in 2012 of burning pages of a booklet used to learn the basics of the Koran. The charges were later dropped and the cleric who made the accusation was arrested.
• In 2013 police arrested as many as 45 Muslims in connection with the killing of a Christian couple for allegedly desecrating the Koran. Hundreds of Muslims took part in the attack in the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province in which a mob killed the couple and burned their bodies in a brick kiln in a shop where the man and his wife worked.
• Police opened a case in 2014 against Junaid Jamshed, a pop singer-turned-preacher in Karachi, over a video in which he appeared to insult one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad while commenting about women. Jamshed swiftly apologized in a video statement, but the court rejected his statement.
• In 2017 Mashal Khan, a student at a university in northwest Pakistan, was killed by a mob after a rumor spread that he had posted blasphemous material online. It was later proven that he hadn’t made the post, and more than 50 people were arrested. It was believed the accusation came after he criticized the university administration.
Image credits: AP/Irum Asim