.... At a certain point, it started to seem impossible to imagine anything would change. Attempts to merely modify the law had failed – President Musharraf had been the latest head of state to suggest the possibility, only to backpedal furiously in the face of pressure from the religious right. The growing feeling in Pakistan that Islam was a religion under threat in the world meant that there was even less likelihood than before of anyone mounting a challenge to the status quo.
Into this situation strode Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab (the most powerful province in Pakistan). In an entirely unprecedented move, he went with his wife to visit a Christian woman in prison, Aasia Bibi, who had been in solitary confinement for over a year after an altercation with a group of Muslim women, who had refused to drink from the same glass of water as her because they considered her “untouchable”.
These women later claimed Aasia Bibi had spoken blasphemous words in the course of the fight, and she was taken away to solitary confinement and later found guilty by the lower court. [Index on Censorship] Read more [via Butterflies and Wheels]
