Pakistan court upholds Aasia Bibi's blasphemy acquittal

Pakistan's Supreme Court yesterday rejected a review petition against its decision to acquit Christian woman Aasia Bibi who was on death row for eight years on charges of blasphemy. The ruling came as a major setback to hardline Islamists who had demanded her execution.

Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, who is now in protective custody, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement.

The apex court's decision in October last to overturn her conviction sparked nationwide violent protests and death threats from hardline Islamist groups. The protests subsided when the government allowed the protesters to file a review petition



against Bibi's acquittal.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, today dismissed the review petition as the plea failed to point out any flaw in the verdict of the court that acquitted Bibi.

Bibi's case gained prominence when the former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad.