While Pakistan’s blasphemy law has long been a flashpoint, the leader’s capitulation to violent extremists is deadly serious
On 31 October, Pakistan’s supreme court acquitted Asia Bibi, a 54-year-old Christian woman who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. Bibi, a farm labourer and mother of five, had spent eight years on death row, accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad after an argument with her neighbours. After her acquittal, protests erupted in all of Pakistan’s major cities: smashed shopfronts, blocked motorways, burning tyres. And it has left the prime minister, Imran Khan, wavering between defending the verdict and trying to appease the hardline religious protesters.
Related: Asia Bibi: Pakistan court overturns blasphemy death sentence
Related: Asia Bibi: anti-blasphemy protests spread across Pakistan
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