Will Aasia Bibi, the Christian Woman in Pakistan, Live?

The assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer in Islamabad on January 4, 2011, sent a chill through Pakistan's embattled Christian community — and nowhere colder than the jail cell of Aasia Bibi. Bibi, a mother of five, had been sentenced to hang the previous November for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Taseer had been her most prominent defender, calling the blasphemy legislation a "black law."

He was shot dead by his own police guard, Mumtaz Qadri, who told interrogators he had killed the governor for wanting to reform those laws. Qadri's second court appearance, in a makeshift Rawalpindi courtroom, unfolded amid chaotic scenes: seminary students and lawyers showered him with rose petals, and supporters blocked a judge from leaving the building, delaying the hearing by seven hours. He was remanded until January 10.

The killing raised grave questions about the security services. Qadri's extremist views were reportedly well known — a senior officer, Nasir Durrani, had described him as a "security hazard" in a letter to the Punjab home department and removed him from VIP duty the previous year. Why he was reinstated to guard the governor, and why his fellow guards did not open fire, remained unexplained. A dozen people were detained, including six police officers accused of abetting the attack.

Christian charity workers who had visited Bibi in jail said her safety felt suddenly, acutely precarious — she had been in solitary confinement for weeks, and Taseer's death removed the one powerful figure championing her cause. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission warned that the frenzy around Qadri's trial could poison the atmosphere for Bibi's appeal before the Lahore High Court, with public figures afraid even to discuss the blasphemy laws.

The crisis landed on an already precarious PPP government, with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani reversing a planned fuel price hike in an apparent bid to win back coalition partners who had deserted the government days earlier.

History would eventually answer the question this piece posed. After years in solitary confinement, Aasia Bibi's conviction was overturned by Pakistan's Supreme Court in October 2018; she was acquitted and, in May 2019, flown out of Pakistan to Canada, where she reunited with her family. Mumtaz Qadri was executed in February 2016.