Asia Bibi is acquitted.

[Mouthwash]

Asia Bibi had her death sentence for blasphemy overturned.

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday announced the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy in a case that has roiled the country.

In the courtroom, it took less a minute for the Chief Justice, Saqib Nisar, to upturn a series of legal rulings that had kept Bibi on death row for eight years.

In terse remarks to the hushed, packed courtroom, he said that Bibi's conviction and sentence had been voided.

In a 56-page verdict issued after the ruling, the three-judge bench appeared to side with Bibi's advocates. They have maintained that the case against the 51-year-old illiterate farmhand was built around a grievance by her fellow Muslim workers who appeared angry that she might drink from the same vessel as them. She was ordered by a local landlord to bring water to the women on a day while they were picking berries.

The judges cited the Qur'an, Islamic scholars and Shakespeare in their impassioned verdict, arguing that blasphemy allegations had led to vigilante killings. In Bibi's case, they wrote, her accusers had not conclusively proven her guilt.

They'll have to flee the country, of course, but good news!

 

[El_Machinae]

They ruled that a false accusation had been weaponized in order to murder her ... I mean, it's great that she's not being killed for blasphemy, but it seems the judges are just saying that the accusation wasn't shown to be provable.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yeah, the law's media exposure will probably go down as a result of this. Still worth celebrating.

 

[Berzerker]

God religion sucks

 

[Mouthwash]

Thread was not all I hoped for.

 

[Patine]

Asia Bibi had her death sentence for blasphemy overturned.


They'll have to flee the country, of course, but good news!

Well, the former Governor of Punjab there (the Pakistani Province, not the Indian State, even though they have the same name because of the Partition of Punjab in 1947 at the Radciliffe Line) was himself charged for blasphemy for saying that the law that made "insulting the Prophet' and provided vague and ill-defined criteria for it was not becoming of a modern nation and was an easily abused tool of tyranny and political suppression of opponents, but got off by using his political connections in the Pakistani government and courts. Not long thereafter, an Islamic zealot assassinated him by stabbing him to death in the gardens of his well-appointed country estate. I don't believe the assassin was charged or executed, or that a major investigation was even done.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, the former Governor of Punjab there (the Pakistani Province, not the Indian State, even though they have the same name because of the Partition of Punjab in 1947 at the Radciliffe Line) was himself charged for blasphemy for saying that the law that made "insulting the Prophet' and provided vague and ill-defined criteria for it was not becoming of a modern nation and was an easily abused tool of tyranny and political suppression of opponents, but got off by using his political connections in the Pakistani government and courts. Not long thereafter, an Islamic zealot assassinated him by stabbing him to death in the gardens of his well-appointed country estate. I don't believe the assassin was charged or executed, or that a major investigation was even done.

It's unfortunate. Western law has similarly vague rules. While they don't usually have the death penalty attached, their inconsistent enforcement and suppression features are comparable (better than threat of death, still very bad). It's particularly asinine when people get to just decide the "intent" of others as a basis for greater punishment on what are otherwise identical crimes.

I doubt that governor was assassinated for his religious "blasphemy" because the person doing it was a staunch supporter of traditional Islam. More likely, he was assassinated for the "blasphemy" of opposing a power structure, and it's that power structure that opted to silence him for speaking too close to the truth.

 

[Silurian]

Thread was not all I hoped for.

Unfortunately cases like Asia Bibi are little reported in the West.
There are many people from Pakistan in the UK so it was reported here but if it had happened in day Uzbekistan, it most likely would not have been reported at all.

 

[Patine]

Unfortunately cases like Asia Bibi are little reported in the West.
There are many people from Pakistan in the UK so it was reported here but if it had happened in day Uzbekistan, it most likely would not have been reported at all.

Blasphemy is not on the criminal code at all in Uzbekistan in any form. Fun fact.
"Insulting the Prophet" is not a criminal offense there. However, insulting "Insulting the President (of Uzbekistan, of course) is!"

 

[Silurian]

Blasphemy is not on the criminal code at all in Uzbekistan in any form. Fun fact.
"Insulting the Prophet" is not a criminal offense there. However, insulting "Insulting the President (of Uzbekistan, of course) is!"

Fun fact i did not say that Blasphemy was a crime in Uzbekistan

 

[metalhead]

Unfortunately cases like Asia Bibi are little reported in the West.
There are many people from Pakistan in the UK so it was reported here but if it had happened in day Uzbekistan, it most likely would not have been reported at all.

NPR did a whole story on it this morning.

They are almost certainly the only American news outfit that covers stories like this.

 

[Silurian]

The further away something happens, good or bad, the less it interests people.
The distance of interest is not just physical, but is also modified by such things as cultural, historical and trade links.
They may care about,things, such as the Bibi case, as much as a death penalty case in the USA, but the news in Pakistan is of little interest so they do not find out.
So people only here about things that are very bad or extremely good (bad news travels further as we all know).
The problem with that is people start believing that the very bad things are all that happens in these far off lands..

 

[Bamspeedy]

NPR did a whole story on it this morning.

They are almost certainly the only American news outfit that covers stories like this.

Perhaps NPR devotes more time on it than the others, but they all did cover it.

 

[Patine]

The further away something happens, good or bad, the less it interests people.
The distance of interest is not just physical, but is also modified by such things as cultural, historical and trade links.
They may care about,things, such as the Bibi case, as much as a death penalty case in the USA, but the news in Pakistan is of little interest so they do not find out.
So people only here about things that are very bad or extremely good (bad news travels further as we all know).
The problem with that is people start believing that the very bad things are all that happens in these far off lands..

I remember the case where Vincent Marr, in the middle of the night, in a Greyhound on a lonely road in Manitoba, a Province here in Canada to the east of my home Province of Alberta (but not as far east as Ontario), suddenly stabbed to death the young man sitting next to him and began, right to everyone else on the bus's horror to commit vicious acts of cannibalism on his body right then and there. The next day, I had people I knew online from not just the U.S., but New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Argentina, the U.K., etc. asking me about details, because the story had made breaking news in all those countries. So, I'm pretty sure raw shock value makes the wide spread of news stories more likely too.

 

[HoloDoc]

I remember the case where Vincent Marr, in the middle of the night, in a Greyhound on a lonely road in Manitoba, a Province here in Canada to the east of my home Province of Alberta (but not as far east as Ontario), suddenly stabbed to death the young man sitting next to him and began, right to everyone else on the bus's horror to commit vicious acts of cannibalism on his body right then and there. The next day, I had people I knew online from not just the U.S., but New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Argentina, the U.K., etc. asking me about details, because the story had made breaking news in all those countries. So, I'm pretty sure raw shock value makes the wide spread of news stories more likely too.

I remember that. Big news here in Oz. He asked the judge to kill him when he was asked to enter a plea. And he was treated for mental illness and is now free, I believe.

 

[Patine]

I remember that. Big news here in Oz. He asked the judge to kill him when he was asked to enter a plea. And he was treated for mental illness and is now free, I believe.

Yes, I've walked right by the doors and edifice of the forensics building at Alberta Psychiatric Hospital where he was being treated while I was making visits out there.

 

[Silurian]

I remember the case where Vincent Marr, in the middle of the night, in a Greyhound on a lonely road in Manitoba, a Province here in Canada to the east of my home Province of Alberta (but not as far east as Ontario), suddenly stabbed to death the young man sitting next to him and began, right to everyone else on the bus's horror to commit vicious acts of cannibalism on his body right then and there. The next day, I had people I knew online from not just the U.S., but New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Argentina, the U.K., etc. asking me about details, because the story had made breaking news in all those countries. So, I'm pretty sure raw shock value makes the wide spread of news stories more likely too.

So something horrible happens in in a western country is reported in western countries.
most likely some other places too.


But not much to do with this.

The further away something happens, good or bad, the less it interests people.
The distance of interest is not just physical, but is also modified by such things as cultural, historical and trade links.
They may care about,things, such as the Bibi case, as much as a death penalty case in the USA, but the news in Pakistan is of little interest so they do not find out.
So people only here about things that are very bad or extremely good (bad news travels further as we all know).
The problem with that is people start believing that the very bad things are all that happens in these far off lands..

 

[Berzerker]

I stabbed the man sitting next to me on the bus and I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti

but I'm better now