The decision immediately led to protests from hardliners and demonstrations erupted against the apex court in places such as Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi.
Slain Pakistani politician Salman Taseer did not die in vain. While he was assassinated after he came out in support of Asia Bibi or Asia Noreen, who was convicted for insulting the Prophet Muhammad in 2010 and sentenced to death, the Christian woman was set free by the Pakistani Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Islamabad was put on high alert from Tuesday night and police and law enforcement officials were deployed in the capital along with a troop of 300 policemen and paramilitary units guarding the Supreme Court building, which is red-zoned.
Bibi’s had moved the supreme court in 2015 challenging the October 2014 verdict of the Lahore high court, which had upheld the trial court's decision of sentencing her to death in November 2010.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan concluded the judgment with a hadith (sayings) of the Holy Prophet on the rights of minorities and their kind treatment.
Asia Bibi was found guilty for blasphemy under Section 295-C of the Pakistan penal code for supposedly defaming Prophet Muhammad. The offence carries a mandatory death penalty under Pakistani law.
The allegations made against her was that she said three “defamatory and sarcastic” statements about the Holy Prophet on June 14, 2009, whilst an argument with three Muslim women when they were picking fruits in a field in Sheikhupura.
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