[DAWN] The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned a hearing of the final appeal against the execution of Asia Bibi, accused for blasphemy.Police and troops had been stationed across Islamabad as the apex court readied to hear the appeal of Bibi who has been on death row since 2010.
One of the three-judge bench, Justice Iqbal Hameed-ur-Rehman, told the court he had to recuse himself, claiming a conflict of interest.
"I was a part of the bench that was hearing the case of Salman Taseer, and this case is related to that," he told the court. A letter was written to the chief justice to appoint another judge to the bench.
The SC did not immediately set a new date for Bibi's appeal.
In 2011, former Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
governor Salman Taseer, who spoke out in support of Bibi, was bumped off in broad daylight in Islamabad. His assassin Mumtaz Qadri was executed earlier in 2016 after the court found him guilty of murder. Justice Rehman was chief justice on the Islamabad High Court which heard Qadri's appeal in 2011.
The allegations against Bibi date back to June 2009, when she was labouring in a field and a row broke out with some Moslem women she was working with.
Asia Bibi, accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed (PTUI!) during an argument with a Moslem woman over a bowl of water, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 despite her advocates maintaining her innocence and insisting the accusers held grudges against her.
She was asked to fetch water, but the Moslem women objected, saying that as a non-Moslem she was unfit to touch the water bowl.
The women went to a local holy man and accused Bibi of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed (PTUI!), a charge punishable by death under legislation that rights groups say is routinely abused to settle personal vendettas.
Bibi's supporters maintain her innocence and insist it was a personal dispute, and the Vatican has called for her release.
But successive appeals have been rejected, and if the SC bench eventually upholds Bibi's conviction, her only recourse will be a direct appeal to the president for clemency.
If that fails, she could become the first person in Pakistain to be executed for blasphemy.
The repercussions for minorities, human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
and the blasphemy laws would be "tremendous", says Shahzad Akbar, a human rights lawyer.