© AFP / Arif Ali
Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party supporters at a rally demanding Bibi's death.
Pakistan's supreme court has struck down the death sentence for blasphemy handed down to Christian woman Asia Bibi, in a long-delayed, landmark decision that has seen the judiciary praised for its bravery in the face of threats of violence and protest from the country's Islamist groups.
The court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, released the verdict on Wednesday morning in Islamabad, three weeks after they had reached a decision.
The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold large protests and kill the judges if they did not uphold the death sentence. Members of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP), a new political party dedicated to punishing blasphemy, blocked roads in Lahore and
pelted police with stones after the ruling.
"Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar, reading out the judgment.
"It is ironical that in the Arabic language the appellant's name Asia means 'sinful'," reads the judgment written by Justice Asif Khosa,
"but in the circumstances of the present case she appears to be a person, in the words of Shakespeare's King Lear, 'more sinned against than sinning'."
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