Proposals In Pakistan To Temper Blasphemy Law Meet With Street Protests

CNN reported yesterday that Pakistan's federal minister for minority affairs has announced the formation of a committee of scholars to review the country's blasphemy laws to prevent them from targeting innocent people. The move comes in the wake of a controversial death sentence for blasphemy imposed on a Christian woman, Asia Bibi. Pakistan's President says he would pardon Bibi, but a court has ruled that the president cannot grant a pardon while the case is still working its way through the courts. (See prior posting.) Press TV reports that thousands of Pakistani Muslims demonstrated in major cities around the country protesting a bill that has been introduced into Parliament that would remove the death penalty for blasphemy.