The Pakistani woman who replaced Christian Asia Bibi in her prison cell on death row, a mother of four, Shaguftah Kausar, has – after a dozen delays since April 2020 due to Covid-19 – been acquitted from the death penalty by Lahore High court. Kausar, with her disabled husband Shafqat Emmanuel, was arrested for blasphemy in 2013 and sentenced to death in 2014. Despite both being illiterate, the Catholic couple were convicted of sending blasphemous texts – in English – to Islamic clerics. The couple appealed against their death penalty in 2016, but the appeal was continuously delayed – leaving them languishing in jail for years – because blasphemy cases are so controversial and sensitive in Pakistan.

(World Watch Monitor)