Mick Hartley

Declan Walsh at CiF writes about the death sentence just passed on Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of Salmaan Taseer, and the recent case of the Christian girl expelled from school because she missed out a dot in a poem about Mohammed, in relation to Pakistan's blasphemy laws:

What accounts for such madness? In some parts Taseer's death has inspired a McCarthyite atmosphere in which nobody wants to seen to be soft on blasphemy. But there is also a more profound reason. Devotion to the prophet Muhammad is central to the faith of the Barelvi Sunnis, who make up the majority of Pakistani Muslims. Even a whiff of insult to the prophet can whip up feverish anger.

Well yes. And the judge who sentenced Qadri?

In truth, Taseer's baby-faced killer is unlikely to be hanged any time soon. A lengthy appeals process is just starting, and the Zardari government has imposed an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment. But the judge who sentenced him, Pervez Ali Shah, faces perhaps shorter odds.

Judges who rule the "wrong" way on blasphemy face immense dangers in Pakistan. In 1997 extremists burst into the chambers of a high court judge who acquitted an accused blasphemer three years earlier, and shot him dead. Justice Shah will be fearing a repeat.

Reporters at Qadri's hearing on Saturday noted that the judge slipped from the courtroom via the back door. He knows he is a marked man. 

The judge has now, wisely, gone on indefinite leave after receiving death threats, while lawyers attacked his court and smashed windowpanes.

[The Guardian moderators have – in the true sprit of Comment is Free – been hard at work here. If you want to read what CiF commenters have to say about Walsh's article, well, tough luck. The first four comments have been deleted: 

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards….

The next comment – the first one to make it past the Guardian censors – starts "Good column." We then have two more deleted comments, and then:

Great article, well-judged. Thank you.

It's certainly a lively old debate there.]