Pakistani clerics who opposed Asia Bibi's blasphemy acquittal get bail

Leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, addresses followers at a protest sit-in in Islamabad on November 27, 2017 – (AFP / FILE)

• Tehreek-e-Labbaik party has shut down major cities, destroyed property, threatened top government, military and court figures
• Party leaders Khadim Rizvi and Pir Afzal Qadri were arrested last year and accused of ‘terrorism and sedition’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities on Tuesday released on bail two ultra-right religious party leaders whose followers have shut down major cities demanding stricter application of stringent laws on blasphemy against Islam.
In November last year, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party, and Pir Afzal Qadri, a co-founder, led nationwide protests and threatened Supreme Court judges over the acquittal and release of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who had spent eight years on death row on a blasphemy conviction.
Qadri, who is one of the TLP’s co-founders, had even called for the killing of the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi, as well as the overthrow of the government and the powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa. On May 1 this year, Qadri resigned from the TLP citing health issues and issued a public apology for his remarks.
Local media reported that a two-member bench comprising Justice Qasim Ali Khan and Justice Asjad Javed Gharal had granted bail to Rizvi and Qadri till July 15 against surety bonds of Rs5 million each.
Pakistani Information Minister at the time, Fawad Chaudhry, had said last year that Rizvi and three others had been “charged under sections of sedition and terrorism.”
“Today we have decided to take legal action against the TLP leadership,” Chaudhry told a press conference on December 1. “All those who were directly involved in destroying property, who misbehaved with women, who set fire to buses, are being charged under laws of terrorism at different police stations.”
Chaudhry said more than 3,000 TLP members were taken into protective custody in the wake of the protests last year.
The move represented a hardening of the authorities’ stance toward the TLP, which in late 2017 paralyzed the capital Islamabad for several weeks and clashed with the police in deadly protests.
In 2017 and last year, TLP members called off protests only after negotiating with the military and reaching a deal with the government, which made many concessions to appease the group.
The TLP’s main focus is protecting Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws. It was founded out of a movement supporting a bodyguard who assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer for advocating for Asia Bibi in 2011.
Blasphemy is a deeply emotive issue in Pakistan and officials have been unnerved by how much support Rizvi’s TLP has garnered across the country in the two years since the group entered mainstream politics.
Last week, Bibi’s lawyer told Arab News she had finally left Pakistan for Canada.