ISLAMABAD: The accused in Pakistan’s most infamous blasphemy case has been granted a fresh chance to escape the gallows after the Supreme Court confirmed Friday that next week it will hear Asia Bibi’s appeal against her execution.
Bibi, a Christian mother of five, has been on death row since 2010 in what some activists have called a battle for Pakistan’s soul as the state walks a sharp line between upholding human rights and appeasing populist hard-liners.
“The Supreme Court of Pakistan under the chair of Justice Saqib Nisar will hear Asia Bibi’s appeal against her death sentence on Thursday, October 13 in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Islamabad,” her lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP.
“I am very hopeful and confident that my client will get justice... and she will be able to spend her life with her children.”
The court confirmed Friday that the date had been set.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in deeply conservative, Muslim-majority Pakistan. Anyone even accused of insulting Islam risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes.
Rights groups complain the controversial legislation is often abused to carry out personal vendettas, mainly against minority Christians.
Bibi was convicted and sentenced to hang in 2010 after an argument with a Muslim woman over a bowl of water. Her supporters maintain her innocence and insist it was a personal dispute.
Supporters of Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated provincial governor Salmaan Taseer after he advocated for Bibi in 2011, regularly call for her hanging.
A decision by the court in her favor would “send a powerful message to the world that Pakistan respects the rule of law and not the mob,” Mustafa Qadri, an expert on human rights in South Asia, told AFP recently.
He also predicted that supporters of the assassin Qadri would react violently to such a decision. The Islamist was hung earlier this year, bringing hard-liners into the streets chanting slogans against Bibi, although they dispersed after several days.
Islamabad sets date for Bibi’s blasphemy appeal
Islamabad sets date for Bibi’s blasphemy appeal
Reference to Trump’s impeachments is removed from the display of his Smithsonian photo portrait
- For now, references to Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton being impeached in 1868 and 1998, respectively, remain as part of their portrait labels, as does President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as a result of the Watergate scandal
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s photo portrait display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has had references to his two impeachments removed, the latest apparent change at the collection of museums he has accused of bias as he asserts his influence over how official presentations document US history.
The wall text, which summarized Trump’s first presidency and noted his 2024 comeback victory, was part of the museum’s “American Presidents” exhibition. The description had been placed alongside a photograph of Trump taken during his first term. Now, a different photo appears without any accompanying text block, though the text was available online. Trump was the only president whose display in the gallery, as seen Sunday, did not include any extended text.
The White House did not say whether it sought any changes. Nor did a Smithsonian statement in response to Associated Press questions. But Trump ordered in August that Smithsonian officials review all exhibits before the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The Republican administration said the effort would “ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
Trump’s original “portrait label,” as the Smithsonian calls it, notes Trump’s Supreme Court nominations and his administration’s development of COVID-19 vaccines. That section concludes: “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.”
Then the text continues: “After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837– 1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.”
Asked about the display, White House spokesman Davis Ingle celebrated the new photograph, which shows Trump, brow furrowed, leaning over his Oval Office desk. Ingle said it ensures Trump’s “unmatched aura ... will be felt throughout the halls of the National Portrait Gallery.”
The portrait was taken by White House photographer Daniel Torok, who is credited in the display that includes medallions noting Trump is the 45th and 47th president. Similar numerical medallions appear alongside other presidents’ painted portraits that also include the more extended biographical summaries such as what had been part of Trump’s display.
Sitting presidents are represented by photographs until their official paintings are commissioned and completed.
Ingle did not answer questions about whether Trump or a White House aide, on his behalf, asked for anything related to the portrait label.
The gallery said in a statement that it had previously rotated two photographs of Trump from its collection before putting up Torok’s work.
“The museum is beginning its planned update of the America’s Presidents gallery which will undergo a larger refresh this Spring,” the gallery statement said. “For some new exhibitions and displays, the museum has been exploring quotes or tombstone labels, which provide only general information, such as the artist’s name.”
For now, references to Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton being impeached in 1868 and 1998, respectively, remain as part of their portrait labels, as does President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as a result of the Watergate scandal.
And, the gallery statement noted, “The history of Presidential impeachments continues to be represented in our museums, including the National Museum of American History.”
Trump has made clear his intentions to shape how the federal government documents US history and culture. He has offered an especially harsh assessment of how the Smithsonian and other museums have featured chattel slavery as a seminal variable in the nation’s development but also taken steps to reshape how he and his contemporary rivals are depicted.
In the months before his order for a Smithsonian review, he fired the head archivist of the National Archives and said he was firing the National Portrait Gallery’s director, Kim Sajet, as part of his overhaul. Sajet maintained the backing of the Smithsonian’s governing board, but she ultimately resigned.
At the White House, Trump has designed a notably partisan and subjective “Presidential Walk of Fame” featuring gilded photographs of himself and his predecessors — with the exception of Biden, who is represented by an autopen — along with plaques describing their presidencies.
The White House said at the time that Trump himself was a primary author of the plaques. Notably, Trump’s two plaques praise the 45th and 47th president as a historically successful figure while those under Biden’s autopen stand-in describe the 46th executive as “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”
