Image: Martin Bureau / AFP / Getty Images / World Watch Monitor
Shafqat Emmanuel (top left) and Shagufta Kausar (bottom left) are the first Pakistani Christians on death row to be acquitted of blasphemy after Asia Bibi (right).
The Pakistani Christian woman who replaced Asia Bibi in her prison cell on death row, Shaguftah Kausar, has after a dozen delays since April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic been acquitted from the death penalty by the Lahore high court.
The mother of four, along 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, surnamed Masih , were convicted of sending blasphemous texts in English to Islamic clerics.