Pakistan’s law minister has been forced to resign after weeks of protests by people angry at changes to the country’s oath of office.
CNN reports that demonstrators across Pakistan are finally dispersing after the country’s justice minister Zahid Hamid agreed to stand down and the government distanced itself from the changes, calling them clerical mistakes.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hamid had sought to defuse the scandal by posting a video on social media in which he read the oath and said he and his family were “prepared to lay down our lives for the honour and sanctity” of Islam’s holy prophet.
Pakistan has some of the most severe anti-blasphemy laws in the world. This summer a 30-year-old man was sentenced to death for a series of Facebook post that were deemed to be “derogatory remarks ... in respect of the Holy Prophet”.
Despite international condemnation, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has defended similar sentences, saying “nothing can be greater than our religion to us”.
-
August 16 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include football season anticipation, and Donald Trump angling for Putin's autograph
-
5 hilariously cold cartoons about the Alaska summitCartoons Artists take on the Alaskan totem pole, a peace flag, and more
-
Journalists killed in Gaza: a chilling assaultIn the Spotlight Anas al-Sharif and three of his Al Jazeera colleagues were targeted by the IDF
-
Texas’s abortion law: the Republicans get their way, at lastSpeed Read SB8 authorises private citizens to sue anyone who performs, ‘aids or abets’ an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy
-
Changing legal gender: what’s new and how does it work?Speed Read Cost of a gender recognition certificate application is reduced from £140 to £5
-
America’s bloodiest state votes to ban the death penaltySpeed Read Virginia has executed more than 1,300 people in its 400-year history
-
FBI accused of ‘fake’ background check on Donald Trump Supreme Court nomineeSpeed Read Democratic senator calls for ‘proper oversight’ over Brett Kavanaugh investigation into sexual assault claims
-
Family of Malcolm X claims letter proves FBI and NYPD involved in his murderSpeed Read Daughters of assassinated civil rights leader demand reopening of investigation
-
Meghan Markle granted nine-month delay in Mail on Sunday privacy caseSpeed Read Duchess of Sussex had applied for summary judgement in battle over letters sent to her estranged father
-
Meghan Markle to pay £67,000 after losing first round of legal battle against Mail
Speed Read Duchess of Sussex is suing the newspaper’s publisher for printing parts of private letter to her father
-
MI6 agents tried to stop judge seeing secret documents in ‘licence to kill’ caseSpeed Read Intelligence agency was forced to apologise for ‘any misunderstanding’, court documents show
