Assassination of Salmaan Taseer (2011)

Summary: The secular governor of Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, a friend and close ally of President Asif Ali Zardari, was assassinated by one of his police bodyguards in Islamabad on January 4, 2011. The assassin, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, told a television reporter at the scene that "I am a slave of the Prophet, and the punishment for one who commits blasphemy is death." This was apparently a reference to Pakistan's blasphemy law that makes it a capital crime to insult Islam. An agricultural worker from Punjab province was convicted of blasphemy in a municipal court in 2009 and sentenced to death; Taseer was outspoken in his criticism of the law and supported a presidential pardon. Taseer's death was widely viewed as a measure of the extent to which conservative Islamists influenced Pakistani politics and, in the view of some analysts, raised anew the question of whether Pakistan could be relied upon as an ally of the American war effort in Afghanistan.

Date: January 4, 2011.

Place: Islamabad, Pakistan.

The Incident: Salmaan Taseer, a liberal, secular Pakistani politician who was governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan's heartland (both the capital, Islamabad, and principal financial center, Lahore, are there), friend and ally of President Asif Ali Zardari, and outspoken opponent of ultra-conservative Islamists, was shot multiple times -- reports from the hospital said two dozen bullets had been fired into Taseer's back -- while visiting the Kohsar Market in Islamabad.

Known or presumed perpetrators: Malik Mumtaz Qadri, age 26, a provincial policeman assigned to protect Taseer, immediately admitted killing Taseer and surrendered at the site without further incident. He told a television crew at the scene of the shooting: "I am a slave of the Prophet, and the punishment for one who commits blasphemy is death," apparently a reference to Taseer's opposition to the death sentence of a Pakistani woman convicted of violating a blasphemy law (see History/Background section below). Thousands of Pakistanis had staged demonstrations and a general strike just four days before the assassination in support of the blasphemy law. About a dozen other police who were present at the shooting, and who did nothing, were also arrested. Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, was quoted by Geo Television in Pakistan as saying the shooter had volunteered to be on Taseer's security detail on the morning of the assassination and that the provincial police official who supervised Qadri was being interrogated. Reports said Qadri, a member of the Punjab police "Elite Force," was known to be a religious militant who had been declared unfit to serve as a bodyguard. (The Elite Force was established in 1998 specifically to counter extremist violence in Punjab.) None of Pakistan's conservative Islamist organizations claimed responsibility for plotting the assassination, although some groups repeated their support for the blasphemy law that Taseer opposed. Political parties condemned Taseer's killing, while smaller religious parties said he deserved to die. At a court hearing, lawyers showered Qadri with rose pedals while others in the room slapped his back and kissed him. Qadri became a member of Punjab's Elite Force of police in 2008. The New York Times quoted "senior presidential aides" as saying after the assassination that it showed that "Islamist elements" had infiltrated police and military elements; no specific group was immediately named.

Impact: The death of Taseer, widely regarded as one of Pakistan's most liberal secular politicians, was quickly seized upon as indicative of changes in Pakistani politics and society, including the growth of conservative Islamist elements, since 1980. It was also interpreted as a potential blow to the government of President Zardari, who faces demands by the United States to take more forceful action against Islamist extremists, such as the Pakistani Taliban and fighters of the Afghan Taliban, including Al Qaeda.

Although Taseer had been outspoken in his opposition to conservative Islamists, Zardari's government had been much more cautious. In response to demonstrations and strikes staged by Islamists on December 31, 2010, in support of the blasphemy law, the minister for information declared the day before the demonstrations: "Neither the Pakistan Peoples Party nor the government has discussed the issue to bring any amendment in the blasphemy law."

In a discussion with Taseer's widow, according to an official account, President Zardari said the assassination was meant "to sharpen the polarization in the society to derail the democratic process using the facade of religion."

History/Background. Taseer's assassination came within a few days of the third anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007, as she was campaigning for a political comeback as leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP); her husband, Asif Ali Khan Zardari, became president of Pakistan in September 2008, succeeding General Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto had told then-President Pervez Musharraf in the weeks leading up to her death that she suspected a plot against her life by some elements of Pakistan's intelligence service, possibly acting in coordination with the Pakistani Taliban.

Salmaan Taseer was a secular politician critical of fundamentalist Islamists. During the 1980s, he was repeatedly arrested, and once sent into exile, for opposition to then-President General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, who supported Islamist fundamentalists, partly to help unite the country, and actively supported and funded mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan during the period of Soviet occupation. In 1988 Taseer was elected to the Punjab provincial assembly from a district in Lahore on the Pakistan People's Party ticket, and served as the federal minister for industry and production. Taseer was also a businessman. He founded several accounting and management consulting firms and a brokerage house affiliated with Smith Barney of the United States. He was named governor of Punjab province by President Zardari in spring 2008.

The Blasphemy law that emerged at the center of the Taseer assassination was passed during the 1980s under the government of then-dicatator General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, whose government supported conservative Islamist elements. That support included funneling money to Islamists fighting in Afghanistan against a left-wing secular government in Kabul--an effort supported by the United States. The law makes "insulting Islam" punishable by death. Charges can be brought on the say-so of witnesses without further evidence. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission has criticized the law for making any non-Muslim subject to prosecution. In the most recent case, a Pakistani Christian woman, Asia Bibi, age 45, was sentenced to death by a municipal court in the wake of an incident that took place in 2009 in a village, Ittan Wali, 60 miles west of Lahore. She was picking berries and evidently was asked to fetch water for other workers to drink; they refused to drink from a water bowl that Mrs. Bibi had touched and, according to her husband, accused her of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammad; she denied doing so. She was accused of blasphemy and convicted in a municipal court, which sentenced her to death. As governor of Punjab province, Taseer objected to the sentence and sent papers to his friend and political ally, President Zardari, supporting clemency for Mrs. Bibi.

Bibliography

"Salmaan Taseer, Governor of the Punjab." (Personal Web site.) http://www.salmaantaseer.com/main.aspx