Last year, General Musharraf himself called for a procedural change, suggesting that the merits of blasphemy cases be reviewed by local officials before an arrest.

Human rights activists struggle against death sentences in blasphemy cases and laws that sometimes make a woman the guilty party in her own rape.

I was myself involved in a blasphemy case, one of the last to be investigated by the police before changes in British law.

She revealed that more than 150 blasphemy cases have been lodged in Pakistan since 1986.

In 1884, he refused to support anarchist writer August Strindberg, in his blasphemy case.

Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, last year suggested a procedural change that would have required that blasphemy cases be reviewed by local officials before an arrest.

The blasphemy case:

In 1884, he briefly returned to Stockholm to stand trial in a blasphemy case against his collection of short stories Married (Giftas).

It was 'almost inconceivable' that the prosecuting authorities would bring a blasphemy case against Visions of Ecstasy.

Executions are not carried out in blasphemy cases in Pakistan, though Catholics say that the laws remain in force to harass Christians.