Anna Bigelow

Taseer’s assassin shot him multiple times at point blank range in a public market and then waited to be detained, allegedly expressing pride in his actions to the media that quickly surrounded him. It is the issue of blasphemy and the symbolic nature of a much-publicized case involving Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman accused of maligning the Prophet Muhammad, that brought Taseer so centrally into the public eye in recent weeks.