RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
Thank you for joining us.
DECLAN WALSH: Hello.
MONTAGNE: Now, you are there, I gather, at the hospital where the governor's body has been taken. Can you just tell us briefly what happened?
WALSH: Well, so far, it appears that one of the guards in Governor Taseer's protective convoy shot him up to nine times a couple of hours ago, just outside a very busy shopping area here in Islamabad. And the man killed Governor Taseer, and then surrendered immediately. And it appears that he told some police and some photographers who turned up on the scene very shortly afterwards that he had done this because Governor Taseer had supported reforms to Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, and that this guy did not agree with this. And he said, apparently, that it had been his honor to kill Governor Taseer.
MONTAGNE: Yes. Give us, then, a little background. Those blasphemy laws, some protests about them have been in the news lately. Give us a thumbnail description of exactly what that issue is.
WALSH: It's one of the most controversial issues in Pakistan over the past couple of months. It's crystallized around the case of a Christian woman who was sentenced to be stoned to death last year in one of these blasphemy laws. Pakistan's blasphemy laws have been around for a decade, but they are seen as a tool that's used to discriminate against minorities and settle scores. And so there's been a lot of outrage about this woman's case. She's the first woman to be stoned to death. And that case has triggered sort of the groundswell among progressive Pakistanis for reform of the blasphemy laws. However, very few politicians have really stood out in public and supported these reforms, and Governor Taseer was one of the very few figures to do so.
MONTAGNE: And I gather he was burned in effigy at one of these protests.
WALSH: That's right. Governor Taseer and another parliamentarian, a female called Sherry Rehman, are the two figures from the governing party who have not been afraid to take on the forces of the religious right, if you like, and in seeking reform of these laws.
MONTAGNE: Now, this is the highest-profile assassination since the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Why was Governor Taseer so important?
WALSH: Well, as he's governor of Punjab, which is the most populous province, and it's also the politically most important province. He's the close confidant of President Asif Ali Zardari, and he is also someone who was close to Benazir Bhutto before she was assassinated. And in a broader sense, this is yet another death of a senior Pakistani figure in bizarre circumstances.
MONTAGNE: And does this have larger political implications? I mean, could this really hurt the government?
WALSH: I think this gives a sense of the just how almost nobody in Pakistan, really, can be guaranteed of their security. And we've seen attacks against President Musharraf when he was in power. He narrowly escaped several assassination attempts. Of course, Benazir Bhutto was killed in 2007. Now Governor Taseer, one of the most powerful and outspoken political figures in the country, has been killed. And in all of those cases, in fact, the assailants were people from the extreme fringes of society, people who previously were marginal in Pakistan, but have become increasingly powerful and have shown that they have the ability to take out some of the most influential people in authority.
MONTAGNE: Thank you very much.
WALSH: My pleasure.
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.