The Lahore High Court has upheld the death sentence against Asiya Bibi in a blasphemy case which goes back five years. A mother of five children and a Christian, she was accused of passing derogatory remarks about the Prophet (PBUH) by her neighbours near Nankana Sahib in central Punjab in 2009.

The case got widespread coverage in the local and international media and aroused passions in Pakistan due to its sensitive nature. It was this case that led to the assassination of the then Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer by one of his official guards.

Since then, those who have appeared to even mildly be advocating a fair trial for a blasphemy accused according to Pakistani law have been direly threatened. A federal minister who had chosen to speak about Asiya Bibi was gunned down and one rights lawyer who was defending a blasphemy accused in Multan was murdered.

On Thursday, a high court judge ruled that there is no other punishment but death for the crime that Asiya Bibi has been convicted of. A defence lawyer has said his client would appeal in the Supreme Court but those who brought up the charge are already celebrating, calling it a “victory of Islam”.

More or less the same intimidating atmosphere has prevailed throughout the trial — first at the subordinate court which pronounced the death sentence and then at the high court. The accused came to be summarily viewed as guilty the moment she was accused, caught in the wave of hatred routinely generated by blasphemy cases here.

There were a few voices which called for a careful approach to the trial, but this was too emotional an issue for the charged crowd to allow any advice to proceed cautiously, let alone entertain any suggestion for review.

The fact, however, remains that the law as it exists has to take its course; there has to be a trial, which cannot be complete without the accused exercising his or her right to defence. But for a defence to have any meaning, there have to be lawyers who can do the job assigned to them without fear of being condemned as offenders themselves.

As any debate about revisiting the law gets increasingly hazardous and as points about the possibility of the law being used to settle personal scores are forcefully pushed out of the discussion, the next question is: is any fair trial possible in the atmosphere of extreme fear that surrounds all blasphemy cases?