In January, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was assassinated [JURIST report] by one of his own security guards, apparently due to his opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy law [text; JURIST news archive]. Taseer, a senior member of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [official website], was shot while getting into his car at Islamabad's Kohsar Market and died later at a hospital. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the guard immediately surrendered to police and confessed to shooting Taseer because he had spoken against the blasphemy law. This was the most high-profile assassination since that of Bhutto in 2007 [JURIST report] and again involved issues of security. The Pakistani government and police forces have been criticized for their part in Bhutto's assassination. In April 2010, an independent UN commission formed to investigate the assassination issued a report holding the Pakistani government and police forces responsible [JURIST report] for failing to provide adequate security. The report also accused the government of failing to launch a proper investigation into the assassination.

The military had earlier pledged to lift the emergency laws [JURIST report] that have been in place since former President Hosni Mubarak [Al Jazeera profile] assumed power. Prior to Mubarak's resignation, Egypt's government had reached out [JURIST report] to various opposition leaders in the wake of demonstrations that have swept the country. Among those in the opposition that have been approached are the Muslim Brotherhood [official website], the oldest and largest Islamic political group in the world, currently banned from Egypt. According to some commentators, the unrest in Egypt is closely related to the recent civil unrest in Tunisia [JURIST op-ed] that culminated last month with the resignation of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali [JURIST report].