Pakistan-
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, was shot and killed by one of his bodyguards on Tuesday. Taseer was an outspoken secular politician who had recently taken up a campaign to repeal Pakistan's 'draconian' blasphemy laws, the January 4th Guardian reports. Last month, Taseer had publicly supported a a Christian woman and mother of three children, Aasia Bibi, who had received a sentence of death for allegedly insulting the prophet Muhammad.global council of Indian christians(GCIC) condoles the death of the'humane' governor of Pakistan.GCIC urges the "collective"conscience to condemn the killing
Taseer was shot multiple times as he was entering a car in Islamabad at the Kohsar Market, a 'favoured haunt of westerners and wealthy Pakistanis.' The attacker was a member of an elite police force, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri and immediately surrendered to police. Qadri is reported to have said the following to a television crew from Dunya TV who arrived at the scene shortly after the killing:“I am a slave of the Prophet, and the punishment for one who commits blasphemy is death."

Taseer belonged to the secular-minded Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). He was a businessman and the publisher of a liberal English-language newspaper who had been imprisoned under the military dictator Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq for his opposition to the religious parties. As the New York Times notes, Taseer had recently undertaken

...a campaign to repeal Pakistan’s contentious blasphemy laws, which were passed under General Zia as a way to promote Islam and unite the country. The laws have been misused to convict minority Pakistanis as the Islamic forces unleashed by the general have gathered strength. The laws prescribe a mandatory death sentence for anyone convicted of insulting Islam.

Taseer was an active user of Twitter (@SalmaanTaseer). His feed includes commentary not only on events in his province and concerns about Pakistan's 'online culture war' between 'secular liberals and religious conservatives,' but about topics such as Facebook:

I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy.Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing [31 Dec]
Unimpressed by mullah rightest madrassa demo yesterday: small numbers abusive well organised no general public support [1 Jan]
There are a lot of question marks but the big question is : What is the alternative to PPP? Who can hold the federation together? [2 Jan]
So Facebook the social networking site started by a 26 year old has been valued at $50bn Same as our foreign debt! Something 2 think about? [3 Jan]

The death of Taseer 'provoked a deluge of shared grief on sites such as Twitter and Facebook' on the internet. But it also made all too clear how many view Taseer's death 'as a victory for efforts to defend the blasphemy law.' The Guardian noted that, within hours of his death, a Facebook page in support of Quadri soon appeared, and which soon had over a thousand followers.