LAHORE: Condemnations by Pakistan's top clerics and religious parties against the misuse of blasphemy laws could help reverse a rising tide of mob killings, according to Asma Jahangir, Pakistan's leading rights activists.

A Christian couple accused of desecrating the Holy Quran were beaten to death this month, by a mob of 1,500 and their bodies thrown in a furnace in a spate of lynchings in Pakistan.

Take a look: Christian couple beaten to death for 'desecrating Quran': police

A day later, a policeman hacked a man to death with an axe, who had been accused of blasphemy while he was in custody.

Examine: Gujrat policeman kills man in custody alleging blasphemy

The country's tough blasphemy laws may include the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but critics say they are often used to settle personal disputes.

While there have been no civilian executions for any crime since 2008, anyone convicted, or even accused, of insulting Islam risks a bloody death at the hands of vigilantes.

Pakistani leading human rights activist and Supreme Court lawyer Asma Jahangir gestures as she gives an interview to AFP in Lahore. - AFP photo

Such incidents have been met with general condemnation in the past, but little action has been taken against either the perpetrators or instigators, a factor, say activists, driving a rise in such crimes.

But for laywer Asma Jahangir, who was recently given France's highest civilian award and Sweden's alternative to the Nobel prize for her decades of human rights work, the response to the Christian couple's killing offers hope for change.

"There is a positive development, that religious scholars and parties including Jamaat-i-Islami went there and came forward against the incident, which is a good omen," she told AFP from her office in Lahore. "I think it is a very big change and we should appreciate and welcome it," she added.

Rights progress

Pakistan's religious right has for decades used supposed threats to Islam to stoke up support in a country where 97 per cent of the population are Muslims. But Jahangir said the mounting number of gruesome vigilante cases was now forcing even those who had traditionally been the law's most vocal supporters to pause.

The All Pakistan Ulema Council, a leading clerical body, has chastised the government for failing to act and pledged that in the case of the Christian couple, justice for the victims must be served.

It may sound like wishful thinking, but few Pakistani human rights activists have achieved the credibility of Jahangir. The former UN special rapporteur on religion has braved death threats, beatings and prison time to win landmark human rights cases and stand up to dictatorship.

Pakistan still suffers terrible violence against women, discrimination against minorities and near-slavery for bonded labourers, but Jahangir insists human rights causes have made greater strides than it may appear.

"There was a time that human rights was not even an issue in this country. Then prisoners' rights became an issue," she said. "Women's rights was thought of as a Western concept. Now people do talk about women's rights, political parties talk about it and even religious parties talk about it," she added.

Military undermining democracy?

Jahangir can count a number of victories, from winning freedom for bonded labourers from their “owners” through pioneering litigation to a landmark court case that allowed women to marry of their own volition. She has also been an outspoken critic of the country's powerful military establishment, including during her stint as the first ever female leader of Pakistan's bar association.

The 62-year-old was arrested in 2007 by the government of then military ruler Pervez Musharraf, and two years ago claimed her life was in danger from the country's feared ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agency.

She recently engaged in a war of words with Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan, whose anti-government protest movement she says is backed by the military, a claim his party has denied.

Khan's push to unseat Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has lost momentum since peaking in late August, but he plans another mass rally in Islamabad on November 30.

Jahangir said it was clear that Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) leader Tahirul Qadri, who led a parallel protest, were being aided by the military.

"I have lived in politics, I was born in a political house, it runs in my blood, so I know when certain faces are coming out, where they are coming from," she said.