Image copyrightReutersImage captionMumtaz Qadri was hailed as a hero by some Islamist groups
Pakistan has hanged the former police bodyguard who shot dead Punjab's governor over his opposition to blasphemy laws, officials say.
Mumtaz Qadri killed Salman Taseer in Islamabad in 2011, in a murder that shocked the country.
Qadri was hailed as a hero by some Islamist groups, and thousands of hard-line activists protested to show their support for him at the time.
After news of his execution, crowds again took to the streets in protest.
Security forces have been put on high alert and a heavy police presence, including riot police, are in place in the area around Qadri's home in Islamabad, AFP news agency reports.
His funeral will be held on Tuesday at Liaquat Bagh park in nearby Rawalpindi, where large numbers of mourners are expected.
Prison officials said Qadri was executed at 04:30 local time (23:30 GMT) at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad.
Qadri, who had trained as an elite police commando and was assigned to Taseer as his bodyguard, shot the politician at an Islamabad market in January 2011. He was sentenced to death later that year.
He claimed it was his religious duty to kill the minister, who was an outspoken critic of Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws and supported liberal reforms.
Analysis: M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, Islamabad
Image copyrightAPImage captionQadri's supporters blocked a highway in protest following his execution
Mumtaz Qadri's hanging has come as a surprise to many who thought such a move could spark a severe backlash from the religious lobby.
The hanging comes amid two recent developments that have already incensed religious groups.
In January, the Punjab government banned preaching in educational institutions by Tablighi Jamaat, a proselytising and revivalist movement. And earlier this month it enacted a law that provides for a helpline for women to report abuses by their husbands and others.
Amid this atmosphere, the move to hang Qadri indicates a growing confidence of the government in taming the street power of religious groups, which the military has long been accused of using to control politicians at home and fight its proxy wars abroad.
One reason may be the fact that most hard-line groups adhere to the Deobandi school and would be loath to lionise Qadri, an adherent of the rival Barelvi sect. But a more important reason seems to be the military's new-found willingness to curb militant groups that have a domestic agenda.
Pakistan has seen Islamist groups grow in influence in recent years and several high profile blasphemy cases.
Qadri was lauded by religious conservatives, and in his first court appearance was showered with rose petals by supporters. He never expressed any regret for the killing. His brother appeared to reassert that when he told the AFP news agency about his final meeting with Qadri.
"I have no regrets," Malik Abid told AFP. "We started crying, but he hugged us and chanted 'God is great,'" he added.
Image copyrightAFP/Getty ImagesImage captionSupporters in 2011 threw the rose petals on the armoured vehicle carrying Qadri away from the court
In May, just months after Taseer was gunned down, Pakistan's Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the cabinet's only Christian, was shot dead by gunmen who ambushed his car.
That August, Salman Taseer's son, Shahbaz Taseer, was abducted in Lahore. His whereabouts are still unclear.
Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan and critics argue that blasphemy laws are often misused to settle personal scores and unfairly target minorities.
Who was Salman Taseer?
Image copyrightAFP/Getty Images
The 2011 murder of Taseer, who was the governor of Punjab, was one of Pakistan's most high-profile assassinations.
He was one of the most prominent liberal politicians in the country and a close associate of Asif Ali Zardari, who was then the president.
Known to be an outspoken critic of the country's harsh blasphemy laws, arguing that they discriminated against religious minorities, and sought liberal reforms.
He had called for a pardon for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Image copyrightAFP/GettyImage captionMore than 100,000 migrants have reached Europe so far this year
Ministers from EU and Balkan nations are meeting in Brussels to try to heal rifts over migrants that have plunged common policy into chaos.
Austria, Serbia and Macedonia have taken their own steps to limit entry to migrants, angering Greece, which fears the controls will cause a bottleneck.
A surge in migration, and the failure to agree an EU-wide response, have led to warnings about the bloc's survival.
More than 100,000 migrants have entered the EU illegally this year.
European Council president Donald Tusk has warned that the failure to make progress towards resolving the crisis could increase the likelihood of the UK voting to leave the EU this year.
The EU interior ministers meeting in Brussels will hear plans drawn up by Austria and eight Balkan countries that seek to restrict the numbers entering their borders.
An official from the current Dutch presidency of the EU told AFP news agency Thursday's meetings would aim to "avoid surprises - we have to avoid that one country is surprised by the measures taken by another".
Image copyrightEPAImage captionMinisters in Brussels are seeking to repair fissures in the EU's migration policy
In separate developments:
Ships from a Nato mission fighting human-trafficking in the Aegean Sea will work with Turkish and Greek coastguards, according to a new agreement, overcoming territorial tensions between the two neighbours
A French judge is to decide whether to implement or postpone an eviction order for up to 1,000 migrants under plans to demolish part of the Calais "Jungle" camp
Germany expects to accommodate 3.6m migrants by 2020, German media reported, quoting internal government estimates
The new measures - from Austria and its Balkan partners - include fingerprinting all entrants and turning back anyone without a passport or holding fake documents.
The countries have also pledged to accept only those they deem to be in need of protection - interpreted by some governments as meaning only Syrians and Iraqis.
Over the weekend, Macedonia barred entry to Afghans at its border with Greece.
Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian foreign minister, told German TV Europe had to "abandon this goal of allowing in unlimited numbers".
Media captionDanny Savage explains the tense stand-off at the Idomeni gates.Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionGreece fears it will be left to cope alone with migrants stranded by the new restrictions
But the plans drew sharp criticism from Greece, the first stop on European soil for thousands of migrants arriving by sea.
Greece has threatened to block all decisions at EU migration summits next month if member states do not agree to take in quotas of migrants.
Filippo Grandi, the head of UN refugee agency UNHCR, said, "Everybody has to take a share of this burden."
Image copyrightAPImage captionThe port of Piraeus has been receiving migrants ferried from Greece's eastern islands
Germany's parliament has meanwhile backed new measures to speed up the processing of claims from migrants who are less likely to be granted asylum.
The move envisages the creation of reception centres where certain categories of asylum-seekers - those from so-called countries "safe countries of origin" or those who have not helped the authorities with their claims - can have their claims processed within three weeks.
The measures also include a controversial provision to delay family reunions for migrants who are not believed to "personally persecuted".
What the European papers say - BBC Monitoring
Several papers from countries in the thick of the EU migrant crisis are worried about their leaders' approach. Influential journalist Alan Posener, in Germany's Die Welt, believes Chancellor Angela Merkel's "short-sighted actions" on the crisis are helping Russia sow division among European states. "The EU is blowing up around Merkel - to Putin's delight," he writes.
Austria's Kronen Zeitung also reports that Mrs Merkel is under pressure to consider Austrian and Balkan proposals to restrict the flow of refugees. "Will Berlin join the 'Viennese way'?" a headline asks. But another Austrian paper, the Kurier, worries that the proposals have put Vienna "on a collision course with the EU".
Meanwhile, Greek daily I Kathemerini laments that "the nightmare scenario of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants trapped has come to pass", adding that the government was ill-prepared for this situation, and cannot easily negotiate its way out. "Regardless of Greek shortcomings," the paper says, "Europeans have a responsibility not to feed the snake of anti-European sentiment in Greece."
In September, EU ministers agreed plans to relocate 120,000 migrants from Italy, Greece and Hungary to other EU countries. But the majority vote decision was opposed by Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
More than 100,000 migrants have arrived in Greece and Italy so far this year, theInternational Organization for Migration (IOM) said. More than 400 migrants died attempting to make the journey during the same period, the IOM said.
A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.
As a young dancer with feminist tendencies Bee Rowlatt was scandalised to find herself on stage alongside topless dancers. Many years later, after writing a book about early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, she visited the Moulin Rouge in Paris to talk to dancers who bare their breasts in this unforgiving industry. And, as she describes here, she wavered.
The French writer and artist Jean Cocteau had a fondness for Moulin Rouge showgirls. He called them the "caryatids of that great and marvellous epoch that was ours". But maybe Jean Cocteau never had a thong heaved up his bum or got shoved over on stage, because these are my memories of showgirl life.
I was only a teenager when I landed my job at the Isla del Lago show in the Canary Islands. Until then I'd been a dedicated ballet girl with a growing tendency for feminist indignation and had no idea what I was getting myself into. The show was a high-kicking parade of gigantic feathers and eyelashes. But what the audience saw was nothing compared to the antics backstage.
Image captionBee had to learn the showgirl code quickly
This was show-biz, red in tooth and claw - the survival of the thinnest and meanest. As the youngest recruit I had a lot to learn. I couldn't dance in those cursed silver high heels, or even wear a thong properly. And to my horror, some of the dancers were topless. A proper dancer shouldn't have to expose her breasts, I fumed. It was a line I refused to cross. The whole experience was like falling into a parallel universe. Somewhere glittery, but very very hard.
A week into rehearsals I still couldn't dance in heels. A very tall blonde took me to one side. She was an old hand, known to all as Aunty Debbie for taking new dancers under her wing. She warned me to ignore the blisters and keep the shoes on at all times: the gossip was that I was useless and might get sacked. There was only one way to survive. I pulled the shoes on and limped straight back on stage.
Luckily things got better quickly. I learned about "weigh day", when dancers were lined up and weighed one after the other, how to keep sweat out of your eyelash glue, and how to make tampon strings invisible. I learned to sleep during the day, not to get suntan lines, not to eat or drink before the show, and never not ever to get in the way of the principal dancer during a quick change. When I finally nailed the high kicks in high heels, I was there.
Image captionBee and Debbie backstage
We spent long hours in the sequin-strewn dressing room, our reflections surrounded by light bulbs. Night after night we sat around, semi-naked, sewing our tights, and baring our souls. Bad boyfriends, tricky childhoods, blow jobs, diets, same-sex encounters, abortions, boob jobs gone wrong - we discussed it all.
These were tough, hard-working, independent women. None of them was stupid. Yet I was stunned by what they deemed acceptable in life - had I been so sheltered until now? We were a room full of hungry women on low wages, who had endured public weighings and been called bitches and "fat cows on ice" by our employers. Why did we put up with it?
Years later I tracked down Aunty Debbie again while writing my book In Search of Mary, about the foremother of feminism. Our reunion began with a sly appraisal. Whenever two former dancers meet, a certain canine-style moment must come to pass, as they discreetly check out each other's bums. (Has she got fat?) All ex-dancers fear the critical gaze of another ex-dancer. We pretend we don't, but we do.
Image captionDebbie and Bee in their high-kicking days...Image caption... and today, sizing each other up
Soon it was all laughter and memories. But Debbie's tales of backstage bullying put mine in the shade. Jealous colleagues sabotaged her quick costume changes, and even worse, she had regular spinal injections to mask injuries.
We decided to visit the Moulin Rouge, where Debbie first worked as a 16-year-old rookie. This legendary Parisian establishment was the birthplace of the can-can, immortalised by Toulouse-Lautrec and still the Moulin's signature routine. An early edition of the Oxford Companion to Music calls the can-can "a boisterous and latterly indecorous dance, exploited in Paris for the benefit of such British and American tourists as will pay well to be shocked".
Image copyrightAlamyImage captionCan-can dancers as portrayed by Toulouse LautrecImage copyrightMoulin Rouge
Another definition? It's every dancer's nightmare - the most dangerous, demanding and injury-prone number of them all. Debbie described bloody noses, ripped tendons, and the notorious split-jumps. "We'd leap up into the air, throw our legs out into the splits, then land on the floor in that same position. No wonder we all screamed throughout!"
We arrived at the Moulin and were led backstage into the very heart of sequin-land. Rows upon rows of costumes and headdresses swung from pulleys up on high. Gigantic red and pink feather edifices waved like a coral reef. Between them flitted a shoal of huge-eyed and pale-limbed dancers. They were like beautiful aliens. I'd never been to the Moulin before, but I recognised this world at once.
One of the dancers, Katie, had recently returned from a can-can related injury. She had been hired five years ago, she told us, in an audition attended by 300 girls. In our day, auditions were likely to attract 30 or 40, and the dancers were mainly British, whereas today the talent pool is completely international.
Image copyrightJ Habas / Moulin Rouge
But while standards may have have risen, apparently tyranny levels have not. When I told Katie about weekly public "weigh days" she nearly fell off her chair with shock. "No! They'd never do that here. Obviously we have to stay in shape. If that changes they take you aside and talk to you. But not publicly!"
I tried to dig deeper for evidence of exploitation, and this time Debbie cut in, emphatically: "Working at the Moulin was the best thing that ever happened to me and the truth is I would've done it for free."
"It's a privilege to be here," agreed Katie. "Being a dancer means everything to me. I feel I can be me, I feel amazing."
But why should dancers go topless?
Katie smiled diplomatically. "I know it's not for everyone. But it actually gives dancers more status," she said. Then she and Debbie exchanged a wink "and it gets you out of the can-can!"
"Status?!" I echoed.
Image captionBee drew the line at topless dancing but Debbie enjoyed the status it gave her
"Same in my day," said Debbie. "We topless girls were higher up the food chain, with different choreography - it was a promotion." She squeezed my knee affectionately. "You guys were just chorus line!"
"Anyway," said Katie, "a lot of people change their minds when they see the show." I quietly resolved not to change my mind.
Just before the curtain lifted, I whispered to Debbie, "I still dream about that curtain moment." The recollection of the feeling of performing on stage was almost painful. I held my breath, and it began.
The show was a shimmering, delirious, timeless piece of joy. There were moments of camp and kitsch, of course, but what other night out can boast thousands of euros' worth of feathers and rhinestone, 800 pairs of handmade shoes, 700 silver champagne buckets and five live pythons?
Image copyrightSandie Bertrand / Moulin Rouge
The dancers themselves are creatures so beautiful that they catch your breath. They're like statues come to life. There's a silver-screen nostalgia about the spectacle, and the can-can, in all its unhinged glory, sent the audience wild.
"At the Moulin we respect the traditions," said Thierry Outrilla, a former dance colleague of Debbie's who is now the stage director. "There's a certain magic of things, and you cannot change that."
The show ended but somehow we couldn't bear to leave. The conversation returned to breasts: to cover or not to cover. Annoyingly, Katie was right. Seeing the show did change my mind. There was no grinding and no jiggling, it was a remote kind of beauty, a thousand miles from twerking. It was as old-school as a nude statue.
As the waiters began to stack chairs around us, I had another realisation: there was solidarity among dancers, a showgirl code. If you could get through the agony, you became family. After all, here I was, with the woman who stuck up for me 25 years ago. There was true sisterhood behind the sequins, and if today's Moulin showgirls are anything to go by, that's still the case.
Image copyrightSandie Bertrand / Moulin RougeImage captionThe heart of sequin-land
"Let's face it," I said. "These dancers are healthier, they work harder, and they're less bitchy."
"They're just better than us," sighed Debbie.
"Well thank goodness we're old and can still behave badly!" we cackled. I indulged in a champagne-fuelled reassessment of my negative memories. They had been bathed in the spotlight of my political views, to the neglect of some of the inexplicable magic.
How could I have forgotten this? Being a dancer is a short-lived, fragile joy - a temporary and precious triumph over gravity. Perhaps it would make sense to invest those training years in a guitar or some other entity that never gets injured or old. But we invested in our own bodies. And that, for a short time, was like being able to fly.
Everyone from Rumi to Nietzsche extols the power of dance. The American choreographer Merce Cunningham knew the truth. "You have to love dancing to stick to it," he said. "It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive."
Image copyrightSandie Bertrand / Moulin Rouge
Listen to Bee Rowlatt and Debbie Gills discussing their experiences as showgirls and visiting the Moulin Rouge on Woman's Hour, on BBC Radio 4. Bee Rowlatt is the author of In Search of Mary, the Mother of all Journeys.
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