Households of victims of false blasphemy instances protest exterior Nationwide Press Membership in Islamabad, Pakistan on Jan. 10, 2025. (CDI-MSN screenshot of video).
LAHORE, Pakistan (Christian Day by day Worldwide–Morning Star Information) – Spiritual freedom in Pakistan is dealing with unprecedented threats as Muslim extremist teams improve their maintain on public officers, in response to a report by the Human Rights Fee of Pakistan (HRCP).
The report, “Streets of Concern: Freedom of Faith or Perception in 2024/25,” which paperwork violations of such freedoms between July 1, 2024 and June 30, famous Muslim extremists had been exerting rising strain on the judiciary and elected officers by propaganda and intimidation.
“The rise in hate speech – starting from threats towards the chief justice of the Supreme Courtroom to public vilification of elected representatives – factors to shrinking civic house and emboldened extremist components,” the HRCP report said.
It additionally famous with concern an growing tilt by bar associations towards positions aligned with Muslim extremist teams, a development that undermines the independence of the authorized occupation.
The report documented focused killings, pressured conversions of minority ladies, mob lynchings, hate speech, desecration of locations of worship and extrajudicial killings rooted in blasphemy allegations. Highlighted a number of instances of individuals killed over blasphemy accusations, the report described the development as deeply troubling in a rustic that has already witnessed the assassination of a provincial governor by his personal police guard.
The report additionally famous {that a} sample of minor non-Muslim ladies disappearing and later resurfacing after allegedly changing to Islam and marrying Muslim males continued in the course of the interval.
“Hindus in Sindh, who kind 8.8 % of the inhabitants, and Christians in Punjab (1.9%), have raised repeated issues,” the research said. “A fact-finding research discovered that pressured conversions and coerced marriages stay most prevalent amongst Scheduled Caste Hindus attributable to poverty and restricted social mobility.”
The report highlighted the position of Sindh-based Islamist cleric-politician Mian Abdul Haq, often known as Mian Mithu, who’s accused of utilizing his affect to facilitate conversions of minor Hindu ladies at his seminary in Ghotki, Sindh Province. The UK sanctioned him in 2022, it famous.
The report additionally cited instances the place police had been seen siding with abductors, typically claiming that it will be Haram (forbidden) to return a lady to her household after her Islamic conversion. Faisalabad police in July 2024 recovered Christian minor Laiba Suhail, kidnapped in February 2024 and forcibly transformed earlier than being married off illegally. One other Christian woman, Alina, remains to be lacking. In January, a Mirpurkhas courtroom heard a plea from a pair accused of forcing an underage Hindu woman to transform and marry.
The HRCP emphasised that such instances proceed to deepen insecurity amongst spiritual minorities and known as for protecting measures to safeguard susceptible kids and their households.
Highlighting misuse of the blasphemy legal guidelines to settle private scores or search monetary acquire, the report famous {that a} “mere accusation of blasphemy is usually a dying sentence.”
“Though false accusations continued in the course of the reporting interval, many had been acquitted by the courts, additional confirming the malicious intent behind these costs,” the report said.
In October 2024, Christian sisters Saima and Sonia, accused of blasphemy about two months earlier, had been launched on bail by a Toba Tek Singh classes courtroom after reviewing the proof. The ladies, from a village in Tehsil Gojra, had been charged with discarding a sack containing sacred inscriptions into an empty plot.
“Equally, in June 2025, the Supreme Courtroom ended Anwar Kenneth’s 23-year-long ordeal after a three-judge bench acquitted him on the grounds of being of unsound thoughts,” the report said. “Additionally in June 2025, a 25-year-old Christian man named Farhan Masih from Sahiwal was acquitted of blasphemy costs towards him underneath Sections 295-A and 298-A of the Pakistan Penal Code and Part 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. The trial choose dominated that the prosecution didn’t show its case past an affordable doubt. Farhan, a mentally unwell and impoverished Christian, was charged underneath anti-terrorism legal guidelines and spent practically 5 months in jail.”
The report additionally confirmed that the mainstream media largely ignored points of spiritual freedom. Even the Islamabad Excessive Courtroom’s hearings into the “blasphemy enterprise group,” affecting practically 400 households and livestreamed for 4 months, drew little protection within the nationwide press. Likewise, instances of coerced marriages, pressured conversions and violence towards minorities not often made headlines, it famous.
The report additionally listed a number of killings of minority Ahmadis: dentist Zakaur Rahman in Lalamusa (July 2024), Tayyab Ahmad in Rawalpindi (December 2024), Amir Hasan in Naukot (December 2024), Laeeq Cheema in Karachi (April 2025), Muhammad Asif in Kasur (April 2025) and senior physician Mahmood Sheikh in Sargodha (Could 2025).
“In keeping with the info supplied by the Ahmadiyya group, 29 Ahmadi locations of worship had been attacked and broken in the course of the overview interval,” said the HRCP report.
In 26 instances, demolitions had been carried out by legislation enforcement companies. These incidents occurred in Okara, Khanewal, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Vehari, Sheikhupura, Gujrat, and Sargodha, amongst different areas in Punjab Province. In January, a historic Sialkot web site linked to Pakistan’s first overseas minister and an Ahmadi, Zafarullah Khan, was “lowered to rubble.”
Regardless of these challenges, the report acknowledged restricted progress, together with the passage of the Youngster Marriage Restraint Act 2025, which raises the authorized age for marriage for women to 18, and provincial laws establishing research-based facilities of excellence on countering violent extremism.
“The provincial assemblies of Balochistan, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also needs to prioritize passing legal guidelines that set the minimal marriage age for each women and men at 18, guaranteeing uniformity within the age of marriage throughout Pakistan,” it said. “In keeping with studies, these payments are at varied levels of overview within the respective provincial legislatures.”
Amongst different suggestions, the HRCP strongly urged the federal authorities to determine an inquiry fee based mostly on the findings of the Nationwide Fee for Human Rights with respect to entrapment in allegations of blasphemy. The authorities also needs to monitor these seminaries which might be incessantly concerned within the conversion of underage ladies, it demanded.
It mentioned that legislation enforcement forces additionally must be higher geared up to guard people from mob violence, with very important police coaching in intelligence gathering, crowd administration, studying early alerts of riots, and group policing. Furthermore, swift motion ought to be taken towards those that instigate such mobs.
“As advisable within the HRCP’s earlier studies, the federal government should urgently set up an unbiased statutory nationwide fee devoted to the rights of minorities, guaranteeing equal illustration for all spiritual communities,” it concluded.
Pakistan ranked eighth on Open Doorways’ 2025 World Watch Listing of probably the most troublesome locations to be a Christian.
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