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) – The U.S. Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom (USCIRF) this week urged the U.S. authorities to redesignate Pakistan as a “Nation of Explicit Concern” (CPC) over systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of spiritual freedom.
The unbiased U.S. federal watchdog in its 2026 Annual Report asserted that spiritual freedom in Pakistan continued to deteriorate in 2025, citing the persistent use of blasphemy legal guidelines, mob violence towards spiritual minorities and compelled conversions of women from minority communities, notably Christian and Hindu. The report was launched on Wednesday (March 4).
The physique really helpful that the U.S. State Division not solely redesignate Pakistan as a CPC underneath the Worldwide Spiritual Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) but in addition elevate an current waiver that exempts Pakistan from penalties accessible with the designation. As well as, USCIRF referred to as for focused sanctions towards Pakistani officers and businesses liable for extreme violations of freedom of faith or perception, together with asset freezes and visa restrictions.
“China arrests underground church members, mob violence is on the rise in India and Pakistan resulting in assaults on spiritual minorities and the destruction of their houses, Burma’s navy bombs homes of worship, and Tajikistan denies mother and father the appropriate to show their kids about religion,” stated Vicky Hartzler, chair of the USCIRF. “As USCIRF’s Annual Report reveals, far too many individuals in key nations are denied spiritual freedom by unjust legal guidelines, discrimination, harassment, violence, and even crimes towards humanity.”
The fee’s annual report, mandated by IRFA, paperwork spiritual freedom circumstances worldwide and supplies coverage suggestions to the U.S. president, secretary of state and Congress.
USCIRF Vice Chair Asif Mahmood stated the worldwide development of presidency repression and violence by non-state actors makes reporting on spiritual freedom more and more pressing.
“Spiritual freedom is a common human proper for all,” Mahmood stated. “Authorities repression and non-state actor violence are on the rise in lots of locations around the globe, typically devastating focused spiritual communities and taking harmless lives.”
Within the State Division’s most up-to-date CPC designations on Dec. 29, 2023, Pakistan was listed together with Burma, Folks’s Republic of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, the Democratic Folks’s Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Abuse of Blasphemy Legal guidelines
Pakistan’s blasphemy legal guidelines remained one of many major drivers of spiritual persecution in 2025, affecting each Muslims and non secular minorities together with Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, in keeping with the report.
Authorities continued to use the legal guidelines’ harsh penalties, together with the dying sentence, for alleged insults to Islam, it said.
In January 2025, 4 people had been sentenced to dying after being convicted of posting “blasphemous” content material on social media. That very same month, a mentally in poor health Christian man, Farhan Masih, was charged underneath blasphemy and terrorism provisions. Though he was later acquitted, the report famous that he was unable to return to his village because of fears for his security.
Courts additionally continued to delay long-running blasphemy instances, the report said, citing the case of Junaid Hafeez, a Muslim college lecturer sentenced to dying in 2019 whose attraction listening to was faraway from the Lahore Excessive Courtroom case listing in March 2025. Hafeez has remained in solitary confinement since his arrest in 2014.
Violence and Pressured Conversions
The USCIRF said that mob assaults and vigilante violence towards spiritual minorities intensified throughout the yr, making a “local weather of concern and intolerance.”
In March 2025, a Muslim employee allegedly tried to kill his Christian colleague, Waqas Masih, by slitting his throat after accusing him of touching an Islamic textbook with “unclean fingers.” Days later, a Hindu man, Nadeem Naath, was shot useless after reportedly refusing to transform to Islam, it famous.
The fee additionally highlighted continued studies of pressured conversions and marriages involving underage women from minority communities. In February 2025, a 12-year-old Christian woman was reportedly kidnapped, transformed to Islam and married to a 35-year-old Muslim in Sindh Province, the report said with out revealing the sufferer’s identification.
One other case concerned a 15-year-old Hindu woman, Shahneela, who was kidnapped from her house in Matli by armed Muslims earlier than being forcibly transformed, in keeping with the report.
Rights teams have lengthy documented such instances, which notably have an effect on Christian and Hindu women from impoverished households.
The USCIRF additionally expressed concern over continued restrictions on the spiritual practices of the Ahmadiyya Muslim neighborhood, which Pakistani legislation declares non-Muslim. All through 2025, authorities arrested Ahmadis for providing prayers and allowed mobs to vandalize Ahmadi locations of worship, it famous.
In February 2025, members of the now proscribed Islamist religio-political get together, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), demolished minarets of an Ahmadi mosque in Sialkot with out police intervention. The next month, police arrested dozens of Ahmadis, together with kids, for providing Friday prayers.
In one other incident in April, a TLP mob stormed an Ahmadi mosque and beat to dying an Ahmadi man, Laeeq Cheema, whereas trying to cease worshippers from holding prayers. Police reportedly did not intervene, the report said.
In December, Pakistan’s parliament handed the Nationwide Fee for Minority Rights Invoice, which seeks to determine a physique addressing minority points. The USCIRF report famous, nonetheless, that the legislation minister emphasised that the laws wouldn’t override current anti-Ahmadiyya legal guidelines, elevating considerations amongst rights advocates.
Suggestions
Past redesignating Pakistan as a CPC, USCIRF really helpful that the U.S. authorities enter right into a binding settlement with Pakistan underneath IRFA to encourage reforms.
“These steps ought to embody releasing people imprisoned for blasphemy, repealing blasphemy and anti-Ahmadiyya legal guidelines, and prosecuting people liable for vigilante violence, pressured conversions and different religiously motivated crimes,” the fee urged.
It additionally referred to as on the U.S. Congress to include spiritual freedom considerations into its broader oversight of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, together with advocating for the discharge of prisoners detained for his or her spiritual beliefs.
USCIRF has repeatedly really helpful Pakistan’s CPC designation in earlier studies, warning that with out structural authorized reforms and stronger legislation enforcement responses, spiritual minorities within the nation stay weak to violence, discrimination and prosecution underneath controversial legal guidelines.
Pakistan, the place greater than 96 % of the inhabitants is Muslim, ranked eighth on Open Doorways’ 2026 World Watch Listing of nations the place Christians face essentially the most extreme persecution.
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