Pakistan is infamous worldwide for its harsh blasphemy laws, but members of its government are denying that Christians are targeted by those laws. This denial is all the more absurd in light of the fact that Pakistan’s minority minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a vocal Christian critic of the blasphemy laws, was assassinated in 2011 for his outspokenness. In Pakistan, if a Christian so much as angers a Muslim, even in a dispute among neighbors, he or she could face fabricated accusations of blasphemy, leading to his or her arrest and even death.
Pakistani police have arrested a 70-year-old Christian grandfather and tried to beat a confession out of him that he wrote letters insulting to Islam. Mukhtar Masih now faces jail and a possible death sentence. Masih’s whole family is now in hiding for fear of Muslim villagers.
In another anti-Christian incident last week, evidence showed that a 12-year-old Christian schoolgirl was drugged and raped before being murdered, but Pakistani police claimed that she committed suicide. Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, stated that Pakistani authorities and government “need to recognize the growing concern of evident targeting of Christian girls for rape and forced Islamic marriage,” but the concern has been a longstanding human rights matter, which suggests that Pakistani authorities already recognize the situation but continue to deceive the world into thinking that their country is fighting persecution, as well as jihadist terror. Pakistani has been — and remains — problematic in its persecution of Christians, as well as in its harboring of jihad terrorists and sponsorship of terrorism.
“Pakistani Christians Are ‘Not Being Targeted by Blasphemy Laws,’ Gov’t Official Claims”, by Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post, February 1, 2017:
Some members of the Pakistani government are saying they don’t believe Christian minorities are being targeted by the country’s controversial blasphemy laws despite numerous instances of Christians being beaten, lynched, and even burned alive in mob attacks.
As the British Pakistani Christian Association reported, Interior Minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan recently denied that religious minorities are suffering because of the blasphemy laws, which seek to punish those deemed to have committed an offense against the Islamic faith.
“The facts and figures reveal that in most blasphemy cases the accused were Muslims,” Khan reportedly said, pointing to Senate House Data that looked at 129 cases of blasphemy, 99 of which were registered against other Muslims.
“These facts point toward the fact that religious minorities are not being embroiled in blasphemy cases more than Muslims,” Khan argued.
“In essence, religious minorities are not being targeted by the blasphemy laws.”
Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the BPCA, countered that government officials are twisting statistics and ignoring that religious minorities, such as Christians, are indeed being targeted by such laws.
“Sadly, Mr Khan’s comments, even when taken at face value, suggest that minority persecution is way above the expected values for such a small percentile of Pakistan’s population,” Chowdhry said.
“His contrived results have failed to recognize that Christians in recent years have become the number one target of blasphemy allegations. It is our belief that a large proportion of the 26 percent of blasphemy convictions listed against minorities will have sentenced Christians, yet we contribute only 1.6 percent of the entire national population,” he pointed out.
BPCA also criticized government proposals that it warned could lead to charges being dropped against Muslims, and only look to penalize minorities.
Several different persecution watchdog groups have pointed out that Christians are often heavily targeted by blasphemy laws. One of the most prominent cases has been the imprisonment of Christian mother of five Asia Bibi, who for seven years has been on death row for allegedly insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, though she has denied the charge.
On Saturday, a court in Pakistan acquitted all 115 suspects who in 2013 burned 150 houses belonging to Christians, again over alleged blasphemy against the Islamic prophet.
One of the most violent incidents remains the burning alive of a Christian couple in 2014 who were falsely accused of desecrating a copy of the Quran. Shahzad Masih, 26, and his 24-year-old, five months-pregnant wife, Shama, were attacked by a mob of hundreds of Muslims and were beaten, and burned to death inside a brick kiln.
Five men were sentenced to death over the killings, providing some level of justice for the family of the victims, though dozens of others suspected to also have been involved in the crime were acquitted.
In January, Open Doors USA named Pakistan among the top 21 countries in the wold where it said 100 percent of Christians experience persecution.
What is more, looking at the number of incidents where Christian girls and women were kidnapped, raped and forced into Islamic marriage, persecution watchdog group found that “Pakistan had the most overall violence against Christians” in 2016.
“Cities have been burned to the ground, people have been roasted alive, girls are increasingly being raped and forced into Islamic marriage in attempts by Muslims to gain a special place in Heaven through proselytizing in this manner……

Cara Dewitt says
reading your own newspapers convinces me Pakistan remains a backward country on issues of religious freedom and women’s rights . you do not even take care of your own people . women and children begging on the street are at severe risk from grown men . men of Pakistan have elevated themselves to such a level that it would embarrass and shame ALLAH . pray for empathy and compassion , not more sex . how can you look at yourself in the mirror and feel proud ? abusing someone weaker does not make you stronger , when you become sick, old , disabled or weak , will anyone really care ? with few exceptions you are a disgrace .you pretend to high morality , but it is your deeds that the rest of the world sees . it is shameful .
TheOldOligarch says
”abusing someone weaker does not make you stronger”
This is a Christian concept. Pakistan, like every Muslim nation, is an honour/shame society, not a good/evil society. In such societies, debasing and humiliating others *does* bring honour to oneself, as honour is always relative.
The pagan Romans would have understood this also.
Charli Main says
Pakistan´s blasphemy laws target ALL non Muslims living in Pakistan. Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists are also having their temples burned down and their women raped and brutalised. These Pakistani Muslim scum are equal opportunity rapists and murderers.
Walter Sieruk says
Pakistan with its “blasphemy laws” leads to concept of the question “What is blasphemy ? ” As other wise put “How to define what blasphemy really is ?” Maybe with this “blasphemy against Islam is no more then making a honest and clear distinction and contrast between the teachings of the Quran and the teaching of the Bible on Jesus. As seen ,for example,in the following essay.
The way for a person to discover the truth concerning the nature of Jesus is found in the Bible verse Isaiah 8:20. This instructs “To the law of the testimony. If they do not speak according to the word, it is because there is no light in them.” [N.K.J.V.] In other words, if a religious teacher has teaching that are in contradiction to the Word, the Bible, then that teachers is a false teacher who teaches false doctrines. The Muslim clerics, as the imam and mullahs, teach and speak doctrines about God from the Quran .
As the Quran in 112 teaches “He is God alone: God is the eternal begetteth not…” Likewise, this religious book which is the entire foundation of and for Islam further teaches in 19:35. “It is not befitting to God that He should beget a son.” In great contrast the Bible teaches in John 1:14. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory , the glory of the only begotten of the Father ,full of grace and truth.” Likewise John 3:16 teaches “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son… Then just a little further in verse 18 it is written about Jesus Who is “the only begotten Son of God. “ Other places in the Bible further teach that Jesus is the Son of God as in Matthew 16:15:16. Luke 1:35. John 3:36. First John 4:14. 15. 5:14,15. Moreover to be even more clear the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Son of God, Who is God the Father. As found in Matthew 3:16,17. First John 2:22,23. 4:14,15. Of course , it ,very much, needs to made even more specific . The Bible teaches that Jesus is also God the Son. As seen in Hebrew1:8 and First John 5:20. The imams and mullahs as well as the other apologists for Islam will try to “explain” this all away. As in they will try brush off all those Bible verse off by making the claim that the Bible had been corrupted, through time, by Christians and that’s why the Bible reads as it does. That claim they make actually underestimate the Power of God to protect and keep His Word safe and intact ,through time, and away from the corruption of men.
In conclusion ,with the above instruction of the way to find doctrinal truth in Isaiah 8:20 and in the light of the Bible verse provided it may be clearly seen, by all those who are willing to see, that Islam is in terrible doctrinal error and it is therefore a false religion, Proverbs 14:12. John 14;6.
In addition there is a Christian internet site which replies to the many claims made by the imams and mullahs as well as the other apologists for Islam. It’s http://www.answering-islam.org
Angemon says
OK, 99 out of 129 makes ~76.7%, meaning that in ~23.3% of cases of blasphemy the accused were not muslim. According to the CIA world Fact Book, Pakistan is 96.4% muslim. 3.6% of the population makes up nearly 25% of people accused under “blasphemy” laws. Sure, that by itself doesn’t tell us that blasphemy laws are being used to target religious minorities (that conclusion can only be reached on a case-by-case study) but its disproportionality should raise more than just a few eyebrows.
davej says
According to Islam everyone is born a Muslim, but if they are not brought up as one or convert then they are automatically apostates and should be killed. This includes infants.
This is a good primer on Islam and it’s sexual practices:
Baucent says
Time Trump shut down the Dollar pipeline to Pakistan. They are a two faced friend that American could do without. Makes much more sense to develop a security and trade relationship with India.
Charli Main says
While India is a rapidly developing industrial and military superpower, Pakistan will continue to remain a backward, mediaeval Muslim shithole.
If it wasn’t for billions of US and EU tax dollars, these primitives would still be living in mud huts and goat skin tents.
dumbledoresarmy says
Yes.
Precisely.
And, speaking as an Aussie, I think Australia should *also* disengage both from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and *also* from overwhelmingly-Muslim and smilingly-sinister Indoneisa (with whom we have a *most* unhealthy relationship that is rapidly starting to look like tribute-payer / tribute-receiver, or dhimmi and Muslim overlord) and the equally sinister Emirates, and reorient, big-time, towards India, our majority-non-Muslim Commonwealth sister. India has problems – many of them exacerbated by its nasty and aggressive Muslim fifth column, which it would be wisest, over time, to expel – but it is streets ahead of any mohammedan entity, and much freer than totalitarian and ruthlessly-greedy China.