Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Pakistan was founded as a secular state at the time of India’s partition in 1947. Only gradually was a more militant Muslim character imposed on the country under the dictatorship of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq (1977-1988), giving Islamic law a greater role in Pakistan’s legal system.
The population is almost entirely made up of Muslims, mostly Sunnis (85-90 percent), 90 percent of whom follow the Hanafi school. Shi’as make up only 10-15 percent.
Religious minorities include Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis. Some 33,000 Pakistanis are Baha’is, 6,146 are Sikhs and over 4,000 are Zoroastrians (Parsis). There are also some 200 Jews scattered throughout the country, possibly on the verge of disappearing.
The main ethnic groups are Punjabi (44.7 percent), Pashtun (Pathan) (15.4 percent), Sindhi (14.1 percent), Saraiki (8.4 percent), Muhajirs (7.6 percent), Balochi (3.6 percent), others (6.3 percent).
Pakistan signed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 2010. It is therefore obliged, under Article 18, to safeguard the freedom of thought, conscience and religion of its people.
Although Article 2 of the 1973 Pakistani constitution (amended several times, the latest in 2018) states that “Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan”, the document also guarantees some rights to religious minorities. The Preamble notes that “adequate provision shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practise their religions and develop their cultures.” The two clauses of Article 20 recognise that “every citizen shall have the right to profess, practice and propagate his religion,” and that every religious denomination “has the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.”
Article 21 establishes that “no person shall be compelled to pay any special tax, the proceeds of which are to be spent on the propagation or maintenance of any religion other than his own.” Article 22 regulates “safeguards as to educational institutions in respect of religion,” adding that “no person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction”. It also specifies that “no religious community or denomination shall be prevented from providing religious instruction for pupils of that community”.
However, this article does not seem to have been fully applied, especially after Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government introduced the so-called Single National Curriculum (SNC) for primary schools and seminaries in 2021. The SNC drew strong criticism from educational experts and human rights defenders for its lack of inclusivity, overemphasis on Islamic religious content at the expense of religious minorities and poor pedagogy. More broadly, school curricula and textbooks promote intolerance towards minorities.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed concern about the government perpetuating a singular view of religion in educational institutions through the SNC, depriving young students of the right to a secular education. Furthermore, religious minority students are prevented from studying their own religion, as no required religious education textbooks were ready as of 2021.
The situation in this regard is even more critical in Punjab. In November 2021, the Lahore High Court ruled that district judges should conduct inspections concerning the teaching of the Qur’an in schools throughout the province.
Article 41 is another discriminatory feature of the Pakistani constitution, stating that “a person shall not be qualified for election as President unless he is a Muslim.” In addition, Article 91 (3) stipulates that the prime minister must also be a Muslim. According to Article 203 (E), the Federal Islamic Court has the power to invalidate any law contrary to Islam or to suggest amendments accordingly.
In Article 260 (3) of the constitution, a distinction is made between Muslims and non-Muslims, contributing to religiously based discriminatory attitudes. It also declares the Ahmadiyya community to be a non-Muslim minority.
The so-called blasphemy laws - added by General Zia-ul-Haq between 1982 and 1986 to the Pakistan Penal Code, namely Sections 295-B, 295-C, 298-A, 298-B, 298-C) - severely restrict freedom of religion. Defiling the Qur’an and insulting the Prophet Muhammad carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment and death respectively. Compounding this, the concept of “blasphemous” is quite broad, and is frequently abused, with various types of conduct punished, including irreverence towards people, objects of worship, customs and beliefs.
While general protection against any form of offence and vilification towards all religions is formally recognised, Sections 295-A, 295-B and 295-C and Sections 298-B and 298-C refer to conducts deemed exclusively blasphemous against the Islamic religion. Since the Pakistani legal system is based not only on Common Law but also on Shari‘a, the rules in question are applied only in favour of Islam.
Overall, only six blasphemy cases were recorded between 1947, when Pakistan became independent, and 1986, when the last “blasphemy law” was introduced; by comparison, 1,949 cases were reported after Sections 298-B and 298-C were included in the Penal Code, according to the Lahore-based Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).
Furthermore, according to the CSJ, blasphemy laws affect disproportionately religious minorities. The highest number of cases (47.62 percent) involves Muslims, followed by Ahmadis (32.99 percent), Christians (14.42 percent), Hindus (2.15 percent), while in 2.82 percent of cases the religion could not be confirmed. This means, over 49 percent of blasphemy cases touch minorities who represent only 3.5 percent of the Pakistani population.
Minorities are also overrepresented in blasphemy-related murders and other forms of violence. These include the 2021 lynching of Priyanka Kumara in Sialkot. Since 1987, at least 84 people have been killed extrajudicially following blasphemy allegations. Of these, 42 were Muslims, 23 Christians, 14 Ahmadis, two Hindus, one Buddhist, and two people whose religious affiliation was unknown.
Other changes made by General Zia-ul-Haq were Sections 298-B and 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. These provisions made it a criminal offence for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims, employ names and appellations associated with the Prophet, use Muslim practices in worship and propagate their faith. According to The Persecution of Ahmadis website, from 1984 to 2019, 262 Ahmadis were killed because of their faith, 388 faced violence and 29 Ahmadi mosques were destroyed. Between July 2020 and September 2021, seven Ahmadis were murdered, including 57-year-old Tahir Naseem; an American citizen accused of blasphemy, he was shot in a Pakistani courtroom while awaiting trial. At least seven others were wounded in what appeared to be assassination attempts.
In May 2020, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony announced that it had re-established the National Commission for Minorities. One of its responsibilities is to ensure that non-Muslim places of worship are maintained and are fully operational. In June 2014, following the attack on the All Saints’ Church in Peshawar the year before, the Supreme Court of Pakistan mandated the Pakistani federal government to set up a national commission for minorities. Religious minorities had no organisation to represent them at the federal level since the assassination in 2011 of Shahbaz Bhatti, the first and hitherto only federal minister for minorities. However, the commission was not set up by an act of parliament, but by a federal cabinet and therefore does not enjoy constitutional authority.
In addition, a Protection of Rights of Minorities Bill, rejected by the Senate in September 2020, has not been put back on the legislative agenda. Senator Hafiz Abdul Karim, a member of the Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony was among those objecting to the proposed legislation. In his view, a bill for the protection of the rights of Muslims should be presented instead, because “minorities in Pakistan have already been granted several rights”.
As in the past, during the period under review, the Punjab provincial assembly unanimously passed several regressive resolutions in favour of conservative legislation. In 2021, it approved a resolution requiring provincial government offices to display Quranic verses and hadith. It also passed a resolution on the inclusion of an oath referring to the notion of Final Prophethood (khatm-i-nabuwat) in marriage (nikah) documents in October. The resolution suggested that the khatm-i-nabuwat certificate be mandatory for the bride, groom, their witnesses, and marriage officials (nikahkhwan).
As noted in the incidents section, kidnappings, forced conversions and forced marriages continue to afflict minorities. This is also caused by the lack of legal protection. On 13 October 2021, a parliamentary committee rejected an “anti-forced conversion” bill after the Religious Affairs Ministry opposed it. Legislators from minority communities criticised the negative vote. According to the draft bill, any non-Muslim adult wanting to convert to another religion must apply for a conversion certificate from an additional sessions judge. The bill would also permit conversion only after the age of 18. The then Religious Affairs Minister, Noor-ul-Haq Qadri, said the Ministry does not support a restriction on religious conversion before 18, asserting that younger people should have the right to choose their religion.
Pakistan ranks 6th in the world in terms of child marriage (girls married before the age of 18). As much as 71 percent of girls do not have any say in who and when they marry. These were the key findings of the Policy Brief on the Legal Framework of Child Marriage in Pakistan, as well as those published in October 2022, in the survey by the National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC), conducted in collaboration with UNICEF Pakistan.
Owing to the lack of relevant legislation and the misapplication of the laws that do exist, the number of young Hindu and Christian women and girls abducted, forced into sham conversions to Islam and then married off to Muslim men, continues to increase.
Sindh is among the provinces with the highest number of cases, and it is the only province with a law that prevents the marriage of minors, namely the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013. Thanks to this law, which came into effect in 2020, it has been possible to return some kidnapped girls to their families. The law, however, still has some flaws; for example, it has no power to annul Islamic marriages even if the bride’s underage status has been established. Moreover, girls are often not allowed to return to the Christian faith, as was the case for 14-year-old Arzoo Raja, now Arzoo Fatima, who, after finally returning home to her parents, was forced by the court to report to the police station every three months to prove that she was not under pressure to return to the Christian faith.
The National Commission for Justice and Peace Pakistan is developing a program to safeguard girls and young women from minority communities in Pakistan. The recommendations include police reform and training, setting up helplines, reviewing the Anti-Forced Conversion Bill, which was rejected by a parliamentary committee in 2021, and adding ‘forced conversion’ to the national legal framework to facilitate legislation.
Incidents and developments
The period under review saw Pakistan marked by a deep economic and political crisis that contributed to the dismissal of Imran Khan on 10th April 2022. Khan, who had been in office since 18th August 2018, became the first Prime Minister in Pakistan to be removed from office by a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
Some minorities, particularly Christians led by lawyers, started organizing associations for the defence of their rights, such as Akmal Bhatti’s Minorities’ Alliance of Pakistan, which organizes rallies and appeals to courts and local legislatures, seeking equal access to justice.
Despite Khan promising a New Pakistan (Naya Pakistan) in his election manifesto, in which the “civil, social and religious rights of minorities” are guaranteed, religious minorities continued to be strongly discriminated against. Proof of this is the fact that in public job advertisements for sanitation workers, street sweepers, and sewer cleaners, reference to the job stated, “reserved for non-Muslims”.
Discrimination against minorities takes various forms; for example, “anti-encroachment plans” implemented to reduce flood risks tended to disregard Christian and Hindu communities who, after losing their homes, complained of delays or neglect in receiving government compensation.
A further problem that plagues minorities during the period under review was the strong presence of Islamist terrorist groups. Pakistan remained in the top ten countries most affected by terrorism, according to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), dropping from eighth place to tenth in 2020, but with a slight increase (5 percent) in terrorism-related deaths.
When the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, terrorist activities restarted in Pakistan, where the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (IS-KP) gained ground. The original core of the IS-KP in Afghanistan included many former Pakistani Taliban militants dissatisfied with their leadership. IS-KP is responsible for the March 2022 attack on a Shi‘a Mosque in Peshawar, which claimed more than 60 lives.
Pakistan’s Shi‘a community perceive that the suicide attack of 4th March 2022 was the latest in a series of attacks on their community since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 with the support of the Pakistani government.
Anti-Shi‘a violence has increased since the wave of Islamisation of the country began in the 1980s, with the situation getting worse in recent years. One incident during the period under review occurred on 18th September 2022, when radical Islamist activists attacked a Shi‘a procession in Punjab province, injuring at least 13 people. According to a senior police officer, tensions in the area arose between the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Shi‘a activists over the procession route since local TLP leaders did not want the Shi‘a procession to pass in front of their mosque and seminary.
According to the Centre for Social Justice, the largest number of those accused of blasphemy are Shi‘as, 140 out of 208, or 70 percent, in 2020.
On 13th July 2021, UN experts expressed deep concern at the lack of interest in the human rights violations perpetrated against the Ahmadiyya Community around the world, including in Pakistan. Pakistani Ahmadiyya Muslims continue to face harsh official and societal persecution.
In 2021, at least three Ahmadis were killed in separate targeted attacks. On 11th February 2021, an Ahmadi homeopathic doctor, Abdul Qadir, 65, was shot dead at his clinic in Peshawar. On 9th November 2021, Kamran Ahmad, 40, was shot dead by an unknown assailant in Peshawar. On 20th November 2021, Tahir Ahmed, 31, was shot dead after Friday prayers in Punjab. In August 2022, Abdul Salam, 33, a father of three, was on his way home from the field when a seminary student, Hafiz Ali Raza, alias Mulazim Husain, attacked him with a knife.
The Ahmadiyya community reported 49 religiously motivated incidents to the police, as well as the desecration of 121 Ahmadiyya graves and 15 places of worship by mobs.
Attacks on Hindu places of worship are also commonplace. On the evening of 8th June 2022, five men on motorcycles entered the Korangi Hindu Temple in Karachi, smashed offering bowls, threw stones at an idol, and threatened two temple employees.
An attack on 4th August 2021 against the Ganesh Temple in Bhong, a village in Punjab, was even worse. The temple was badly damaged by a mob of about 250 people after a Hindu boy accused of desecrating a local madrassa was released on bail. Not only was the temple vandalised, but most of the Hindu families in the village were forced to flee their homes.
Blasphemy accusations are often the cause of attacks against minorities even before the police can intervene. This happened in Lahore on 7th August 2021 after a youth seminar held at the NCP Church was deemed sacrilegious. Hundreds of Christian families fled their homes after they noticed a large Muslim mob marching towards their church and shouting chants against Christians. A timely intervention by the police saved the church and averted a potential attack on people’s homes.
On 9th November 2021, Yasmeen Bibi, 55, and her son Usman Masih, 25, were killed by their Muslim neighbour Hassan Shakoor Butt. This followed a long-standing feud over sewage water from the Christians’ house passing close to a Muslim shrine. As they were being killed, the murderers called them kaffir (a derogatory Arabic word for infidels) and shouted Chura (a derogatory term meaning dirty Christians, applied to Dalits or untouchables in South Asia’s caste system).
On 30th January 2022, Fr William Siraj was killed in Peshawar, after leaving Shaheedain (martyrs) All Saints Church following Sunday prayers.
Two different incidents involved Christian nurses, who represent 60 to 70 percent of Pakistan’s nursing staff. On 30th January 2021, Tabitha Nazir Gill, a renowned Evangelical Christian singer, who worked as a nurse in Karachi, was accused of blasphemy by her colleagues. She was beaten and tortured by hospital staff and visitors until police officials arrived and took her into custody. At first, the officials released Tabitha Gill without pressing charges, but after pressure from the mob, the police registered the charge against her. On 9th April 2021, two Christian nurses working at Faisalabad’s Civil Hospital were rescued by policemen from an enraged mob after a doctor accused them of scratching an Islamic sticker off a cupboard.
A murder case linked to blasphemy accusations involved a teacher, Safoora Bibi, who on 29th March 2022 had her throat slit by two colleagues and one of their nieces, after the niece said she had seen Safoora Bibi offend the Prophet Mohammed in a dream.
The most heinous crime linked to blasphemy was undoubtedly the murder of Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan manager killed in Sialkot on 3rd December 2021. Extremists accused Kumara of tearing down posters on which Quranic verses were written. According to other reports, he had simply torn down posters of Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) from the walls of his factory. In videos circulated online, a crowd can be seen beating the man lying down while TLP slogans against blasphemy can be heard. Others took selfies with the body burning. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack, “a day of shame for Pakistan”, he wrote on Twitter. “I am overseeing the investigation & let there be no mistake all those responsible will be punished with [the] full severity of the law. Arrests are in progress”.”
While extrajudicial killings continue to occur, little progress can be seen in the period under review with respect to blasphemy cases, with the exception of the release of a Christian couple sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2014. On 3rd June 2021, a court acquitted Shafqat Masih and his wife Shagufta Kousar Masih, who had been on death row for seven years after they were accused of sending blasphemous text messages in which they insulted the Prophet Muhammad. Although the case was weak and the two were acquitted for lack of evidence, it took several years for them to prove their innocence.
The case of Pastor Zafar Bhatti is different. Pakistan’s longest-serving blasphemy prisoner saw his life sentence unexpectedly and incomprehensibly changed to a death sentence in January 2022. Imprisoned on 22nd July 2012, he was accused of sending blasphemous text messages from his phone, but he has always maintained his innocence.
Also in January 2022, a Pakistani court sentenced to death a Muslim woman, Aneeqa Atteeq, who had been arrested in May 2020 after a man alerted police that she had sent him caricatures of the Prophet, considered sacrilegious, via WhatsApp.
The youngest person ever to be charged with blasphemy in Pakistan is an eight-year-old Hindu boy. In August 2021, he was accused of intentionally urinating on a carpet in the library of an Islamic school (madrassa), where religious books were kept. The accusations forced the local Hindu community to flee and led to an attack on a Hindu temple.
The number of cases of Christian and Hindu girls abducted and sexually enslaved, under the pretence of conversion to Islam and marriage to their abductor, continued to increase during the period under review.
Among several cases involving Christian girls, that of Mahnoor Ashraf’s stands out. On 4th January 2022, the 14-year-old was abducted by Muhammad Ali Khan Ghauri, a 45-year-old Muslim, already married with two children. Mahnoor’s father reported the incident to the police, but the officers did little or nothing to solve the case until 7th January, when Ghauri announced that Mahnoor had voluntarily converted to Islam and had married him on the very day of the abduction.
Another case, which seemed to have been successfully resolved, proves the limits of Pakistan’s law enforcement. In April 2022, Meerab Mohsin, a 16-year-old Pakistani Catholic girl, was a victim of rape and forced marriage and conversion. Although she managed to escape her attacker, a Muslim man, and return to her family, the court did not invalidate the marriage. As the girl’s lawyer, Tabassum Yousaf, explained to Aid to the Church in Need, the parents “are very concerned about the court’s ambiguous decision because at any moment the ruling could be interpreted differently and the family could be forced to return their daughter to her husband, since the court did not annul the marriage”.
The scourge of abductions and forced conversions also seriously affected the Hindu community. On 24th September 2022, a 14-year-old Hindu girl was abducted in Hyderabad town of Pakistan’s Sindh province. According to the girl’s parents, Chandra Mehraj was kidnapped from the Fateh Chowk area of Hyderabad while she was returning home. This was the fourth kidnapping and forced conversion of a Hindu girl in just 15 days.
Prospects for freedom of religion
Life continues to be difficult for minorities in Pakistan. Given the country’s severe economic crisis and political instability, no improvement is expected in the immediate future. Additionally, the Taliban’s rise to power in neighbouring Afghanistan could contribute to a growth of Islamic fundamentalism.
Pakistan’s legal framework still lacks laws to protect minorities and prevent forced conversions. This has not prevented, however, the development of a few groups defending minority rights who manage, through national and transnational channels, to have some impact on international public opinion.
Most worrying, however, is the increasingly Islamo-centric education, which contributes from primary school onwards to discrimination and negative attitudes towards members of religious minorities, a situation that the Single National Curriculum has helped to exacerbate. The prospects for religious freedom remain negative.
Pakistan