September 2021 Persecution Magazine

PAKISTAN
The persecution of Christians in
Pakistan is severe and complex.
Simply because of their religious
identity as non-Muslims, Pakistani
Christians are treated as second-class
citizens. Christians face many forms
of abuse, including false blasphemy
accusations, physical assaults, attacks
on places of worship, abductions,
and forced conversions to Islam.
Due to this discrimination and abuse,
Pakistan is recognized as one of worst
persecutors of Christians in the world.
On January 28, Tabeeta Nazir Gill
was falsely accused of committing
blasphemy while working at Sobhraj
Maternity Hospital in Karachi, a
hospital where she had been a nurse
for nine years. She had reminded a
Muslim co-worker that it was against
hospital policy to accept tips from
patients. Soon after, videos of hospital
staff beating her surfaced on social
media, showing her tied up with ropes,
tortured, and locked in a room before
she was taken into police custody.
Gill is now facing a potential death
sentence under section 295-C of the
Pakistani Penal Code, which states
that the “use of derogatory remarks—
spoken, written, direct or indirect,
etc.—that defile the name of the Holy
Prophet Muhammad,” are punishable
by a “mandatory death sentence and
fine.”
According to USCIRF’s 2019 Annual
Report, “Accusers are not required
to present proper evidence that
blasphemy occurred, which leads to
abuse, including false accusations.”
In many cases, such as Gill’s, false
accusations are motivated by
personal score-settling or religious
hatred.
The biases enforced in
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are
foreshadowed by the country’s
constitution, which provides little
protection or equality for religious
minorities.
For instance, the constitution clearly
states that religious minorities,
including Christians, are barred from
holding the highest political offices
in Pakistan. On the other hand, job
advertisements for sanitation positions,
considered the lowest and filthiest, are
reserved for non-Muslim applicants
only. As a result, Christians make up
between 80% to 90% of the sanitation
workforce in Pakistan, including the
country’s street sweepers, janitors, and
sewer workers, despite representing
less than 2% of the country’s overall
population.
The constitution of Pakistan also
requires secular laws to be brought into
conformity with Islamic jurisprudence.
Article 227(1) states, “All existing
laws shall be brought in conformity
with the injunctions of Islam as laid
down in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah
and no law shall be enacted which is
repugnant to such injunctions.”
This conformity helps cement the
second-class status of believers and is
one reason why Pakistan’s courts fail
to protect Christians.
For example, The Child Marriage
Restraint Act, a secular law,
criminalizes child marriages.
However, relying on an interpretation
of Islamic tradition which allows
marriage to underage girls if they
have had their first menstrual cycle,
courts have approved marriages where
Christian minors have been abducted
and forcefully married to Muslim men.
According to a 2014 study by the
Movement for Solidarity and Peace
Pakistan, as many as 1,000 Christian
and Hindu women and girls are
abducted, forcefully married, and
forcefully converted to Islam every
year. Playing upon religious biases,
perpetrators know that they can
cover up and justify their crimes by
introducing the element of religion.
Discriminatory ideology is also
reinforced by Pakistan’s educational
system.
From an early age, students in Pakistan
are told to be intolerant of non-
Muslims, behavior also commonly
modeled by Pakistani educators.
For example, an Islamic studies
textbook used to teach fifth graders in
Sindh states, “Christians cannot follow
Jesus Christ even if they wanted
to because they lack authenticity.”
Another textbook for eighth graders
in Punjab reads, “Honesty for non-
Muslims is merely a business strategy
while for Muslims it is a matter of
faith.”
Of course, such teaching fuels an
environment of religious hatred, which
leads to frequent incidents of blatant
persecution against Christian students.
In one instance, a fourth grader was
reprimanded and humiliated by his
school’s headmaster after taking
a drink from a water fountain –
reinforcing the widely held view that
Pakistani Christians are untouchable.
Christian untouchability, a biased
constitution and educational
system, blasphemy laws, and forced
conversions are just a few of many
issues contributing to Christian
persecution in Pakistan. The issue is
multi-faceted, and requires the love,
dedication, and support of the global
Church.
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INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
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