Murders, forced conversions, lynchings: Pakistan's sorry religious-freedom record
January 16, 2012
At least 161 people were indicted last year under Pakistan’s blasphemy law, and 9 people accused of blasphemy were lynched. A Muslim legal scholar estimates that 95% of all blasphemy charges are fraudulent.
A year-end report from the Asian Human Rights Commmission also notes that last year about 1,800 Hindu or Christian girls were forcibly converted to Islam, usually after being kidnapped or pressured into marriage with a Muslim man.
The report on Pakistan’s abysmal religious-freedom record noted that in 2011 at least 30 activists and journalists working on religious-freedom issues were killed. “The state played an ambiguous role to appease the religious extremism and remained a silent spectator of such killings.”
For all current news, visit our News home page.
Further information:
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
