Holy See diplomat calls for UN investigation into Pakistani Christian’s kidnapping

June 16, 2011

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s representative to UN institutions in Geneva, has called upon the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights to launch a “formal investigation” into the case of Farah Hatim, a 24-year-old Pakistani Christian who was kidnapped, forced to marry, and forced to convert to Islam.

The prelate told the Fides news agency that Pakistan suffers from “problems in the education system, problems of corruption, and widespread extremism” and called Pakistan’s blasphemy law a “perverse mechanism [that] justifies attacks on innocent people and produces a constant threat and uncertainty, especially for Christian families and other religious minorities.”

 

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Further information:

• The Vatican Observer at the United Nations: the case of Farah-only a UN intervention (Fides)
• Pakistan: bishop urges release of woman forced to convert to Islam (CWN, 6/14)