human-rights-in-pakistan

"DIRE. That’s the word the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan uses to describe the state of human rights in our country. Its annual report, released last week, makes for a distressing read, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. One wonders, given how widespread rights violations are, when this brutalised body politic will reach its breaking point. [...] The HRCP’s report reminds us that the state's fear of its citizenry is rooted in a deeper knowledge of systemic fissures in our country."

"The state's fear of its citizenry is rooted in a deeper knowledge of systemic fissures in our country; fissures produced by the disgraceful treatment of an — including women, children, dissenters, religious minorities, labour, prisoners, and more — often by state institutions themselves. [...] Not surprisingly, initiatives to criminalise disappearances are stalled. The thing is, you only silence critics when you have something to hide. And the HRCP’s report — documenting everything from to to poor enfranchisement — gives a sense of what this might be. The sad and shocking scale of rights abuses again raises the question of how efficacious the state's censorship strategy can be. When the public narrative significantly diverges from lived experience, the only outcome is more frustration among the people, who realise that on top of being poorly served, they’re also being lied to and manipulated."

"I think about the incredible story I read on the “Reporters Without Borders” website just before leaving. Aftab Ahmed, editor of a Peshawar newspaper, had published a letter to the editor mildly critical of the anti-Semitic wave engulfing the country, a suggestion to let up on the constant publication of article after article dragging Jews through the mud. Scandal! Trial for blasphemy! Huge demonstrations by religious leaders and Islamists before the courthouse. Newspaper shut down. Printing press burned down. Kill him! Hang him! Get rid of this infidel, we can hate whomever we want and for whatever reasons we deem appropriate. The editor, narrowly escaped the death penalty and, after fifty-four days, was released from jail, but only after writing a “letter of apology to the Muslim people.” Publication was suspended for five months, and his colleague, editorial page editor Munawar Hasan, is still in jail a year later."

"Such are the times, that the mere presentation of a report can be a political act. The HRCP has organised its report by province and administrative unit in a nod to the threats faced by the devolution process. After all, those closest, and so most accountable, to the people are best positioned to protect their rights."

"DIRE. That’s the word the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan uses to describe the state of human rights in our country. Its annual report, released last week, makes for a distressing read, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. One wonders, given how widespread rights violations are, when this brutalised body politic will reach its breaking point. The PTI government has cited concerns of riots fuelled by starvation as a reason to impose light-touch lockdowns. But the HRCP’s report reminds us that the state's fear of its citizenry is rooted in a deeper knowledge of systemic fissures in our country; fissures produced by the disgraceful treatment of an — including women, children, dissenters, religious minorities, labour, prisoners, and more — often by state institutions themselves."

"It is always easy to blame the state and the men in uniform. But Islamic terror essentially does not emanate from uniforms and state power, but from a belief system which even the ordinary people have been fed. That is why a lot of Islamic terror never gets recorded by human-rights organizations like Amnesty International. A Christian Pakistani friend complained to me that Amnesty had not spoken out against the religious persecutions in his homeland, even when these are a grim and undeniable reality. The fact is that much of this persecution and discrimination is not ordered by the state (the type of culprit with which Amnesty is familiar), but is a spontaneous attitude among sections of the Muslim population, egged on by nothing except the omnipresent Islamic doctrine."

"Not surprisingly, initiatives to criminalise disappearances are stalled. The thing is, you only silence critics when you have something to hide. And the HRCP’s report — documenting everything from to to poor enfranchisement — gives a sense of what this might be. The sad and shocking scale of rights abuses again raises the question of how efficacious the state's censorship strategy can be. When the public narrative significantly diverges from lived experience, the only outcome is more frustration among the people, who realise that on top of being poorly served, they’re also being lied to and manipulated."

"Pakistan has the somewhat unique problem that the concept of human rights has been deemed toxic among the es because it is too often associated with curbs on media and religious freedoms. Decades of authoritarian state policy have entrenched a suspicion of democracy and secularism, and there is perversely a fair amount of support for policies targeting those labelled unpatriotic or blasphemous. But human rights are also about positive access to food, healthcare, safety, and education."

"Upholding human rights should underpin all policymaking. The challenges the report identifies will take years to address, but there are several ways this administration can signal a commitment to human rights. For starters, it can vow to protect the 18th Amendment. Such are the times, that the mere presentation of a report can be a political act."

"Imran Khan"

"Rule of law"

"International law"

"International Court of Justice"

"Constitution"

"Human Rights"

"[Hindus and Christians in Pakistan] face continued threats to their security and are subject to various forms of harassment and social exclusion."

"Pakistan Hindu leader Raja Chander Singh... says that the Hindu migration to India is now (proportionally) bigger than during the Partition day: "The future of Hindus in Pakistan is very bleak... They are leaving because of fear". .... In Pakistan, the dwindling percentage of 1 % Hindus ekes out an existence in constant fear of the never-ending harassment's and attacks by the Muslim majority (which is untroubled by any minoritism). A secularist paper, prudishly and secularly titling: Ethnic violence drives Sinhis across the border, lets out the truth in the small print: According to refugee Sukh Ram, most of the Hindus are forced to desert their homes because of their religion. 'We are not allowed to pray peacefully in the temple of celebrate Hindu festival's he said."

"“Bitter Winter” has recently spoken with a number of Pakistanis from different religious backgrounds, wishing to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. They are alarmed by the constant climate of serious intolerance that reigns in the country, where a bigoted interpretation of Islam, intermingled with politics, persecute all religious minorities. In Pakistan, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims of Shia (including the Hazaras) and Ahmadi persuasion live under the sword of Damocles of that set of norms that are generally and commonly referred to as the “blasphemy law.” Many feel threatened by a situation that apparently never improves, even if better signs appear at times. They–for example the Ahmadis—are in fact even scared that those better signs could be superficially or ideologically exploited by some outside or hostile forces to imply that, after all, the situation is not that bad."

"[T]he blasphemy law is felt to be a sword of Damocles and has developed a huge symbolic significance which contributes substantially to the atmosphere of intimidation of Christians. The detrimental effect of the law…is most dramatically illustrated by the incident at Shanti Nagar in February 1997 in which tens of thousands of rioting Muslims destroyed hundreds of Christian homes, and other Christian property, following an accusation of blasphemy. Furthermore the blasphemy has engendered a wave of private violence. Equating blasphemy with apostasy and influenced by the tradition of direct violent action and self-help which goes back to the earliest times of Islam, some Muslims feel they are entitled to enforce the death penalty themselves."

"Tahira Abdullah, a human rights activist situated in Pakistan, said that “The lack of political will and commitment has always stood as the biggest obstacle to prevent the abuse, misuse, and exploitation of blasphemy laws.” She further said, “Mr. Khan’s government is no different from its predecessors in promising to tackle the menace of religious violence. But it is too cowardly to confront influential religious parties in Parliament and the rampaging militant extremist groups outside Parliament.”"

"Instances of mob violence, and state-enforced criminal blasphemy cases, are more frequent in Pakistan than anywhere else, according to a report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom."

"Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are often used against religious minorities and others who are the target of false accusations, while emboldening vigilantes prepared to threaten or kill the accused."

"Pakistan’s blasphemy laws cause tragedies when those unjustly accused are declared guilty. But even the life of those the courts declare innocent is ruined forever."

"In 1996, a Pakistani Christian named Ayub Masih was accused by his Muslim neighbor of encouraging him to read The Satanic Verses. Under Pakistani law, the testimony of a single Muslim suffices in blasphemy cases, and Masih was sentenced to death on April 28, 1998. When the Court failed to order his immediate execution, he was attacked in the courthouse itself but was saved. In a subsequent Christian protest march, attacked with stones by Muslim bystanders, Bishop John Joseph shot himself in a spectacular act of desperation (some Christians allege he was murdered). In Masih's village, all the Christians fled and their houses were occupied by Muslims... Even more serious cases go unreported. Islamists shot and killed in October 1997the Pakistani High Court judge, Arif Bhatti, who had acquitted two Christians on blasphemy charges. ... In Pakistan with its draconian anti-blasphemy law, many people (mostly from the Christian and Ahmadiya minorities) have been arrested on blasphemy charges, many of them have been sentenced to years in prison, some have been sentenced to death, some have been murdered in custody or at large, but in no case has the state dared fully and formally to implement the whole course of its legal provision of a death sentence...."

".. the Islamic parties are most successful in galvanising street power when the goal is narrowly linked to obstructing reforms to discriminatory religious laws that often provoke sectarian violence and conflict and undermine the rule of law and constitutionalism."

"Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or makes any sound in the hearing of that person or makes any gesture in the sight of that person or places any object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both."

"On 24 December 2025, an Additional Sessions Court in Lalian, Punjab, delivered a verdict that should shame any legal system claiming to uphold justice. Mubarak Ahmad Saani, an Ahmadi Muslim, was sentenced to life imprisonment under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. His crime was not desecrating the Quran, not insulting Islam, not inciting violence or hatred, but calling himself a “Hafiz,” and distributing a book of Quranic translation and commentary revered by his community. …The verdict of 24 December 2025 will be remembered as a moral failure. It is a stain on Pakistan’s judiciary, a betrayal of the Quran’s own message of justice and mercy, and a chilling reminder that in Pakistan, the harsh persecution of Ahmadis continues—not in the shadows, but in the full light of the courtrooms."