Pakistan bishop calls on international community to stop abuse of blasphemy law

A leading Catholic bishop asks world powers to come together and demand that authorities in Pakistan protect the rights of minority faith groups. Religious minorities are increasingly unsafe due to the flagrant misuse of the country’s blasphemy laws.

Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, said that Christians and other beleaguered minorities will never feel safe in their country unless false allegations of blasphemy are banned. The bishop’s comments coincide with the news that on June 3rd, Nazir Gill Masih, a Christian man in his 70s from Sargodha, had died in the hospital 10 days after being attacked by a mob for dubious blasphemy charges.

Bishop Shukardin said that such incidents would only increase unless Pakistan authorities clamped down on people making false accusations and stopped mobs from taking matters into their own hands.

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), which supports persecuted Christians around the world, Bishop Shukardin said, “It is very important that legislation is introduced wherein those who are found to have wrongly accused people are given sentences, including jail terms.”

The bishop stressed that illiteracy is common among Christians in Pakistan, so they are unlikely to commit intentional blasphemy in accordance with 295B of the Penal Code, which carries life imprisonment for desecration of the Qur’an. The bishop, who is chairman of the Catholic National Commission for Justice and Peace, previously accused the authorities in Pakistan of failing to bring justice for victims of violence last August. Those attacks were   also triggered by a false blasphemy allegation.

Bishop Shukardin warned that these examples of government inaction have only emboldened people to weaponize the law to attack innocent minorities. He told ACN, “Nothing has happened to bring justice. This is a disaster. It is not good for the minorities. Until the government is serious and makes laws to protect them, especially Christians, who are the major minority, the situation will only get worse. We are not asking for anything that goes against the country. We are simply asking for the protection of our lives and our families’ lives.”

He added, “We need to bring justice and safety to our minorities and, indeed, all those who are treated badly because of their faith. […] But pressure needs to come from abroad, government to government.

Persecution is getting worse. You get the major incidents, like what happened last August and what happened at the end of May. But there are so many minor incidents taking place. It is an alarming situation. These incidents are increasing day by day.”    

The bishop emphasized that only a small number of Muslims in Pakistan were antagonistic, and the number of YouTube and television statements condemning the anti-Christian attacks in Sargodha was unprecedented.

—John Pontifex