Lahore [Pakistan], October 16 (ANI): Pakistan continues to face persistent violations of religious freedom despite legislative steps aimed at protecting minorities, with blasphemy laws, forced marriages, religious persecution and institutional discrimination undermining equal citizenship, according to a new report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
In a press release shared on X, HRCP stated that a report titled Sanctuary Denied: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2025/26 welcomed the passage of the National Commission for Minorities Act 2025 and laws in Punjab and Balochistan raising the minimum marriageable age to 18. However, it highlighted a widening gap between legislative commitments and their implementation.
HRCP noted that the National Commission for Minorities remains unconstituted months after the law’s passage. Meanwhile, hundreds of people accused of blasphemy remain trapped in legal uncertainty, while alleged members of organised networks accused of entrapping individuals in blasphemy cases have yet to be investigated.
The report also documented attacks against the Ahmadiyya community, including two extremist incidents in Chenab Nagar, alongside growing efforts to exclude Ahmadis from public and commercial life. Members of Christian and Hindu communities, particularly girls, continued to face abductions and forced marriages, with poverty and inadequate police responses aggravating their vulnerability.
Discriminatory employment practices, the Islamisation of school curricula and the marginalisation of minority issues in mainstream media further reflect structural barriers to equal citizenship, the report said.
At the report’s launch, HRCP director Farah Zia stated that the state’s approach towards religious minorities was becoming increasingly exclusionary. Minority rights defender Nabila Bhatti highlighted the case of Kamran Gill, a Christian medical practitioner whose dispensary in Sheikhupura was reportedly set ablaze by a mob on October 9 following allegations of sharing blasphemous content on social media.
HRCP Punjab vice-chair Raja Ashraf said blasphemy accusations were increasingly being used to exploit and endanger vulnerable individuals.
The report urged the federal government to implement the minorities commission law, investigate alleged blasphemy entrapment networks and prosecute those inciting violence. (ANI)
Minorities in Pakistan continue to suffer gruesome rights abuses
