ICC Note:

A member of the European Parliament (MEP) has highlighted the suffering of Christians in Pakistan under the country’s notorious blasphemy laws. The MEP went on the demand that the discriminatory laws be repealed immediately. The blasphemy laws in Pakistan are highly feared by all religious minorities. A simple accusation of blasphemy against a religious minority is enough to spark mob violence that has, in the past, led to extra-judicial killings, mass protests, and the destruction of entire communities. Although unlikely, will Pakistan listen to the MEP and repeal its blasphemy laws? 

08/07/2017 Pakistan (Daily News & Analysis) – Christians, who form about 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population, live in constant fear of persecution from extremist Islamic groups in that country because of legal strictures such as the draconian Blasphemy Law, a woman Member of the European Parliament (MEP) has claimed.

In an article published in EP Today, Member of the European Parliament, Marijana Petir, claims that Pakistan today represents a human rights nightmare, particularly for the minority Christian community, which often faces social discrimination, isolation and targeting from conservative and fundamentalists in the society.

In her article, Petir, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, specifically criticizes what she describes as Pakistan’s regressive Blasphemy Law and demands its immediate repeal.

To highlight her concern over this law being applied in a discriminatory manner, she makes a mention of a Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi, whose only crime was that she was a Christian, and had sipped water from the same vessel as a Muslim woman of her locality, which in turn, lead to an argument, registration of a case and a death sentence.

Asia, according to Petir, has been in custody for seven years, and has appealed against her sentence.

An incident like this can only evoke disbelief and horror in any other part of the civilized world. But this is the cruel reality that Christians and members of other religious minority groups in Pakistan grapple with, every day, says Petir.

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