Pakistan Religious Freedom Crisis Deepens
New report highlights escalating attacks against religious minorities amid systematic government discrimination and blasphemy law abuse
Executive Summary
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has released a comprehensive report documenting Pakistan’s continuing severe violations of religious freedom through its enforcement of discriminatory blasphemy laws and systematic persecution of religious minorities. The commission maintains its recommendation that Pakistan be redesignated as a Country of Particular ConcernDesignation for nations engaged in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom due to escalating attacks against Ahmadiyya Muslims, Hindus, and Christians.
This report reveals a troubling pattern where Pakistan’s government not only fails to protect religious minorities but actively enables their persecution through discriminatory laws and tolerance of mob violence. The findings represent a continuation and intensification of religious freedom violations that have persisted since Pakistan’s independence in 1947.
Critical Statistics from 2025
Understanding Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law System
Historical context and modern enforcement mechanisms
To understand the current crisis, we must examine Pakistan’s blasphemy law framework, which traces back to British colonial rule and became formally integrated into Pakistan’s Penal Code upon independence in 1947. The law operates through three main provisions that function as increasingly severe restrictions on religious expression and discourse.
Section 295-A criminalizes making derogatory remarks against Muslim holy personages, representing the broadest category that can encompass various forms of religious criticism or commentary. Section 295-B specifically targets the defiling or desecrating of the Qur’an, establishing physical harm to religious texts as a distinct offense. Most severely, Section 295-C addresses insulting the Prophet Muhammad and carries the death penalty, making it the most frequently weaponized provision against both Muslims and religious minorities.
The law’s enforcement has evolved far beyond its original colonial intent. Government authorities increasingly use these provisions as tools for “resolving” interpersonal disputes, land grabbing schemes, and settling personal vendettas. The mere accusation of blasphemy often serves as sufficient justification for mob violence, creating a climate where rumors alone can destroy lives and communities.
Systematic Exploitation Through False Accusations
How organized groups weaponize blasphemy laws for profit and persecution
Perhaps most alarming is the report’s documentation of organized criminal networks that systematically exploit Pakistan’s blasphemy laws for financial gain. Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission reported that these organized groups targeted over 450 people with false blasphemy accusations in early 2025, demonstrating what they termed a “calculated use of the blasphemy laws for profit.”
Investigators have identified coordinated groups working in collusion with the Federal Investigation AgencyPakistan’s primary investigative law enforcement agency to entrap young Pakistanis through social media platforms and WhatsApp groups. These “blasphemy gangs” create false blasphemy cases specifically to extort money from victims, targeting both Muslims and non-Muslims with equal ruthlessness.
The scope of this criminal enterprise became so evident that in July 2025, the Islamabad High Court initially ordered the federal government to establish an investigative commission. However, this promising development was short-lived—the court suspended its own order just days later, demonstrating the institutional resistance to addressing blasphemy law abuse even when criminal exploitation becomes undeniable.
The report documents several cases that illustrate the arbitrary and often absurd nature of blasphemy prosecutions. In January, a Rawalpindi court sentenced four men to death and life imprisonment for allegedly sharing “blasphemous content” via WhatsApp. The same month, prosecutors charged YouTuber Rajab Butt under blasphemy laws, claiming that his perfume brand name “295” mocked the country’s blasphemy law—demonstrating how even indirect commercial references can trigger prosecutions.
The case of Professor Junaid HafeezUniversity professor imprisoned since 2013, in solitary confinement since 2014 exemplifies the system’s cruelty. Arrested in 2013 on blasphemy allegations from a student, Hafeez has remained in solitary confinement since 2014 following his death sentence conviction. When the Lahore High Court announced it would hear his appeal in March 2025, the court removed his case from the hearing schedule just one day later, illustrating the judicial system’s reluctance to address even the most egregious cases.
Targeted Persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims
Constitutional discrimination and systematic violence against a religious community
The report dedicates considerable attention to the unique persecution faced by Ahmadiyya Muslims, who experience what can only be described as state-sanctioned religious apartheid. Section 298 of Pakistan’s Penal CodeSpecifically targets Ahmadiyya Muslims, denying their Islamic identity explicitly denies recognition to Ahmadis as Muslims and prevents them from describing themselves as such or referring to their places of worship as mosques.
This legal framework creates a foundation for systematic persecution that extends far beyond mere legal restrictions. The government’s refusal to recognize Ahmadiyya religious identity creates a climate where violence against this community becomes not just tolerated but implicitly encouraged by state authorities.
The year 2025 witnessed particularly brutal attacks against Ahmadiyya Muslims and their places of worship. In February, police and vigilantes demolished three mosques within just ten days in Punjab province. In April, 400 members of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik PakistanReligiously affiliated political party known for extremist positions gathered to lynch an Ahmadi man, Laeeq Cheema, after attacking his mosque to prevent Friday prayers.
Perhaps most shocking was the March incident in Karachi where police arrested two Ahmadi men, Tahir Mahmood and Ijaz Hussain, simply for offering Friday prayers. During their court appearance in May, a mob dragged both men from the courtroom and violently assaulted them, killing Mahmood in what should have been the safety of a judicial proceeding. This incident demonstrates how the state’s failure to provide basic security extends even to courtrooms.
The persecution extends beyond physical violence to systematic exclusion from basic civil rights. In January 2025, the Islamabad High Court ruled that Ahmadiyya Muslims could not inherit property from their parents, with the judge ordering that Shari’a principles prevent property distribution to “non-Muslim” heirs. In April, the Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency published advertisements explicitly excluding Ahmadiyya Muslims from participating in residential and commercial plot auctions.
Attacks on Christians and Hindus
Violence, forced conversion, and systematic harassment of minority communities
The report documents extensive violence and harassment against Christians and Hindus throughout 2025, particularly highlighting how authorities consistently fail to provide accountability for attacks against these communities. This pattern of impunity creates an environment where perpetrators understand they can attack religious minorities without consequence.
One of the most disturbing patterns documented involves the forced conversion and marriage of Christian and Hindu girls to Sunni Muslim men, particularly in Sindh and Punjab provinces. In June 2025, parents of three Hindu girls and their male cousin in Sindh accused a local teacher of abducting the four minors and forcibly converting them to Islam. In a separate case the same month, a court in Shahdadpur, Sindh, ordered parents of two minor Hindu girls to pay bonds of approximately $35,000 as a precondition for their children’s return.
These cases illustrate how Pakistan’s legal system often becomes complicit in the victimization of religious minorities. Rather than prosecuting kidnappers and forced marriage perpetrators, courts frequently place financial burdens on victim families, creating additional trauma and economic hardship for communities already facing systematic discrimination.
While Pakistan’s Parliament introduced the Islamabad Capital Territory Child Marriage Restraint Bill in May, which criminalizes marriage of anyone under 18, the Council of Islamic Ideology responded by declaring the law “un-Islamic,” demonstrating institutional resistance to protecting minority children.
— USCIRF Report Analysis
Afghan Refugee Crisis and Religious Persecution
Forced repatriation threatening religious minority refugees
The report also addresses Pakistan’s continued enforcement of the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan2023 plan targeting an estimated 1.3 million Afghan refugees, which particularly threatens Afghan religious minorities who fled Taliban persecution. Many of these refugees, including Hazara Muslims who face systematic persecution in Afghanistan, now find themselves caught between Taliban oppression in their homeland and forced deportation by Pakistani authorities.
The Pakistani government’s approach to Afghan refugees demonstrates how religious freedom violations extend beyond Pakistani citizens to affect vulnerable populations seeking sanctuary. By refusing to provide adequate protection for religious minorities fleeing persecution, Pakistan becomes complicit in their continued victimization.
📄 Access the Complete USCIRF Report
Implications and Path Forward
The USCIRF report paints a devastating picture of systematic religious persecution that extends far beyond individual incidents to represent a comprehensive failure of Pakistan’s governmental and judicial systems to protect fundamental human rights. The commission’s continued recommendation for Country of Particular Concern designation reflects not just current violations but Pakistan’s demonstrated unwillingness to address or reform the legal and social structures that enable religious persecution.
While the report documents some positive developments—including the acquittal of several blasphemy prisoners in 2025—these isolated cases occur within a broader context of systematic discrimination and state-enabled violence. The acquittal of 72-year-old Catholic Christian Anwar Kenneth after 23 years of imprisonment, and the release of 28-year-old Christian Farhan Javed Masih, represent individual victories that highlight the arbitrariness and cruelty of Pakistan’s blasphemy law enforcement rather than systemic reform.
The report’s findings have significant implications for U.S.-Pakistan relations and international efforts to promote religious freedom globally. Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally and recipient of U.S. assistance creates particular obligations for American policymakers to address these systematic violations through diplomatic pressure, targeted sanctions, and conditional aid programs.
The international community’s response to Pakistan’s religious freedom crisis will likely influence how other nations with similar discriminatory laws view the costs and consequences of systematic religious persecution. Pakistan’s case serves as a critical test of whether international pressure can effectively challenge deeply entrenched legal and social systems that enable religious discrimination.
Understanding the Broader Context
Educational Context: Understanding Religious Freedom
Why these issues matter for global human rights
To fully understand the significance of Pakistan’s religious freedom violations, it’s essential to recognize how blasphemy laws and religious discrimination create cascading effects throughout society. When governments fail to protect religious minorities, it typically indicates broader failures in rule of law, judicial independence, and democratic governance that affect all citizens.
Pakistan’s case demonstrates how colonial-era laws can be weaponized in modern contexts to serve political, economic, and social control purposes far beyond their original intent. The transformation of blasphemy laws from colonial administrative tools into instruments of systematic persecution illustrates how legal frameworks can evolve to serve oppressive rather than protective functions.
The systematic nature of Pakistan’s religious persecution follows historical patterns observed in other contexts where governments use religious or ethnic identity as tools for political control. The creation of legal frameworks that deny basic rights to specific religious communities, the state’s tolerance or encouragement of mob violence, and the use of discriminatory laws to resolve personal disputes all represent tactics that have been employed by authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes throughout history.
Understanding these patterns helps explain why international organizations like USCIRF focus not just on individual incidents but on systematic violations that indicate broader governmental failures. When states fail to protect religious minorities, they typically also fail to protect other vulnerable populations and democratic institutions.
Religious freedom conditions in Pakistan remain extremely poor. Government authorities continue to use the blasphemy law to target and arbitrarily detain those who it perceives to have violated the law’s broad provisions. Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community continue to face systematic persecution, targeted killings, and attacks against their places of worship, and Hindus, Christians, and other religious minorities continue to face particularly severe challenges as a result of their religion or belief.
— USCIRF 2025 Pakistan Country Update Conclusion
Looking Forward: Challenges and Opportunities
Potential pathways for reform and international engagement
Despite the overwhelmingly negative findings, the USCIRF report implicitly identifies several potential avenues for reform and international engagement. The brief existence of the Islamabad High Court’s order to investigate blasphemy law abuse demonstrates that some elements within Pakistan’s judicial system recognize the need for reform, even if institutional resistance prevents sustained progress.
The passage of the Islamabad Capital Territory Child Marriage Restraint Bill, despite its limited geographic scope and opposition from religious authorities, shows that legislative reform remains possible when sufficient political will exists. These isolated positive developments suggest that targeted international pressure and support for reformist elements within Pakistani society might achieve incremental progress.
However, the report’s documentation of escalating violence and systematic persecution suggests that without significant intervention, conditions for religious minorities in Pakistan will likely continue deteriorating. The emergence of organized criminal networks exploiting blasphemy laws for profit adds a new dimension to the crisis that requires immediate attention from both Pakistani authorities and international partners.
The international community’s response to Pakistan’s religious freedom crisis will likely influence how other nations with similar discriminatory legal frameworks assess the costs and benefits of systematic religious persecution. Pakistan’s case represents a critical test of whether sustained international pressure can effectively challenge deeply entrenched systems of religious discrimination.
Key Recommendations for Action
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