Blashemy cases: Police charge NGO for reporting cases to UN

According to civil society organizations, during 2022, at least 52 people were charged
criminally on the grounds of blasphemy or a related religion, the majority
of whom were members of the Ahmadi community. The State
Department report also said that according to civil society reports, at
least four people were sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2022,
including two Christians and two Muslims. In one of these cases, a
judge changed a life sentence for blasphemy to death. In other cases,
courts overturned some blasphemy convictions on appeal and acquitted
or granted bail. Such persons had spent years in jail for blasphemy.
According to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the police failed
to protect people accused of blasphemy, but there was one instance in
which the police saved a man from being killed by a mob on alleged
charges of blasphemy. In August, the Home Ministry ordered the Punjab
government to take action against an NGO, the Center for Social Justice
(CSJ). The basis of this action was the report submitted by this NGO to
the United Nations Human Rights Council. It described incidents of
forced conversion. According to the media, the government termed the
NGO’s report as “anti-government propaganda”. NGOs have expressed
concern that young women and girls from religious minority
communities, especially Hindus and Christians face attempts of
kidnapping, forced conversion and forced marriage, and that is
increasing. The State Department report also states that the NGO
Center for Social Justice recorded 124 cases of forced conversion of
young women and girls through marriage during 2022. This is a 59
percent increase compared to 78 cases reported by the organization in
the previous year. There are reports of attacks on holy places,
cemeteries and religious symbols of Ahmadis, Hindus and Christians.
Civil society groups and some religious leaders continued to express
concerns about the protection of religious minorities. The report also
states that US embassy officials met with Pakistani civil society leaders,
experts and journalists to gather information on religious freedom issues
that had not been reported in the media. They also met with
representatives of other embassies, leaders of religious communities,
NGOs and legal experts working on religious freedom issues to discuss
ways to promote mutual respect and dialogue between religious groups.
(Voice of America)