Given all the “Islamophobia” propaganda that regularly floods us, one would expect to see a similar statistic in the West. And there is one: Muslims are a small percentage of Western countries, but often a massive percentage of prisoners. And they are not in prison for “Islamophobia”.
“30% of extrajudicial killings for blasphemy involve 1.27% of the Pak-Christian population,” by Hannah Chowdhry and Juliet Chowdhry, British Asian Christian Association, November 27, 2022:
A French magazine concerned about the treatment of Christians in Pakistan sent us some questions. You can read the actual article, which is converted to multiple languages. (Click here). Our full response can be read below:
Christians are persecuted in Pakistan, like Hindus or Ahmadis… But are they proportionally more persecuted than other communities?
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. Figures from the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) recorded that 537 people were charged under the blasphemy laws during 1986-2015, 633 (47%) were Muslim, 494 were Ahmadi (37%), 187 were Christian (14% ) and 21 were Hindus (2%). Christians at the time made up 1.6% of Pakistanis and Ahmadis around 0.2%. The report did not distinguish between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam. (Click here).
It should be noted, however, that the Ahmadi community has been boycotting the census since 1974, to avoid persecution through identification. UNHCR estimates there are 4 million Ahmadi in Pakistan, a number that would make them a larger minority than Christians. (Click here). At this point, both minorities were facing a great tribulation that was disproportionate to their demographic population. It can also be seen that more than 50% of the blasphemy charges were brought against minorities.
Recent data from the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) indicates that an anomaly occurred during 2020 where 199 people were charged in one year of which 75% were Muslims, mostly Shiites (70%), followed by Ahmadis (20 %). Sunnis (5%), Christians (3.5%), Hindus (1%). Ahmadis still rank higher than Christians, but both percentages have dropped significantly. I assume that lack of contact with Christians due to fear that they were dirty and more prone to COVID-19 (a known Muslim perception), and the belief that COVID-19 was a punishment for ritually unclean minorities gave as a result of these lower figures. . The figures also reflect the tensions between the Shiites and the majority Sunni sect (Click here).
What can be seen is that both the Ahmadi and Christian communities in Pakistan are targeted with blasphemy laws by majority Muslims at a rate greater than their percentage of the population. Given these figures, it would also appear that the Ahmadi faith is more targeted than the Christians. However, figures for extrajudicial killings indicate that Christians are subjected to similar attacks. The ICJ report claims that at least 78 people have been killed in extrajudicial killings based on blasphemy. Within that number are 42 Muslims, 23 Christians, 9 Ahmadis, 2 Hindus and 2 whose religion could not be determined. Of the 42 Muslims killed, several also converted to Christianity. Here we see that a Christian accused of blasphemy is much more likely to be killed than prosecuted, compared to all religions. That being said, the Ahmadi people in Pakistan suffer the ignominy of having two laws 298A and 298B that specifically prohibit them from calling themselves Muslims or referring to Islamic practices as their own. The second amendment of the Pakistani constitution also alters the meaning of section 260 of the Pakistani constitution. This sharpens the description of what a Muslim is and establishes that Ahmadi believers will not be considered Muslims. Although this is not a specific proscription of the Ahmadi faith, the West regards it as such. In essence, the 2n/a the amendment to Section 298A and 298B simply creates the same disenfranchisement for Ahmadis as for other minorities in Pakistan, resulting in an almost complete guarantee of asylum for Ahmadis in the west. A facilitation that does not cover Christians or other minorities fleeing the persecution, discrimination and disenfranchisement they face in Pakistan.
Christians have faced several large-scale mob attacks on Christian villages, such as Shanti Nagar (click here), Gojra (Click here)corian (Click here)Summary (Click here)San Jose Colony (Click here)Mardan (Click here) and others. They are usually triggered by accusations of blasphemy, but not always – the attack on a school and church in Mardan, for example, was triggered by Pastor Terry’s threat to burn a Quran in the US. The number and The scale of these attacks against Christians is more frequent and violent than that experienced by other minorities in recent times. Ahmadis, however, suffered a large number of deaths during the Lahore riots in 1953. (Click here) and anti-Ahmadiyah riots of 1974 (Click here)….