Pakistan: Blackmail to Apostatize
Christian women praying in a church of Lahore, North Pakistan.
In Muslim Pakistan where Sharia law is strictly applied, the Christian minority is subject to unofficial blackmail to apostatize on the part of the legal authorities.
“It is becoming a common practice in Pakistan to ask non-Muslim prisoners to convert to Islam in order to be released,” claims a Christian lawyer, Mr. Nasir Saeed, member of an NGO that offers legal support to the many Christians accused of blasphemy against Islam.
“I remember the case of Rubina Bibi,” continues the lawyer, “who was in prison for presumed blasphemy. It was made clear that if she converted to Islam, the charges against her would immediately be dropped. But she refused and her innocence was proven a year later."
The media began to take an interest in this “blackmail to apostatize” after the vice-prosecutor of the district of Lahore was accused by dozens of Christians of having asked them to convert to Islam in exchange for their acquittal, after two Muslims were lynched. “I would rather be hanged than embrace Islam,” answered one of them.
“These shameful attempts to mix up justice with religion,” continues Mr. Nasir Saeed, “are worrisome. The Pakistani government knows about the problem of forced conversions to Islam, especially with young Christian and Hindu girls, and so it is the government’s responsibility to put an end to these practices."
Religious minorities in Pakistan have been asking for measures to be taken against forced conversions for years. Recently, the Parliament of the province of Sindh, in the south of the country, approved just such a law, but because of protests and objections from Islamic groups, the governor of Sindh never promulgated the text…
Sources: Fides – FSSPX.Actualités – 4/22/17
