About six weeks ago, a 32 year old doctor in the Sindh province in Pakistan was shot by police. Shah Nawaz was killed by police who suggested that he was resisting arrest after being accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The blasphemy charge was that he had shared ‘blasphemous’ content on social media.

Nawaz’s family reject this charge and say that he was giving himself up and that he was killed by a member of the local police force on the basis that he had allegedly promoted ‘blasphemous’ content.

This killing came on the heels of another murder on September the 12th 2024, where a 52 year old man  was killed in custody in Balochistan and who was being held on the basis of spurious ‘blasphemy’ charges.

Judiciary Involvement in Blasphemy

We must not forget that these killings and the charges of ‘blasphemy’ come on the back of a range of cases that have mainly involved the beleaguered Christian community in Pakistan, with the most high profile case being that of Asia Bibi.

Following on from Asia Bibi’s case, in May 2020, Aneeqa Ateeq a 26 year old Muslim woman was arrested in May 2020 and charged with circulating ‘blasphemous material’ on her Whatsapp messages. A court in Rawalpindi subsequently found Ateeq guilty and gave her a 20 year jail sentence and ordered her to be ‘hanged by her neck till she is dead”.

In 2021, a Pakistani Christian, Shagufta Kiran, was arrested for posting ‘blasphemous’ content on her Whatsapp messaging app in September 2020. The 40 year old mother of four was recently found guilty and has been sentenced to death.

The list of Christians and Muslims who have been accused of blasphemy continues to rise in Pakistan on the back of the introduction of ‘blasphemy’ as a political tool by the Islamist extremist group, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP). Such has been the spread of their narrative that the lives of minorities and those who even question faith, are at risk. The impacts of ‘blasphemy’ are therefore felt by Christian and Ahmadi communities who have borne the brunt of the actions of the state in denying them the most basic of rights.

Faith Matters will continue to highlight these human rights abuses and to highlight the lives of those affected by the ‘blasphemy police’ and extremists in Pakistan who seek to target minorities. Furthermore, the U.K. Government has not done enough in highlighting and challenging the human rights abuses around ‘blasphemy’ that are becoming pervasive in the country. The meekness of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on this matter, is unacceptable.

READ MORE: Two Christians Sought by Police in Pakistan on Blasphemy Charges

A minister whose mother and 19 other family members were murdered by terrorists a decade ago has told of how he was able to resist revenge.

Rev Aftab Gohar says he found peace through Jesus Christ after a double suicide bomber attack at All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan on September 22 2013.

There were 122 people killed and 250 injured in the bombings.

The parishioners had just left the church for a meal in the grounds when the bombers struck.

Among them was Mr Gohar’s 79-year-old mother, Iqbal Gohar, as well as his nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles, aunts and friends.

The minister, who oversees Eddleston, Peebles Old Parish, and Stobo and Drumelzier churches in the Scottish Borders, said his relatives “died for their faith”.

Although Pakistan’s official religion is Islam, the country’s constitution gives citizens freedom of faith.

However, religious minorities are often attacked and the country’s blasphemy laws have been used to discriminate against non-Muslims.

Mr Gohar believes the law is used as a means to justify attacks, such as a number of church and house burnings in Jaranwala near Faisalabad, Pakistan, last month.

Open Doors, a charity that supports persecuted Christians around the world, ranked Pakistan in seventh place in its top 50 countries where Christian persecution is most rife.

Reflecting on the attack, Mr Gohar said: “It was a very hard time for us all and I was questioning ‘why did it happen to those who were very regular churchgoers?’

“Those who didn’t go to church on that day, did they do the right thing?

“The Bible says ‘when you are persecuted because of your faith in Jesus, you are blessed’. They all died for their faith.

“It was hard for me to forgive those responsible but with the strength of God I did so and freed myself from the extra burden of hatred and revenge.”

He added: “On the cross, Jesus prayed for those who were crucifying him: ‘Forgive them Father, they don’t know what they are doing’.

“Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ – a lesson that some people find impossible to follow.”

Last week Mr Gohar and a number of campaigners handed a petition to Syed Zahid Raza, consul general of Pakistan for Scotland and Northern Ireland, at the Consulate of Pakistan in Glasgow.

The petition called on Pakistan’s government to improve safety for religious minorities, and for the blasphemy law to include punishing those who destroy Bibles or burn down churches and homes.

Mr Gohar says he was inspired by Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch watchmaker who helped Jewish people escape the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The minister commented: “She said ‘forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuff of hatred’.

“It is a power that breaks chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”

The minister was ordained into the Church of Pakistan in 1995, having come to Scotland to study at the University of Edinburgh in 1998-1999.

He later came back to Scotland to work as a full-time minister in 2008.

Mr Gohar and his wife Samina and their two adult sons, Shahan and Zeeshan, are now British citizens.

Shahan married in Pakistan last year.

Mr Gohar says the loss of his family was felt strongly at the wedding.

Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Pakistan as they mark the anniversary of this horrific and unjustified attack on peaceful churchgoers.

“We are united in sorrow as we reflect on the impact this atrocity had on the families of the victims and survivors and sadly Christians continue to be persecuted today.”

She added: “The Church continues to engage with ecumenical and international partners on the misuse of the blasphemy law and we call on the government of Pakistan to redouble its efforts to protect minority groups.”

The Consulate of Pakistan in Glasgow was contacted for comment.

Muslims in eastern Pakistan went on a rampage over allegations that a Christian man had desecrated the Koran, demolishing the man’s house, burning churches and damaging several other homes, police and local Christians have said.

The scale of the violence prompted the government to deploy additional police forces and send in the army to help restore order.

The attacks in Jaranwala, in the district of Faisalabad in Punjab province, erupted after some Muslims living in the area claimed they had seen a local Christian, Raja Amir, and his friend tearing out pages from a Koran, throwing them on the ground and writing insulting remarks on other pages.

Police chief Rizwan Khan said this had angered the local Muslims.

A mob gathered and began attacking multiple churches and several Christian homes, burning furniture and other household items.

Some members of the Christian community fled their homes to escape the mob.

Police eventually intervened, firing into the air and wielding batons before dispersing the attackers with the help of Muslim clerics and elders.

Authorities also said they have started launching raids in an effort to find all the perpetrators.

Dozens of rioters were arrested.

Police chief Bilal Mehmood told reporters they were also looking for Mr Amir, who went into hiding to escape the mob, and would detain him to determine whether he had desecrated the Koran.

Videos and photos posted on social media show an angry mob descending upon a church, throwing pieces of bricks and burning it.

In another video, two other churches are attacked, their windows broken as attackers throw furniture out and set it on fire.

Several policemen are seen in the videos watching the situation without intervening to stop the vandalism.

In yet another video, a man is seen climbing to the roof of the church and removing the steel cross after repeatedly hitting it with a hammer as the crowd down on the road cheered him on.

Khalid Mukhtar, a local priest, said most of the Christians living in the area had fled to safer places.

“Even my house was burned,” he added.

Mr Mukhtar said there are 17 churches in Jaranwala and he believes most of them were attacked.

The authorities did not immediately confirm that figure.

Mr Khan said additional police forces were later deployed in Jaranwala and an investigation was under way.

He said all involved in the attack would be prosecuted.

“Our first priority was to save the lives of all of the Christians,” he said.

Later in the evening, troops started arriving in Jaranwala to help the police.

Angry Muslims were urged to go back to their homes, allegedly with promises that the man who allegedly desecrated the Koran would soon be arrested.

A delegation of Muslim clerics also arrived in Jaranwala from the city of Lahore to express solidarity with the Christians.

Blasphemy accusations are common in Pakistan.

Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death.

While authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy, often just the accusation can cause riots and incite mobs to violence, lynching and killings.

In one of the worst attacks on Christians, a mob in 2009 burned an estimated 60 homes and killed six Christians in the district of Gojra in Punjab, after accusing them of insulting Islam.

Wednesday’s attack drew nationwide condemnation from top leaders and major political parties.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said he was “gutted” by the images coming out of Faisalabad.

“Stern action would be taken against those who violate law and target minorities. All law enforcement has been asked to apprehend culprits & bring them to justice,” he tweeted.

A senior Christian leader, Bishop Azad Marshall, appealed for help on social media and said he was “deeply pained and distressed”.

“We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland that has just celebrated independence and freedom,” he tweeted.

Former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif also condemned the rampage, saying: “There is no place for violence in any religion.”

In the southern port city of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province, dozens of Christians rallied to denounce the attacks in Jaranwala.

Domestic and international human rights groups say blasphemy allegations have often been used to intimidate religious minorities in Pakistan and settle personal scores.

In December 2021, a Muslim mob descended on a sports equipment factory in Pakistan’s Sialkot district, killing a Sri Lankan man and burning his body publicly over allegations of blasphemy.

Read more: Man accused of blasphemy stoned to death by mob in Pakistan

A Twitter user accused of encouraging others to decapitate anyone who insulted Islam has told a jury he retweeted praise for a terrorist “just to have some more followers”.

Ajmal Shahpal told Birmingham Crown Court he did not believe that the killer of French school teacher Samuel Paty was “as brave as a lion” or that the victim “deserved to be killed” in France in October 2020.

Prosecutors allege Shahpal, of Birkin Avenue, Radford, Nottingham, encouraged others to commit, prepare, or instigate acts of terrorism in a series of retweets, including one containing an image of Mr Paty’s severed head.

Shahpal, 41, is also alleged to have tweeted messages backing a Pakistan-based political party which supported the “out-of-hand murder of those who it thinks have committed blasphemy”.

Under cross-examination from prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds on Monday, Shahpal, who is originally from Pakistan and was assisted by an Urdu interpreter, denied pretending to have a poor understanding of English to try to escape responsibility for his tweets.

Mr Pawson-Pounds told Shahpal, who passed a taxi exam and studied for a diploma in English and business management after coming to the UK in 2009: “The Crown suggests that you were a radicalised follower of extreme Islam and that you both supported and encouraged the murder of people for what you considered to be blasphemy.

“You used your Twitter account to encourage people to do this by saying on that account repeatedly that blasphemers should be killed and should be killed immediately.”

After the defendant accepted that Mr Paty did not deserve to die and that the teacher’s killer was not “as brave as a lion” – contradicting statements in one of his retweets – Mr Pawson-Round asked him: “Why did you retweet a tweet saying all these things then?”

Shahpal responded: “As I have already told you, the reason behind this was just to have some more followers.

“At the time when I retweeted it, that picture (of a severed head) wasn’t fully open at that time on the feed of Twitter.

“So at the time I did not know what picture it was that I was retweeting.”

Claiming he had only read the first line of the message before retweeting it, Shahpal added: “I did not fully read it.

“What I have read, it did not say that his chopped off head was lying on the floor.

“A friend of mine who set up this account for me, he told me that if you do this, you are going to get more followers.”

Questioned about a further tweet which called for rapists to be stoned to death, Shahpal said it did not accord with his beliefs and he had “just copied and pasted” a message written in English “because the issue was ongoing” in Pakistan.

After Shahpal denied that he had intended to encourage terrorism, he was asked if he had realised there would be a risk that his tweets would encourage acts of terror.

Shahpal answered: “I was just posting them (tweets). I didn’t have a clue.”

Later in his evidence, asked about a tweet containing a call for someone to be “killed immediately”, Shahpal added: “My English is not that good. I just copied and pasted.”

The defendant denies two counts of encouraging others to commit, prepare, or instigate acts of terrorism, and two alternative charges of the same offence being reckless as to whether such acts would be encouraged.

The trial continues.

A 41-year-old man has been stoned to death by a mob for allegedly desecrating the Koran inside a mosque in a village in eastern Pakistan, police have said.

Three police officers also were injured, and more than 80 men have been detained after the incident on Saturday evening in the Khanewal district of Punjab province.

The mosque’s custodian said he saw the man burning the Muslim holy book and told others before informing police, according to a spokesman.

Police rushed to the mosque and found the man surrounded by an angry crowd.

Officer Mohammad Iqbal and two other police personnel tried to take custody of the man, but the group began throwing stones at them, seriously injuring Mr Iqbal and slightly injuring the other two officers.

Munawar Gujjar, chief of Tulamba police station, said he rushed reinforcements to the mosque but they were not in time to stop the mob stoning the man to death before hanging his body from a tree.

The victim was named as Mushtaq Ahmed, 41, who was from a nearby village.

“The ill-fated man has been mentally unstable for the last 15 years and according to his family often went missing from home for days begging and eating whatever he could find,” he said.

Mr Ahmed’s body has been returned to his family.

Police have so far detained about 80 men living in the mosque’s surroundings, but around 300 suspects are said to have taken part in the stoning.

Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan expressed his anguish over the stoning, and said he was seeking a report from Punjab’s chief minister on the police handling of the case. He said they had “failed in their duty”.

“We have zero tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands and mob lynching will be dealt with with the full severity of the law,” Mr Khan said in a tweet hours after the incident.

The prime minister also asked the Punjab police chief for a report on the actions taken against perpetrators of the lynching.

The killing comes months after the lynching of a Sri Lankan manager of a sporting goods factory in Sialkot in Punjab province on December 3 who was accused by workers of blasphemy.

International and national rights groups say blasphemy accusations have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and settle personal scores. It is a crime punishable by death in Pakistan.

Gunmen have killed one Christian priest and wounded another as they were driving home from Sunday Mass in Pakistan’s north-western city of Peshawar, police said.

Father William Siraj, 75, was shot multiple times and died instantly in the ambush in the Gulbahar neighbourhood, while Father Naeem Patrick was treated briefly in hospital for a gunshot wound to the hand, officer Iqbal Shah said.

A third priest in the car was unharmed.

No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest on Pakistan’s tiny Christian minority that has been targeted several times by militants in recent years.

Militant violence has seen a broader increase since the Pakistani Taliban ended a ceasefire with the government last month.

A memorial service for Father Siraj will be held on Monday at Peshawar’s All Saint’s Church, which was brutally attacked by militants with bombs and gunfire in 2013.

More than 70 worshippers were killed and 100 wounded.

Police said they were reviewing CCTV footage to locate the attackers, who witnesses said escaped on motorcycles.

Chief minister Mahmood Shah of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province condemned the attack, urging police to find the culprits as soon as possible.

Bishop Humphrey Peter also condemned the killing, saying it aimed to harm interfaith harmony.

Pakistan’s government and an outlawed radical Islamist party reached an agreement to end a 10-day long, and at times deadly violent, rally calling for the closure of France’s embassy and the release of the party’s leader.

Neither foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi nor religious leader Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who took part in the talks, gave any details of the agreement at a news conference in the capital Islamabad.

Thousands of supporters of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party marched from Lahore on October 22 toward the capital Islamabad.

They demanded the expulsion of France’s envoy to Pakistan over publication of caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed in France.

The protest march saw supporters clash with police at several points along the way.

At least seven police officers and four demonstrators were killed.

“Details and positive results of the agreement will come before the nation in a week or so,” said Mr Rehman, who said he had the endorsement of TLP party leader Saad Rizvi.

The violence erupted a day after the government of prime minister Imran Khan said it would not accept the Islamists’ demand to close the French Embassy and expel the French envoy.

It was not immediately clear on Sunday when the party would end its rally.

Thousands of supporters halted their march in Wazirabad, about 115 miles from the capital on Friday after roads and bridges ahead of them were blocked.

Paramilitary rangers were deployed to stop the protesters from continuing toward the capital.

Sajid Saifi, TLP spokesman, said supporters were ready to “pack up” but were awaiting instructions from the party’s leadership.

He said he hoped party leader Mr Rizvi and all the supporters arrested in recent days would be released soon.

Besides demanding expulsion of the French ambassador, the TLP was also pressing for the release of its leader, Mr Rizvi, who was arrested last year for inciting supporters to stage an anti-France protest.

Mr Rizvi’s party started demanding the expulsion of a French envoy in October 2020 after French President Emmanuel Macron tried to defend caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed as freedom of expression.

Mr Macron’s comments came after a young Muslim beheaded a French school teacher who had shown the caricatures in class.

The images were republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial over the deadly 2015 attack against the publication for the original caricatures.

Mr Rizvi’s party gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 elections, campaigning on the single issue of defending the country’s blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam.

Members of the Afghan women’s football team and their families have arrived in Pakistan after fleeing their country following the Taliban takeover, local media said.

It is unclear how many players and family members were allowed to enter in Pakistan.

According to Pakistan’s information minister Fawad Chaudhry, the players entered Pakistan at the north-western Torkham border crossing, holding valid travel documents.

“We welcome Afghanistan women football team,” he tweeted, providing no further details.

Pakistan’s English-language newspaper The Dawn said the footballers were issued emergency humanitarian visas after the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

The Taliban have not commented, but an official confirmed that under the government’s interpretation of Islam, women are not allowed to play any sports where they could potentially be exposed.

Last week, the Taliban announced an all-male interim government for Afghanistan stacked with veterans of their hardline rule from the 1990s and the 20-year battle against the US-led coalition.

The move seems unlikely to win the international support the new leaders need to avoid an economic meltdown.

Police in Pakistan have arrested the leader of a radical Islamist political party a day after he threatened the government with protests if it did not expel France’s ambassador over depictions of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Saad Rizvi was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore to “maintain law and order”, said Ghulam Mohammad Dogar, chief of Lahore police.

Rizvi called on the government to honour what he said was a commitment it made in February to his party to expel the French envoy before April 20 over the publication in France of depictions of Islam’s Prophet.

The government has said that it only committed to discuss the matter in parliament.

Mr Dogar provided no further details about the arrest, which quickly drew condemnation from Rizvi’s supporters who began gathering near the party’s main office for a protest.

Clashes soon erupted in Lahore between police and Rizvi’s supporters, who were also rallying on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad, disrupting traffic and inconveniencing residents.

Protesters also blocked some roads in the southern port city of Karachi and elsewhere in the country, raising fears of violence amid a surge in cases of coronavirus in Pakistan.

Rizvi emerged as the leader of the Tehreek-e-Labai

k Pakistan party in November after the sudden death of his father, Khadim Hussein Rizvi.

His supporters have previously held violent rallies in Pakistan to pressure the government not to repeal the country’s controversial blasphemy laws.

The party wants the government to boycott French products and expel the French ambassador under an agreement signed by the government with Rizvi’s party in February.

Tehreek-e-Labiak and other Islamist parties have denounced French President Emmanuel Macron since October last year, saying he tried to defend caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed as freedom of expression.

Mr Macron’s comments came after a young Muslim beheaded a French school teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class.

The images had been republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial over the deadly 2015 attack against the publication for the original caricatures.

That enraged many Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere who believed those depictions were blasphemous.

Rizvi’s party gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 federal elections, campaigning on a single issue: defending the country’s controversial blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam.

It also has a history of staging protests and sit-ins to pressure the government to accept its demands.

In November 2017, Rizvi’s followers staged a 21-day protest and sit-in after a reference to the sanctity of the Prophet Mohammed was removed from the text of a government form.