Pakista is being urged to set up a commission to investigate the “tragic consequences” of its blasphemy law and “suggest a way out of this difficult and embarrassing situation”. The call came in a communiqué issued on 19 September by the World Council of Churches after a series of public hearings in Geneva.
The laws date from 1860, when Pakistan was part of British-ruled India, and originally protected all faiths. They were amended in 1986 as part of an Islamification campaign by the then military ruler of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq, and are now being used as “a tool to settle personal scores through attacks on religious minorities”, the communiqué says, and have “fostered a climate of religiously motivated violence and persecution in several parts of the country”
- More: Church Times