Country Update: Pakistan (September 2025)

Summary

This country update from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) finds that in 2025 the Pakistani government continued to commit particularly severe violations of religious freedom through its enforcement of the blasphemy law and other discriminatory rules, including the anti-Ahmadiyya laws, and tolerated egregious violations through its unwillingness to prevent and punish mob violence. USCIRF says these conditions continue to justify its 2025 Annual Report recommendation that the State Department redesignate Pakistan a Country of Particular Concern for systematic, ongoing and egregious violations.

The update describes how mere accusations or rumours of blasphemy are often enough to incite mob violence, and how such accusations are increasingly made on social media and in WhatsApp groups to target vulnerable communities. Authorities, it says, use the blasphemy law against both Muslims and non-Muslims and as a means to settle personal disputes.

A central theme is entrapment. USCIRF cites the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's January 2025 finding that organised groups had targeted more than 450 people with false blasphemy accusations, a "calculated use of the blasphemy laws for profit." In September 2024, 101 families petitioned the courts, saying an organised network had falsely accused their relatives, most of them Muslims. The petition alleged that a coordinated group, working with officials of the Federal Investigation Agency, entrapped young people on social media and then accused them of blasphemy to extort money. In July 2025, the Islamabad High Court ordered the federal government to set up a commission to investigate misuse of the law, but on July 25 the court suspended that order.

The update estimates, citing the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, that about 750 people were in prison on blasphemy charges as of 2024, and that new cases continued in 2025. In January, a Rawalpindi court sentenced four men to death and life imprisonment for sharing allegedly blasphemous content on WhatsApp and social media. The university lecturer Junaid Hafeez, arrested in 2013 and sentenced to death, remained in solitary confinement; the Lahore High Court listed his appeal in March 2025 but removed it from the schedule a day later.

USCIRF also records acquittals. In June 2025, Anwar Kenneth, a 72-year-old Catholic sentenced to death in 2002, was released after 23 years in prison; reports indicated he had a history of mental illness that should have been examined before trial. An anti-terrorism court acquitted Farhan Javed Masih the same month.

The update goes on to document attacks on Ahmadiyya mosques in Punjab, including demolitions by police and by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan members, and the forced return of Afghan refugees, among them religious minorities who fled the Taliban. It concludes that religious freedom conditions in Pakistan remain extremely poor: the authorities continue to use the blasphemy law to detain people for long periods, Ahmadiyya Muslims face systematic persecution and targeted killings, and Hindus, Christians and other minorities face particularly severe challenges.

Summary written by a Silenced editor from the report itself (477 words). Quotes and figures are the report's; read the full report for its sources and context.