Statements on the rights of Christians in Pakistan

We welcome the decision of the Islamabad High Court to constitute a judicial commission into the misuse of the blasphemy laws. For decades false accusations have been used to settle personal scores, and the accused have paid with their liberty and sometimes their lives. Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan will place its case files before the commission and asks that its findings lead to real protection for the falsely accused.

For forty years I watched persecuted Christians stand before judges with no lawyer of their own. That is why our Alliance funds LLB and LLM studies for young believers from poor families and attaches each of them to a senior advocate. Every young Christian lawyer we train is a courtroom the persecuted will never face alone.

The attack on a Christian family and their neighbours in Sargodha followed the pattern we saw in Jaranwala: a rumour, a crowd, and the police arriving too late. The Constitution of Pakistan promises every citizen the protection of the law, whatever his faith. We ask the state to keep that promise, and our advocates stand ready to represent the victims without charge.

Every month Christian families come to us whose daughters have been taken, converted under threat and married to their abductors. A child cannot consent, and a signature obtained in fear is not a choice. I call on the courts to order age determination in every such case and to return every minor to her parents. Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan will file every petition needed to bring these girls home.

In Jaranwala, churches were burned and Christian homes looted on the strength of an accusation that no court had examined. I have stood in the courts of Pakistan since 1982, and I say plainly: a mob is not a court, and an accusation is not a verdict. Christian Lawyers Alliance Pakistan will stand with every family of Jaranwala until the attackers are prosecuted and the falsely accused are cleared.