Persecution of Christians in Pakistan: Note that “Pervaiz has been receiving threats since speaking out for minority Christians after the 2013 attack on Joseph Colony of Lahore by a mob that looted and destroyed 116 houses and two churches.” Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws are frequently manipulated and misused in order to victimize Christians and other religious minorities, and leave them with no recourse. Faraz Pervaiz is being targeted for defending the Christian Faith and the Christian community of Pakistan, but Christians in Pakistan have also been targeted with accusations of blasphemy that are often just a cover for attempts to settle personal grudges, appropriate their property, or achieve some other end. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been used to victimize innumerable innocent people, both Christian and non-Christian. Often this happens with the approval of the relevant authorities.
The Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, calls upon the international human rights community to bring pressure upon the government of Pakistan to repeal these unjust laws, and allow the Christians of the nation to practice their faith in peace and live in peace.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, see here.
“Islamists offer bounty to kill Pakistani Christian ‘blasphemer,'” by Kamran Chaudhry, UCA News, November 6, 2020:
Posters offering a reward of 10 million rupees (US$62,860) to kill a Pakistani Christian for posting anti-Islam content on social media have appeared in Karachi in southern Pakistan.
“The price of the head of Blasphemer Maloon [cursed] Faraz Pervaiz has been set at one crore [10 million]. The only punishment for insulting the Prophet is beheading,” states the poster emblazoned with a photo of Pervaiz, who lives in Thailand.
Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, a Barelvi sect of Islam, also printed its contact numbers and address on the poster.
“We shared the references of blasphemous content of his videos in several applications to the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency]. Cases have been registered against Faraz, son of Pervaiz Roshan. But the FIA hasn’t acted so far,’ the banner states, referring to blasphemy cases registered against Pervaiz in 2017.
Pervaiz, a human rights activist, is using the poster as the profile picture on his Twitter account.
Last year the father of three moved his family to a secret location outside Bangkok after his location was revealed in a video released on social media that went viral. The video, made by a Pakistani Muslim refugee, called for “every Muslim in this world” to travel to Bangkok and kill Pervaiz.
Pervaiz has been receiving threats since speaking out for minority Christians after the 2013 attack on Joseph Colony of Lahore by a mob that looted and destroyed 116 houses and two churches. He led protests demanding action from the police and ran a blog in which he challenged both the politics and theology of Islam, presented his own interpretations of the Quran and criticized the Prophet Muhammad.
He fled Pakistan in 2014 after radical Muslims grew enraged by caricatures, statements and videos he and his father, a political leader, posted on various accounts.
The first bounty of $62,000 for Pervaiz was offered in 2015 by the political party Tahreek-e-Labbaik. In 2016, a cleric placed a bounty on his head equal to about $124,000.
In 2016, the Christian asylum seeker reported an attack by four Muslims at a grocery store….
