2021 was a challenging year globally and it also impacted the work of the ADL Middle East Taskforce. Like so many, we could not organize in-person events, previously co-hosted with well-respected Washington, DC think tanks. Webinars replaced live audience programming. Although events remained accessible online, the advantage and impact of an in-person event was largely missing. But, it was still …
To quote a 2016 Amnesty International report, “As Good as Dead: The impact of blasphemy laws in Pakistan,” once an individual is accused of blasphemy, “they become ensnared in a system that offers them few protections, presumes them guilty, and fails to safeguard them against people willing to use violence.” On Saturday, Rome’s Colosseum was lit in red in support …
After years of neglect, the State Department is finally responding to Pakistan’s dismal record on religious freedom. The time is ripe for more serious action. This past Monday, a student in Pakistan shot his high school principal dead after being reprimanded for skipping school to attend a sit-in organized by one of Pakistan’s Islamist parties. The killer argued that the …
In establishing a homeland for Muslims, Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, also supported the idea of Islam serving as a unifying force and believed Pakistanis had a responsibility to uphold the principles of religious freedom and to protect the rights of religious minorities. As religious intolerance and violence against religious minorities grows, it is clear that Pakistan has failed …
The South Asia Channel Persecution Without Prosecution: The Fate of Minorities in Pakistan With religious persecution in Pakistan going unchecked, it is time for the United States to designate Pakistan a Country of Particular Concern. By Farahnaz Ispahani – A former member of the Pakistani parliament and author of the forthcoming book: Purifying The Land of the Pure: Pakistan’s Religious Minorities. …
Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which turns 30 this year, has become only more deadly with age. Since blasphemy was made a capital crime under the nation’s secular penal code, the effect has been to suppress moderate influences, pushing “Pakistani society further out on the slippery slope of extremism,” said Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, senior advocate at the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in Washington last …