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The Voiceless Victims of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: 28 Pakistani Christians Currently in Prison and a Guide to Effective Advocacy on Their Behalf

Silver Spring, MD: International Christian Concern, February Update (2021), 30 pp.
"In 2018, Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, was acquitted of the blasphemy charges that had kept her on death row for nearly a decade. The lessons learned from her case, including the international advocacy critical to her acquittal, help to create a template for advocating on behalf of other religious minorities facing similar charges in Pakistan. In this report, International Christian Concern (ICC) reviews Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and the experience of religious minorities under these laws. ICC goes on to analyze the Asia Bibi case and draws out important lessons that should be applied to similar, ongoing cases. This report provides the profiles of 24 current cases in which Pakistani Christians sit charged with or convicted of committing blasphemy. These 24 cases need appropriate international advocacy to come to a successful conclusion. Towards this end, this report provides practical recommendations for the international community which ICC has drawn from the Asia Bibi case and from years of experience working with Christian victims of blasphemy in Pakistan." (Executive summary)