Violence against different faith groups is still taking place in Pakistan despite the fact that the new commission for religious minorities has just been formed within the government.

Local and international NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, currently complain that the Pakistani government has excluded the long-persecuted Ahmadi community from the commission, believed to be a “sect”, which is closer to Sunni Islam rather than Shi’ism, Agenzia Fides reported.

Christians are not exempt from discrimination or religious-based violence. 

In the past few days, Protestant Christian Pastor Haroon Sadiq Cheeda and his family were forced to leave the area where they lived, in the city of Rahim Yar Khan, in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

In another case – according to Agenzia Fides – in the previous days,  seven Muslim armed men attacked the “Pentecostal Trinity Church” in the Kala Shah Kaku area, in the district of Sheikhupura, fifty-six kilometres from Lahore, capital of the Punjab province.

In its 2018 election programme, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the ruling party in the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, had promised to protect and promote rights for all religious communities in the country, Agenzia Fides noted.

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