Blasphemy Cases Fall in Pakistan After Crackdown, but Christians Say the Danger Remains
Registered cases dropped sharply this year, a persecution watchdog reports, yet the laws are unchanged and believers in poor and rural areas still feel exposed.
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The number of blasphemy cases registered in Pakistan has dropped sharply in 2026, but Christians and reform advocates say the threat to religious minorities has not gone away, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported Nov. 3.
Citing Reuters, ICC said the decline followed a crackdown on hardline Islamist groups ordered by Pakistan's army chief. Chief among those groups is Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), the party ICC described as the leading force behind the surge in accusations. The government banned TLP in October 2025 after protests in which one police officer and four civilians were killed. It had also been banned in April 2021, a ban lifted by the end of that year.
The numbers had climbed steeply before the drop. ICC said blasphemy accusations in 2024 were more than 40 times higher than in 2020. Citing an October 2024 report from Pakistan's National Commission for Human Rights, ICC said the number of people jailed on blasphemy charges rose from 9 in 2021 to 213 in 2023, and reached 475 in the first two months of 2024.
People jailed on blasphemy charges in Pakistan
Source: National Commission for Human Rights in Pakistan (Oct. 2024), as cited by International Christian Concern
The blasphemy laws themselves have not changed. Christians and members of the Ahmadiyya minority are accused at a far higher rate than their share of a population that is more than 96% Muslim, ICC said. The ministry also pointed to reports by Human Rights Watch and UCA News of an extortion network, which UCA News called “The Blasphemy Business,” that reportedly included officials of the Federal Investigation Agency, and to a Telegraph report that one cleric's brother filed blasphemy complaints against 26 people over four years.
A Pakistani Christian identified by ICC only as “Elijah” asked, “But how do you eliminate decades of religious intolerance from people's minds?” A Pakistani Muslim reform advocate identified only as “Hamza,” who now lives abroad after being attacked, said Christians in poorer or rural communities “can become extremely vulnerable.” Some analysts quoted by ICC said the crackdown was driven more by economic interests, such as European Union tax breaks on Pakistani goods, than by concern for minorities.
What we don't know yet: ICC did not give the exact number of blasphemy cases registered in 2026 or how many Christians have been accused this year, and Watchman News has not independently confirmed the figures.
