Pakistan: 'Christians continue to suffer racism, religious intoletance'

Islamabad [Pakistan], December 28 : The Christian community, which constitutes roughly 1.6 per cent of the population of Pakistan, suffers from both racism and religious intolerance.
In an opinion piece in The Pakistan Daily, author Maheen Mustafa says Christians have been persecuted in Pakistan for decades, but there has been an increase in anti-Christian sentiment since the late 1980s when dictator Zia ul Haq enacted Pakistan's blasphemy legislation, which has mostly been utilised to punish Christians.
Mustafa highlights the recent incident of religious intolerance in Pakistan. Karachi's famous food Chain 'Delizia' refused to write Merry Christmas' on a cake at the request of a customer.
On being enquired the reason for their action, the bakery representatives apologized for not fulfilling the customer's wish, saying they are not allowed to do so.
A similar incident also took place in 2018 at Delizia's Badar Commercial branch and was reported on another Facebook group, Karachi Food Diary. In that incident, a woman was denied a cake with 'Merry Christmas' written on it and told that it was based on "company instructions". The official said that following that incident there were dismissals and that might be the course of action today as well.
There are no two ways about it: discriminating against someone based on their faith is bigotry. Writing a few lines on a cake has no bearing on our own values, and it means nothing more than wishing someone a nice Christmas season.
Mario de Gasperi, writing in the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA) said that discrimination against the Christian community is deeply rooted in Pakistan.
The Muslim majority describe them using derogatory terms such as 'churha' or 'kafir,' which means infidel. A large proportion of the Christian community is from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, poorly educated, and takes up low-paid manual labour such as in brick kilns or the sanitation sector.
Perhaps the greatest suffering faced by them is the underlying societal hostility, the daily discrimination such as denial of services, access to political voice, or limitation to educational opportunities, said Gasperi.
Post-2001, violence and discrimination against Christians in Pakistan have definitely increased. Seen as connected to the 'West' due to their religious belief, Christians have at times been made scapegoats for the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, as well as the enormous human suffering, is seen as a consequence of interventions in other countries with large Muslim populations, reported CPFA.
Christians continue to suffer targeted violence and other abuses, including land-grabbing in rural areas, abductions and forced conversion, and the vandalization of homes and churches.
Pakistan's blasphemy laws continue to be a source of controversy and suffering, having extremely adverse effects on the accused and their families. A false accusation can be a punishment in itself since a number of cases have provoked brutal mob violence against the accused and their families, reported CPFA.