Brother of slain Pakistani minister urges West to act as report finds Christian persecution worsens
Peter Bhatti urged Western governments to increase pressure on Pakistan to protect religious minorities, saying current efforts are inadequate. Bhatti spoke at the London launch of Aid to the Church in Need’s report on Christians persecuted for their faith from 2024 to 2026. He said Christians and other minorities in Pakistan continue to face abuses including misuse of blasphemy laws, abductions, forced conversions and forced marriages. Bhatti’s brother, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic minister who advocated reform of blasphemy laws, was assassinated in 2011; his cause for canonization was opened in 2016.
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Peter Bhatti, brother of assassinated Pakistani minister Shahbaz Bhatti, called on Western governments to press Pakistan to protect religious minorities, as a new Aid to the Church in Need report found that Christian persecution worsened in 10 of 18 countries it examined and did not improve in any. The report cited pressures including violence, abductions, forced conversion and restrictions on religious activity.
Speaking at the report’s Oct. 27 launch in London, Peter Bhatti said neither the United Kingdom nor other Western governments were doing enough to protect Pakistan’s Christians and other religious minorities. He urged the U.K. to work with the United States, the European Union, Canada and other countries on a common strategy, and called for serious engagement with Pakistan’s government to promote interfaith harmony.
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s federal minister for minorities affairs, was assassinated in 2011 after advocating reform of the country’s blasphemy laws and the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death after being accused of blasphemy. Bibi was later reprieved and now lives in exile in Canada; the Diocese of Rawalpindi-Islamabad opened Bhatti’s cause for canonization in 2016.
Peter Bhatti said Pakistan’s situation had deteriorated, citing the misuse of blasphemy laws, abductions, forced conversions and forced marriages. He also said that human-rights and religious-freedom advocates had fallen silent for fear of extremist attacks.
The report, Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report into Christians Oppressed for their Faith 2024-2026, covers 18 countries. It found worsening persecution in 10 and no change in eight, with no country showing improvement.
The countries covered are Egypt, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sudan, Eritrea, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Myanmar and Nicaragua. The report’s editor, John Newton, said limited religious literacy in Western countries can lead to anti-Christian hostility being downplayed or omitted.
In Pakistan, the report cited concerns raised by U.N. experts in April 2026 about the abduction, forced conversion and marriage of women and girls from Christian and other minority communities. It estimated that as many as 2,000 kidnappings might occur annually, with those abducted facing physical and sexual abuse.
The report described sub-Saharan Africa as among the most dangerous regions for Christians, citing what it called rampant Islamic terrorist violence and the displacement of 3.5 million people in Nigeria alone. It also reported that Syria’s Christian population had fallen by more than 80% since 2011, while arrests of Christians in Iran had doubled.
In China, the report said a 2025 Online Code of Conduct for Religious Personnel barred the online dissemination of religious content without Communist authorities’ permission. It said the rules prohibited livestreamed liturgies, prayer meetings, children’s religious instruction and online preaching on unregistered websites, and required online activity to demonstrate support for Communist Party leadership.
Aid to the Church in Need’s John Pontifex said persecution was driving communities from their homes and changing the religious makeup of regions, particularly in Africa.
Religious freedom requires state protection of vulnerable minorities
Yes. In Catholic teaching, protecting vulnerable religious minorities is not merely an act of tolerance or political generosity; it is part of the state’s duty to uphold the dignity and rights of every person. Religious freedom belongs to all citizens and communities, so a majority’s religious identity cannot justify denying minorities the freedom to worship, express their faith publicly, or organize community life. Vatican II says governments must protect that freedom effectively through just laws and appropriate means.
The protection and promotion of the inviolable rights of man ranks among the essential duties of government. Therefore government is to assume the safeguard of the religious freedom of all its citizens, in an effective manner, by just laws and by other appropriate means.
The obligation is especially urgent when minorities face intimidation, discrimination, violence, or pressure to abandon or conceal their faith. Pope Benedict XVI identifies religious minorities among those particularly exposed to such violations and calls for their defense—not because they threaten the majority, but because protecting them can foster dialogue, reciprocity, and respect for fundamental rights more broadly.
This protection is not a demand for special privileges. It means equal protection in practice: people should not be coerced into professing or rejecting a religion, nor prevented from joining or leaving a religious community. Even where a country gives a particular religious community special constitutional recognition, Vatican II insists that the freedom of all citizens and religious communities must still be recognized and made effective.
There are also limits: religious freedom does not exempt anyone from just laws protecting public order and the rights of others. Political authority has a duty to defend citizens—especially the weakest—from abuses such as manipulation or exploitation committed under religious claims. That safeguard, however, must not become a pretext for suppressing peaceful minority worship or unequal treatment based on religion.
The Catholic claim, then, is both simple and demanding: the state must protect vulnerable minorities because their religious freedom is a human right, and the measure of that protection is whether it is secure and effective in practice—not merely promised in principle.