Try to imagine a Western country where the 3.5% of the population who were not followers of a religion that the majority follow and those people were treated like dirt or worse. It’s difficult to imagine isn’t it even though such discrimination was once part of Britain’s past? In Britain there have been periods where the government has discriminated against Catholics or Jews or non-conformist Christians but those periods are now way beyond living memory. There would be, as there was in Britain in the 18^th and 19^th centuries a lot of disgust at this bad treatment and a series of political moves with the aim of having the state treat everyone equally. In Britain today there is no religious bar to what job or position you can do with the exception of being the monarch, who is obliged to be a communicant with the Church of England and that is only because the monarch is the ultimate head of that church. Britain learned not to discriminate against people on the grounds of religion but that doesn’t happen elsewhere.

That’s not the case in Pakistan where Christians, Hindus, unorthodox Muslims, Sikhs and others are routinely discriminated against and are treated that way today. Members of these minorities are forcibly married or pressed into converting to Islam and who often get the worst jobs in society. For religious minorities Pakistan really is a shithole of monstrous proportions.

The plight of Pakistan’s religious minorities was highlighted recently by an article from PJ Media that the Religion of Peace website drew to my attention. According to the PJ Media article, members of religious minorities gathered on 11^th August to mark what has become Religious Minorities Day in Pakistan as it the anniversary of a speech in 1947 declaring safety for religious minorities given by Pakistan’s founding character Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The 11^th of August was declared as a day for minorities by a Roman Catholic who had, quite surprisingly, reached the Cabinet and held a position as Religious Minorities minister. Unsurprisingly this man who stood up for Pakistan’s minorities was murdered by Muslims unhappy at the minister’s fight against Pakistan’s Islamic blasphemy laws.

PJ Media said:

“Fifteen years after Bhatti’s assassination, Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis and other minority communities continue to report discrimination, attacks on places of worship, abductions, forced conversions and marriages of underage girls, and misuse of the country’s blasphemy laws. All of these abuses stand in contradiction of Pakistan’s constitutional guarantees of equal citizenship.

One of the thousands of victims is Aneeqa Ishaq, a 16-year-old Christian girl in Lahore, who was abducted by a Muslim man who then forced her to convert to Islam and coerced their marriage. After her recovery from captivity in July of this year, she filed a petition in a Lahore family court seeking to have the marriage declared void. Aneeqa’s family have since moved away from their rented home and even changed their phone numbers, fearful of being traced.

On August 11, 2026, marking Pakistan’s National Minorities Day, Christians and members of other religious minority communities as well as civil society activists gathered in three major Pakistani cities for the annual Minority Rights March. 

They called for constitutional equality and religious freedom, urging the government to move beyond ceremonial celebrations to address long-standing discrimination.”

If you’ve been a reader of this blog’s ‘Now That’s Why Pakistan Is A Shithole’ strand you will know that Pakistan is not a safe or a good place to be a religious minority. The situation for minorities does not appear to be improving in any way at all despite minorities being more vocal in their attempts to regain their rights.

Religious minorities in Pakistan have since independence from Britain in 1947 been the target of constant oppression. Upon independence the percentage of the country that was not Sunni Muslim was 14.1%, now it’s 3.5%. Religious minorities have either fled the country or have been ground down by oppression and in their despair have converted to Islam.

Violent mob attacks, random violence, job discrimination and oppression by way of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws have created a hell on earth for Pakistan’s religious minorities. It’s clear that even if Jinnah was being open, honest and sincere in his call for Pakistan’s minorities to be treated equally, something that those who question Jinnah’s secularism seem not to believe was the case, the reality has not lived up to early expectations. Minorities have clearly been persecuted in Pakistan and their situation doesn’t appear that it’s going to get better any time soon.

Links

PJ Media

https://pjmedia.com/uzay-bulut/2026/08/17/pakistani-christians-rally-for-equal-rights-n4956223

The life and assassination of Pakistani religious freedom campaigner Shabazz Bhatti,

https://www.christiandaily.com/news/shahbaz-bhattis-legacy-lives-on-through-landmark-reforms-for-pakistans-christians-other-minorities

Religion of Peace website

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

The life of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mohammed-Ali-Jinnah