"My family has been attacked and harassed a number of times due to my human rights work and legal support for victims of forced marriages, conversions and those accused of blasphemy."
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| Sadar Mushtaq Gill (right) |
Source/Credit: UCA News / Herald Malayalam
By Zahid Hussain | May 24, 2016
LAHORE: A Pakistani rights lawyer claims his family has been threatened at gunpoint because of his work helping Christians.
Sardar Mushtaq Gill, head of a law firm that provides legal assistance to Christians, said an unknown gunman abducted his parents and a sister just outside Lahore May 22.
"They were waiting for a bus when a car pulled up and the driver told them he was sent by me to pick up them," said Gill.
"The kidnapper then turned the car in the opposite direction to where they should have been going," he said.
After half-an-hour the women managed to escape the vehicle while the father was released unharmed several hours later.
"The kidnapper pointed a gun at my father and said that I needed to stop taking up religious persecution cases and then set him free near a security check-post," said Gill.
Police told ucanews.com that they are investigating the matter.
"My family has been attacked and harassed a number of times due to my human rights work and legal support for victims of forced marriages, conversions and those accused of blasphemy," he said
Despite the acts of intimidation, Gill said, that he would continue his human rights work.
The incident comes two days after Gill sought state protection for eyewitnesses and family members related to a case involving the 2004 death of a Christian couple who were murdered, allegedly for blasphemy. Gill said verbal threats had been made against witnesses.
Samson Salamat, director of Centre for Human Rights Education, expressed his concern for the safety of rights campaigners.
"They are constantly under threat and becoming more vulnerable," said Salamat. "There is little scope to speak about human rights issues and religious freedom under current circumstances," he said.
"There is ample evidence and several activists have been killed."
Salamat himself was attacked last year at a candlelight vigil for former Punjab governor Salman Taseer who was assassinated in 2011 for criticizing Pakistan's blasphemy law.
Salamat said human rights activists are followed and harassed both by Islamist extremists and state agencies.
Rights groups say human rights activist are increasingly under threat in Pakistan.
"The Pakistani government needs to protect rights activists and promote an environment where they can carry out their work free from threats, attacks and intimidation," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, after Khurram Zaki, a Shia rights activist, was gunned down in Karachi May 8.
"It is crucial for the authorities to stop ignoring militant groups and clamp down on those behind the violence."
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This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news Islam Ahmadiyya. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Times of Ahmad. Times of Ahmad is not an organ of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, nor in any way associated with any of the community's official websites.
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