Pakistan, a nation founded on the principles of the ideology of Islam, is, as any well informed person will know, probably the last place one would wish to be if you were a non-Muslim. It’s so bad that I don’t think that if I visited the place I’d even make out of the airport arrivals hall alive it is that much of an intolerant and backward shithole.

However, I have a choice not to visit such an appalling Islamic hell-hole, Pakistan’s Christians and other religious minorities do not have such a choice. Since independence in 1947, they have had to endure the sort of levels of state and culturally approved oppression that would, if it were aimed at Muslims, would have the Bearded Savages of Islam rioting in the streets.

The position of Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan is bad and, following the recent election, an election marred by the sort of violence we’ve come to expect from Islamic cultures, is likely to get worse. The Prime Minister elect, former cricket start and reformed playboy Imran Khan, has stated that he and his new government do not intend to reform or repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

This news is a terrible blow for Pakistan’s religious minorities as the blasphemy laws have been used by Islamists as a tool to oppress non-Muslims. The Pakistani blasphemy laws allow for anyone who is even perceived to be insulting Islam to be subjected to a range of punishments ranging from fines right up to the death penalty. Although in recent years nobody has been officially executed for blasphemy, this law has been used to stir up Muslim mobs who have murdered those who have either criticised Islam or who have called for more secularism. The existence of Pakistani blasphemy laws gives tacit permission for Pakistani Muslims to attack and kill those who ask awkward questions about the death cult that is Islam. This fear of death for speaking out not only affects the 3% of Pakistanis who are not orthodox Muslims but it also affects minority sects within Islam such as the Ahmediyya and any Muslim who wishes to campaign for the sort of change that will stop Pakistan being such an awful shithole.

According to a Roman Catholic news website, Imran Khan abandoned his previous stated position that he held in 2011 that the Pakistani blasphemy laws created a culture where radical Islamic clerics were allowed to incite violence against religious and cultural minorities in Pakistan. Khan appears to have done this in order to win over the large number of Pakistani voters who want to continue to see minorities persecuted and killed. There is obviously no stomach for treating non-Muslims equally to Muslims in Pakistan and neither is there any appetite for advancing the cause of religious freedom in this increasingly benighted nation.

The Catholic News Agency said:

In his 2011 autobiography, Khan spoke out against a lack of government action against religious leaders who used the issue of blasphemy “arguably [to] incite murder.”

Coming just weeks before the election, his public backing for the controversial laws was seen by many observers as a concession to hardliners in the country ahead of the vote.

Parties running on an explicitly anti-blasphemy platform did poorly at the polls, with Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, which campaigns under the rallying cry “Death to Blasphemers” failing to win a single seat, despite a garnering a large following in the province of Punjab.

As CNA has previous reported, accusations of blasphemy are disproportionately levelled against religious minorities, and the laws are seen as a vehicle for religious intolerance or persecution.  While Pakistan is 97 percent Muslim, 14 percent of blasphemy cases are brought against non-Muslims.

Christian clerics who bravely do their best to minister to their flock in circumstances that are truly abhorrent, have said that the situation for Christians in Pakistan is getting worse. The Catholic Archbishop of Karachi, Cardinal Joseph Coutts has said that the position for Christians is ‘getting more dangerous’. Although he stated that the majority of the problems with anti-Christian activity come from a relatively small number of ‘radicals’, it’s plain to see that these ‘radicals’ are gaining more and more power and influence.

The Catholic News Agency speaking of Cardinal Coutts’ comments added:

While saying that the majority of Pakistani Muslims are moderate and support democracy, he noted that some extremists do not.

“[They] don’t accept democracy, they don’t accept the international declaration of human rights, they say it’s not Islamic.”

While saying that Islamic hard-liners are a small minority, Coutts cautioned that they are now becoming a more prominent force in the life of the country.

“We’ve always had these kinds of people on the fringes, but they weren’t dominant,” he added. “Now they are becoming more assertive.”

I must admit I look at the post election situation in Pakistan and I do not see it getting any better only worse. Imran Khan’s pandering to the Islamic radicals will not neutralise this constituency as a political force but will only embolden it. Khan will need other parties in order to govern as a coalition Prime Minister and it’s likely that the other parties will demand a price for supporting Khan. This price will be the continuance of the oppressive blasphemy laws and a possible worsening of rights and safety of Pakistan’s Christians.

Pakistan is a shithole created almost entirely by the ideology of Islam and it appears that the Pakistani people have chosen to continue on their socially and culturally retarded path rather than become a civilised nation. I see little future for Pakistan’s Christians nor its Sikhs and Hindus as long as Islam holds such a dominant position in the life of this increasingly accursed nation.