Pakistan: Religious Freedom

(asked on 15th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 15 October, whether it is their assessment that rape; abduction; the burning alive of Christian parents, while their children were forced to watch; forced conversion; abduction leading to child marriage; and the imposition of capital punishment in the case of alleged blasphemy constitute persecution or discrimination.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 29th October 2018

​The Geneva Refugee Convention (and protocol) do not contain an explicit definition of persecution. The acts referred to are capable of falling within a pattern of behaviour that could constitute persecution, depending on the intention behind them and the particular circumstances. Any assessment of whether persecution is happening in a particular case would need to be informed by a full assessment of all of the relevant circumstances.

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