To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether he has made recent representations to his counterpart in the Pakistani Government on the release of prisoners sentenced to death for blasphemy.
Answered on
5 April 2018
We have repeatedly called on Pakistan to end capital punishment and have urged them to renew the previously imposed moratorium on the application of the death penalty. We are in any case concerned about the misuse of blasphemy laws, which carry the death penalty.
We regularly raise these concerns at a senior level with the Government of Pakistan. During my visit to Pakistan in November 2017, I discussed our human rights concerns with the Federal Secretary of the Ministry of Human Rights. The UK called on Pakistan to address these concerns at the UN Universal Periodic Review of Pakistan in November 2017 and at the 37th Human Rights Council session in March 2018.