MEDIA RELEASE
ZURICH – Members of Congress have sent a letter to Pakistan’s Minister of Law and Justice, Azam Nazeer Tarar, asking him to act to protect Neha Faqir, an 18-year-old Pakistani Christian woman who is believed to have been abducted and forcibly converted to Islam.
The letter, sent on 20 August, was organised by Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, and signed by 11 members of Congress. Neha Faqir’s case was brought to international attention by Christian Solidarity International (CSI), which is providing legal and financial support for Neha’s family.
CSI has also launched a petition campaign for Neha to Minister Tarar on its website.
Neha Faqir disappeared on 24 March, after departing her family’s home to attend a course in a nearby sewing center. She never returned.
With the help of a lawyer engaged by CSI, Neha’s family traced her to a madrassa in the city of Lahore, and learned that she had been converted to Islam mere days after her disappearance, despite being illiterate and never having expressed any interest in changing her religion.
Neha’s family petitioned local courts to have Neha returned to them, and obtained a hearing for their petition in the Lahore High Court on 9 June. The judge in the case, however, dismissed the family’s petition, and refused to even let them speak with Neha, who appeared in court in conservative Islamic dress and in the company of Islamic clerics.
The members of Congress wrote that these circumstances “have raised serious questions about the cause of her disappearance and whether she was able to communicate her wishes independently. We are particularly concerned by reports that her family was not permitted to speak with her before or during those proceedings.”
In addition to Congressman Chris Smith, the letter was also signed by Representatives James P. McGovern, French Hill, Gus Bilirakis, Andy Harris, Maria Elvira Salazar, Riley Moore, Randy Weber, Michael Cloud, Brad Sherman, and Blake Moore.
The members of Congress ask Minister Tarar to “take all appropriate steps within [his] authority to ensure Ms. Faqir’s physical safety and well-being; ensure she has confidential access to independent legal counsel and an opportunity to communicate freely and privately with her family; and ensure that any further judicial proceedings are conducted under conditions that allow her to express her wishes freely and without intimidation or undue influence”.
On 16 June, CSI presented Neha’s case at a meeting convened in the UK House of Lords by David, Lord Alton. Lord Alton later wrote to the United Kingdom’s Minister for the Middle East and Pakistan, Hamish Falconer, to ask him to intervene in the case.
Also in June, CSI’s president, Dr. John Eibner, wrote to the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, asking his government to “enable Neha to return freely to her family.”
An estimated 1,000 Christian and Hindu women and girls are forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan every year. In April, a group of UN experts expressed serious concern about the “continued and widespread patterns of abduction and forced religious conversion through marriage affecting women and girls belonging to minority communities in Pakistan”.
“We are grateful to these members of Congress for taking this stand for Neha and for all persecuted Christians in Pakistan,” said Joel Veldkamp, CSI’s Director for Public Advocacy. “This is an opportunity for the government of Pakistan to end the impunity that fuels violence and extremism in their country, and show that attacks on Christians and other religious minorities will not be overlooked. It is time to bring Neha home.”
