Blasphemy Laws in 2025: The Hidden Weapon Against Christians and Free Speech

The Under-Reported Global Crisis

During a recent discussion at the Blue Ridge Center, experts highlighted a disturbing reality often overlooked in Western media: "blasphemy laws continue today to be wielded … to throw people in jail or kill them." While many assume such medieval statutes vanished with the Enlightenment, the truth is far grimmer. Seventy-nine countries around the world continue to enforce blasphemy laws, and in places such as Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, violation of these measures can result in a death penalty.

These are not merely laws on dusty books. They are active instruments of persecution, imprisonment, and execution—particularly targeting religious minorities, especially Christians. And increasingly, similar restrictions are emerging in Western democracies under the sanitized label of "hate speech" legislation.

Pakistan: Where Blasphemy Accusations Have Become Weaponized

Pakistan's blasphemy laws represent one of the most egregious examples of religious persecution in the modern world. The statistics alone tell a chilling story: In 2020, individuals brought 11 cases of alleged blasphemy in Pakistan, and 9 in 2021. In 2024, at least 475 blasphemy cases were registered. That represents a more than 4,000% increase in just four years.

But numbers cannot capture the human cost.

The Ayub Brothers: Facing Death for Their Faith

Two Christian brothers, Amoon and Qaisar Ayub, currently sit on death row in Pakistan, accused of posting blasphemous material on the internet. Their case has drawn international attention from organizations like the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which is advocating for their release. The Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench, in Pakistan upheld the conviction of two Christian brothers, Amoon Ayub and Qaiser Ayub, who were both charged with blasphemy and sentenced to execution by hanging.

The brothers maintain their innocence, claiming the charges were fabricated. Their legal team has appealed to Pakistan's Supreme Court, but the outcome remains uncertain. If the death sentences are carried out, the Ayub brothers will join a growing list of Christians executed or murdered over blasphemy accusations in Pakistan.

Shahzad Masih: Eight Years on Death Row

Perhaps even more heartbreaking is the case of Shahzad Masih. Innocent Christian Shahzad Masih was arrested on fabricated blasphemy charges in July 2017 when he was 16 years old. Despite the lack of any evidence against him, Shahzad was sentenced to hang. He just turned 24 on death row in a Pakistani prison.

Shahzad's only alleged "crime"? Telling a Muslim co-worker about a Muslim friend of his father's who had converted to Christianity. That conversation—nothing more—resulted in blasphemy charges, a death sentence, and eight years imprisoned awaiting execution.

He was a child when arrested. He is now a young man who has spent his entire adult life in prison for a conversation.

A System Designed for Abuse

Human Rights Watch interviewed 14 people who had faced blasphemy accusations, as well as lawyers, prosecutors, judges, police officials, human rights activists, and journalists between May 2024 and January 2025 in Lahore, Gujranwala, Kasur, Sheikhupura, and Islamabad districts of Pakistan. Their findings reveal that Pakistan's blasphemy laws are systematically exploited for blackmail, settling personal disputes, seizing property, and targeting religious minorities.

In Pakistan, a WhatsApp message – even an alleged one – can have deadly consequences. Last week, a court in Gujrat district, Punjab, sentenced a 22-year-old student to death on charges of sharing blasphemous pictures and videos. The expansion of blasphemy prosecutions to social media has created an environment where any online statement can become a capital offense.

Even when accused individuals are acquitted—as was Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who spent nearly a decade on death row before being cleared—they often face mob violence and must flee the country for their safety. Bibi's acquittal in 2018 sparked nationwide protests and death threats that forced her into hiding and eventual exile.

From Pakistan to Europe: The Rebranding of Blasphemy Laws

While Pakistan's blasphemy laws are explicit and brutal, Western nations are implementing functionally similar restrictions under different names. The United Kingdom provides a particularly troubling example of how "hate speech" legislation can mirror traditional blasphemy enforcement—with one crucial difference.

The UK's Selective Speech Enforcement

The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and Scotland in 2024. Britain officially ended its blasphemy laws, which historically protected only Christianity. Yet paradoxically, as legal protections for Christian expression were removed, new restrictions emerged protecting Islam from criticism.

If you burn a copy of the Qur'an in public in Britain, you face criminal prosecution. A man named Hamit Coskun was recently convicted for this act under public order laws. Meanwhile, burning a Bible carries no such legal consequences. The message is clear: some religions receive legal protection from offense; others do not.

The Christian Legal Centre said on Monday that Judge G. Kelly had thrown out the case against evangelist Karandeep Mamman at Wolverhampton Crown Court because the prosecution had failed to bring evidence against the preacher under section 4A of the Public Order Act. Mamman, a Christian street preacher, was prosecuted for allegedly "blaspheming" Islam during his public evangelism. Though ultimately acquitted due to lack of evidence, the fact that he faced criminal charges at all demonstrates how "hate speech" provisions can function as blasphemy laws by another name.

The Chilling Effect on Christian Expression

Christian groups are particularly concerned that a broad definition of Islamophobia could stifle their right to express theological views that differ from Islam. Proposed legislation to criminalize "Islamophobia" in the UK has raised alarms among Christian organizations, who fear it will criminalize basic theological disagreements or evangelism.

The scope of speech restrictions in Britain has expanded dramatically. According to police records analyzed by the London Times, over 12,000 Britons per year are arrested for speech-related offenses—an average of 30 per day and nearly a fourfold increase over the 2016 figure.

These arrests include social media posts, street preaching, and public statements deemed offensive to protected groups. While supporters argue such laws combat genuine harassment and incitement, critics note the chilling effect on legitimate religious expression and political speech.

The Fundamental Question: Who Decides What Is Blasphemy?

Traditional blasphemy laws were straightforward in their injustice: they criminalized speech offensive to the dominant religion. Modern "hate speech" frameworks claim to be more egalitarian, protecting all religions equally. Yet the enforcement patterns tell a different story.

In Pakistan, blasphemy laws theoretically apply to all religions but are overwhelmingly used against religious minorities, particularly Christians and Ahmadi Muslims. In the UK, public order and hate speech laws theoretically protect all groups equally, yet enforcement increasingly focuses on speech critical of Islam while expressions offensive to Christianity face little legal consequence.

The common thread is not the formal law but its application. Blasphemy laws—whether called such explicitly or disguised as "hate speech" or "public order" offenses—inevitably reflect the religious and political priorities of those in power.

The Stakes: Religious Freedom and Free Speech in Crisis

The implications extend far beyond individual cases. When governments criminalize religious expression—whether through explicit blasphemy laws or functionally equivalent "hate speech" restrictions—they undermine two fundamental human rights: religious freedom and freedom of expression.

Religious freedom requires the ability to both practice one's faith and to articulate why that faith is true and others false. Evangelism, theological debate, and religious criticism are inseparable from authentic religious liberty. When Pakistan imprisons Christians for alleged insults to Islam, or when Britain prosecutes street preachers for expressing Christian theology, both nations restrict religious freedom at its core.

Similarly, free speech means little if it excludes the topics people care most deeply about. Religion, by its nature, involves exclusive truth claims. Christianity asserts Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation. Islam declares Muhammad the final prophet. These claims necessarily imply other religions are false. If expressing such beliefs becomes criminal "hate speech," religious freedom becomes impossible.

What Must Change

The solution is not more refined blasphemy laws or better-crafted hate speech legislation. It is the recognition that governments should not be in the business of policing religious expression at all.

Pakistan must repeal its blasphemy laws entirely and release all those imprisoned under them. The Ayub brothers and Shahzad Masih should be freed immediately. The hundreds of others facing blasphemy charges deserve fair trials under neutral criminal statutes, not religious persecution disguised as law enforcement.

Western nations, including the UK, must resist the temptation to resurrect blasphemy prohibitions under progressive labels. Hate speech laws that function as blasphemy enforcement threaten the very freedoms these societies claim to champion. Christians should be free to preach the Gospel, Muslims to call people to Islam, and atheists to critique both—without fear of criminal prosecution.

The alternative is a world where speaking your deepest convictions becomes a crime, where theological differences are settled by judges rather than persuasion, and where religious minorities live under the constant threat of accusation and imprisonment.

That world is not theoretical. For Christians in Pakistan and increasingly in the West, it is becoming reality.

Conclusion: The Test of Tolerance

A society's commitment to religious freedom is tested not by how it treats the majority religion, but how it protects the rights of religious minorities to express unpopular beliefs. By that measure, much of the world is failing.

Blasphemy laws continue today to be wielded to throw people in jail or kill them. Whether in Pakistan's explicit religious prohibitions or Britain's evolving "hate speech" framework, the pattern is the same: governments criminalizing religious expression, often to the detriment of Christians and other religious minorities.

The stakes could not be higher. Two brothers await execution in Pakistan for their faith. A young man who was arrested as a teenager faces hanging for a conversation. Street preachers in Britain face prosecution for evangelism. And across 79 countries, similar stories multiply daily.

These are not abstractions. They are human beings—created in God's image, deserving of dignity and freedom—whose lives hang in the balance of laws that should never have been written.

The time for polite silence has passed. Blasphemy laws, by any name, must end.