As "second class citizens" Pakistani Christians are "forced" to receive legal training, German evangelical news agency IDEA quoted the head of Trinity Law College in the town of Lahore, Joseph Francis, as saying.
Speaking at an annual mission meeting for the "suffering Church" in Stuttgart, Germany, Francis noted that every year dozens of Christians are prosecuted under Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation for allegedly attacking Islam and its prophet Muhammad.
Conviction can lead to long prison terms and even execution.
PRISON ABUSE
Jailed Christians are often suffering of torture and abuse, human rights investigators have said. Pakistani authorities and local police are in many cases reluctant, or unwilling, to intervene, according to local Christians.
Pakistani Christians also face revenge attacks after being released from prison, even in cases when they are declared "innocent" on blasphemy charges, church sources say.
Francis, who also founded the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), a major advocacy group, has invited German lawyers to train students at Trinity Law College, IDEA reported.
Christians make up less than three percent of Pakistan’s mainly Muslim population of 165 million.
Human rights groups have suggested that violent attacks by Muslim militants against Christian believers increased since the September 11 attacks of 2001 in the United States, as the Pakistani government became a US ally in what Washington described as "the war on terrorism." Some moderate Muslim leaders in the region have condemned anti-Christian violence.
