Azam and Nadeem Masih were savagely abused until they recited the formula of conversion and recorded a video where they said they had converted freely.
by Marco Respinti
While Pakistan goes to its much-awaited elections, minority right activists demand justice for two Christian brothers who were abducted, beaten with iron rods, and forcibly converted to Islam.
Azam Masih, a 28-year-old Christian known for his evangelistic activities, was quietly working at the stall he keeps as a tailor at the market in Kharota Syedan, a village near the city of Sialkot in Punjab. Suddenly, a well-known local Muslim extremist called Qasim (also spelled Nasim) Shah appeared on a motorcycle, armed with a gun. He kidnapped Azam and took him to the house of a relative, Sunny Shah.
There, Azam discovered that the gang had also kidnapped his younger brother, Nadeem Masih. Both brothers were savagely beaten with iron rods. Their mobile phones and other possessions were stolen.
They were told that they will be beaten to death unless they converted to Islam by reciting the Muslim profession of faith and recorded a video stating that their conversion had been spontaneous.
Then, they were thrown out of the house and told that if they tried to go back to their Christian faith this would be apostasy, since they were now Muslims, and will be punished with death.
The two brothers were terrorized. Only with the support of the local Christian community and national minority rights activists they and their family finally found the courage to report what had happened to the police by filing a FIR (First Information Report).
The police arrested the two Shahs and an Islamic cleric who reportedly had incited them to organize the kidnappings and the forced conversions. Where they will be seriously prosecuted or the video obtained under duress will be taken at face value by the authorities is another matter.
Marco Respinti is an Italian professional journalist, member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), author, translator, and lecturer. He has contributed and contributes to several journals and magazines both in print and online, both in Italy and abroad. Author of books and chapter in books, he has translated and/or edited works by, among others, Edmund Burke, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Russell Kirk, J.R.R. Tolkien, Régine Pernoud and Gustave Thibon. A Senior fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (a non-partisan, non-profit U.S. educational organization based in Mecosta, Michigan), he is also a founding member as well as a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for European Renewal (a non-profit, non-partisan pan-European educational organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands). A member of the Advisory Council of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief, in December 2022, the Universal Peace Federation bestowed on him, among others, the title of Ambassador of Peace. From February 2018 to December 2022, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of International Family News. He serves as Director-in-Charge of the academic publication The Journal of CESNUR and Bitter Winter: A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights.
