BPCA report to help Canada save lives - press release

BPCA report to help Canada save lives

A British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) report has won high praise from Canadian government officials.  The research officials, dealing with asylum cases, were preparing updated country reports concerning Pakistan, reports that will be used as background material when dealing with asylum cases from Pakistan. 

The research unit of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada approached the BPCA asking for replies to a number of questions, to which the BPCA gave a prompt and full reply.  The IRB officials also stated they used the BPCA submission to the UN Human Rights Council produced earlier in the year.  Along with submissions from other organizations and the officials own research, the BPCA material was heavily used in the three final reports, which will be used by Immigration officials in deciding cases of Pakistani Christians seeking asylum in Canada.  As is also the case in the UK, Pakistani’s form a high proportion of those seeking asylum to escape severe persecution in Pakistan. 

The three IRB reports cover the situation and treatment of Christians generally in Pakistan, the blasphemy laws, and the situation of converts from Islam to Christianity in Pakistan. 

Nasarani Ki Himmet, one of BPCA’s researchers said ‘We were pleased to be able to produce a report with such short notice that the Canadian government found so useful.  BPCA researchers are currently working on a much bigger report that should be out soon covering the situation in Pakistan for all minorities, and which will be a useful resource for governments, universities and NGO’s worldwide’. 

Notes to Editors

The BPCA was founded after a massacre of Christians in and around a town called Gojra in 2009, which included a family burnt alive.  It deals in advocacy work, with a 100% success rate in the asylum appeals it has been involved with, as well as promoting inter-faith harmony among Pakistani’s in the UK, and is starting to also do relief and development work in Pakistan. 

For details of the thank you letter from the Canadian Government, see

http://britishpakistanichristian.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/canadian-government-agency-to-use-bpca.html

To examine the three reports produced, see

http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca:8080/RIR_RDI/RIR_RDI.aspx?id=454349&l=e (Blasphemy laws)

http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca:8080/RIR_RDI/RIR_RDI.aspx?id=454343&l=e   (treatment of converts)

http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca:8080/RIR_RDI/RIR_RDI.aspx?id=454345&l=e  (Christians in Pakistan generally)