ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday identified ensuring interfaith harmony and freedom of rights for all citizens, especially minorities, as his government’s key priorities as the nation marks Christmas today. 

Millions of Christians worldwide celebrate Dec. 25 as the birth of Jesus Christ, marking the day with religious and cultural festivities. The Christian community in Pakistan marks the religious festival every year by distributing gifts, decorating Christmas trees, singing carols and inviting each other to lavish feasts. 

Christianity is the third-largest religion in Pakistan, with results from the 2023 census recording over three million Christians, or 1.3 percent of the total population in the country. 

However, Christians have faced institutionalized discrimination in Pakistan, including being targeted for blasphemy accusations, suffering abductions and forced conversions to Islam. Christians have also complained frequently of being reserved for jobs considered by the masses of low status, such as sewage workers or brick kiln workers. 

“It remains a key priority of the Government of Pakistan to ensure interfaith harmony, protection of rights and freedoms, economic well-being, and equal opportunities for professional growth for all citizens without discrimination of religion, race, or ethnicity,” Sharif said in a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). 

The Pakistani premier said Christmas was not only a religious festival but also a “universal message of love, peace, tolerance, and goodwill” for all humanity. 

Sharif noted the Christian community’s contributions to Pakistan’s socio-economic development were immense.

“Their significant services in the fields of education, health care, and other walks of life have greatly contributed to the promotion of social harmony,” the Pakistani prime minister said. 

Despite the government’s assurances of protection to minorities, the Christian community has endured episodes of violence over the past couple of years. 

In May 2024, at least 10 members of a minority Christian community were rescued by police after a Muslim crowd attacked their settlement over a blasphemy accusation in eastern Pakistan.

In August 2023, an enraged mob attacked the Christian community in the eastern city of Jaranwala after accusing two Christian residents of desecrating the Qur’an, setting Churches and homes of Christians on fire. 

In 2017, two suicide bombers stormed a packed church in southwestern Pakistan just days before Christmas, killing at least nine people and wounding up to 56. 

An Easter Day attack in a public park in 2016 killed more than 70 people in the eastern city of Lahore. In 2015, suicide attacks on two churches in Lahore killed at least 16 people, while a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a 130-year-old Anglican church in the northwestern city of Peshawar after Sunday Mass in 2013. 

The Peshawar blast killed at least 78 people in the deadliest attack on Christians in the predominantly Muslim country.