Religious freedom reinforces the development and strength of civil societies, and it dampens the appeal of religious extremism and religion-based terrorism.
Religious and human rights groups outside of the country have provided numerous, usually unconfirmed reports that members of underground churches have been beaten, arrested, tortured, or killed because of their religious beliefs.
In most provinces incidents of arrests of religiousleaders declined, there were no reports of new church closings, and other acts of abuse of Christian minorities, such as village expulsions, were limited to a small number of areas.
Relations between different religious groups frequently were tense, acts of sectarian and religious violence continued, and scores of deaths were attributed to sectarian violence during the period covered by this report.
Religious and sectarian groups mounted large-scale protests against the proposed change and some religiousleaders stated that if the laws were changed, even just procedurally, persons would be justified in killing blasphemers themselves.
SSP Leader Maulana Mohammad Azam Tariq, who was arrested in a 1999 crackdown on extremists, released after a year of imprisonment, and arrested again in February 2002, was allowed to contest the October 10, 2002, elections from jail, despite a number of terrorism and murder cases pending against him in anti-terrorism courts.
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