Rebecca Duffett spoke with Sohail Johnson

Rebecca: Do you think we're likely to see any changes in this?

Sohail: There is a hope that sometime maybe a government will take action to develop the minorities. They can bring some projects and maybe they will do something. There is a hope, but I don't know when.

Rebecca: Is it easy to get hold of Bibles?

Sohail: Yes we can have Bible in Pakistan, but we cannot preach or evangelise in the Muslim areas.

Rebecca: Would you be able to tell us a bit about your story, because I believe you were in prison for a few years?

Sohail: In 1998 I was implicated in a false murder case. My family members were also with me under that charge. My elder brother and my father, we were sent to the jail. We faced the cold trial for three years and six month. There I saw that daily, Christians are facing discrimination on every level of their life everywhere. In that one prison there were about 17 mosques for Muslims, but there was no place or room for the Christian prisoners to offer their prayers.

Rebecca: Are a lot of Christians imprisoned?

Sohail: There are thousands of Christian prisoners that are implicated falsely and 87% of them innocently implicated just because they are poor Christians.

Rebecca: What sort of things are they implicated for?

Sohail: There are different kinds of cases, like stealing, murder and blasphemy.

Rebecca: What is the church like in Pakistan?

Sohail: The main stream churches are doing their routine work; they gather on the Sunday only. The people of Pakistan, they love God and you can see the churches every Sunday, it is full of the families of Christians and people love to offer their Sunday praying and they gather abundantly in the churches and they are very active in the church.

Rebecca: Are they not put off by attacks against Christians in Pakistan?

Sohail: I believe that when persecution came in the lives of the people that is the will of God. Persecutions have made the faith strong. People are not angry or aggressive to the Lord. They are not scared about these kinds of pressures. The people are more actively praying and they are obeying God.