Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif`s government, which took office in February 2024, is perpetuating a longstanding crackdown on free expression and civil society, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday in its World Report 2025. It further said that blasphemy-related violence against religious minorities, fostered in part by government persecution and discriminatory laws, intensified in 2024.

For the 546-page world report, in its 35th edition, HRW reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In much of the world, Executive Director Tirana Hassan writes in her introductory essay, that governments cracked down and wrongfully arrested and imprisoned political opponents, activists, and journalists.