LAHORE, PAKISTAN—The elderly man’s troubles began when two young men milling inside his homeopathic clinic casually asked him about his religion. He thought they were merely curious. But they belonged to an outlawed militant group and were carrying hidden tape recorders.

Within hours, police officers showed up at Masood Ahmad’s clinic and played back the tape in which he explained the tenets of the minority Ahmadiyya sect. The Islamic sect is rejected by mainstream Muslims because it disputes the basic tenet of their faith that Muhammad is Islam’s last prophet.

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Ahmad was charged with blasphemy, which can carry the death penalty. The 72-year-old has been jailed since his arrest earlier this month, awaiting a trial that could take months or even years to begin.

He is not alone. Just last week, a Pakistani court sentenced a mentally ill British man, Mohammad Asghar, to death on blasphemy charges after he allegedly claimed to be Islam’s prophet.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law is increasingly becoming a potent weapon in the arsenal of Muslim extremists.

Although Pakistan has never executed anyone under the law, vigilantes frequently entrap and sometimes kill adherents of minority religions accused of blasphemy. They have created a climate of fear, forcing frightened judges into holding court sessions inside jails and keeping witnesses from coming to the defence of those on trial.

“At the moment, there are more and more pending blasphemy cases,” said I.A. Rahman, one of Pakistan’s leading human rights activists. “Extremist organizations demonstrate and raise slogans, and judges are afraid. They agitate all the time, creating hatred, and the government is not doing anything. Successive governments have failed.”

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch chastised Pakistan’s record of protecting its religious minorities, saying in its 2014 world report that “abuses are rife under the country’s abusive blasphemy law, which is used against religious minorities, often to settle personal disputes.”

The federal religious affairs ministry refused to comment. Government officials did not return calls for comment.

Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, secretary general of Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam, an organization with close ties to many members of the Afghan Taliban’s leadership, rejected allegations that the law is widely misused to settle personal disputes, though he said he supports a rigorous police investigation before charges are filed. He said those who were physically attacked had brought the violence upon themselves by enraging Muslims’ sentiments.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 34 people were charged with blasphemy last year. A government statistic says 27 were charged in 2012. At least 16 people are currently on death row for blasphemy, while another 20 are serving life sentences, according to Human Rights Watch.

“In the last three years we have seen a large increase in the number of cases of blasphemy,” said Keith Davies, head of RescueChristians, a U.S.-based charity that started operations in Pakistan four years ago.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law predates the founding of the country in 1947, but during the 1980s the U.S.-backed military dictator, Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, amended it to add the death penalty and single out Islam as the religion that may not be insulted, among other changes.

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Pakistan is not the only nation with such laws on the books. Blasphemy offences are punishable in more than 30 countries, including some with predominantly Christian populations, such as Poland and Greece, according to a 2012 report by Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York.

Most of Pakistan’s 180 million people are Sunni Muslims who do not support the militants’ violence or their abhorrence for religious minorities. Nevertheless, the minorities, including Muslims who belong to the Shiite sect of Islam, say even the smallest quarrel can land them in jail on trumped-up blasphemy charges.

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