Following a six-year legal battle, a Pakistani Christian whose employer fraudulently registered him as Muslim and sought to bind him to forced labor, can now legally register as Christian.

Sufyan Masih, 24, worked as a brick kiln worker under Asif Ali, who registered Masih in the National Identity Card system without Masih’s knowledge in 2018, according to Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF). He changed Masih’s first name to Muhammed and registered him as Muslim rather than Christian. Attempting to force him into servitude, his employer claimed he had adopted Masih and converted him to Islam, attempted to deny Masih his wages and impeded him from returning to his Christian family.

In 2020, his family attempted to save Masih from illegal custody by seeking help from Sumera Shafique, an attorney in Pakistan who filed a petition on behalf of Masih.

“Ali had refused to give Masih back to his family, saying that the boy had converted to Islam and that he had adopted him as his son,” she said in a Christian Daily International and Morning Star News interview. “I filed a petition for his recovery and succeeded to reunite him with his parents.”

Although Ali’s illegal custody was dismantled, Masih’s ID remained fraudulent, since Masih and his family, who are illiterate, was unaware of Ali’s action. The family discovered the fraud after they sought to register his name in the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and was told that his name was already in the system. The NADRA officials refused to change his religion and name.  

The case went to court, where Shafique presented evidence such as a Christian baptism certificate, to prove Masih’s chosen faith. In a May 2024 ruling, a judge denied Masih the right to change his ID, although Ali never appeared in court to show a Muslim conversion document.  

The family then sought help from ADF International, which represented Masih in an appeals court hearing where a judge ruled that Masih could change his ID card.

In Pakistan, it is illegal for a Muslim to modify the religion specified on their ID cards. According to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List, Pakistan stands below Nigeria as the eighth-worst country for persecution of Christians.

Tehmina Arora, ADF International’s director of advocacy for Asia, referred to this rule in a statement reacting to the win.

“This is yet another example of how laws in Pakistan are weaponized to punish and target Christians,” said Arora in a press release. “Pakistani authorities make it extremely difficult to ‘stop’ being a Muslim once you are designated as such. This presents a major problem for Christians like Sufyan when they are illegally converted to Islam on their identification documents, which is a pervasive problem and egregious violation of religious freedom. We are grateful for the precedent that is set by this victory, and hopeful that it will go on to protect Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan who are unjustly persecuted because of their faith.” 

Photo: Courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom