It is heartrending to receive this news, but it is unfortunately not unexpected. The last time I was with Shabaz in 2010, I asked him about his security and if the Islamists were closing in. He had lived under the cloud of this eventuality for many years and he knew he was on borrowed time. He was a close friend of ICC and started working with us helping Pakistan’s persecuted Christians in the 1990’s.

We will dearly miss him. He courageously defended the rights of persecuted Christians in Pakistan despite living under the constant threat of death. He died as a martyr for a cause he believed in.