Pakistanis need to be concerned about the plight of the country’s religious minorities, not only because of the international community’s view that the country does not protect and respect its religious minorities.
According to the latest annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), “Religious freedom conditions across Pakistan continue to trend negatively.” The alarming recent increase in hate campaigns against various religious communities in Pakistan -- Ahmadi, Christian, Hindu, Shia, and Sikh—will only reinforce that view.
Ahmadis continue to be targeted
The reality on the ground in Pakistan matches what outsiders sometimes highlight. On September 2, a British citizen, Maqsood Ahmad -- an Ahmadi by faith -- was the victim of targeted killing in District Nankana Sahib, Punjab. He was visiting from his home in the UK and his return to Britain had been delayed due to Covid restrictions.
Maqsood Ahmad was a Pakistan Army veteran, and an avid volleyball player. He left behind a family with young, now fatherless, children. His only crime was being an Ahmadi.
Maqsood Ahmad’s murder made President Arif Alvi’s claim on National Minorities Day about the constitution guaranteeing equal rights to minorities seem like mere lip service. Pakistan’s leaders avoid talking about cases like that of Maqsood Ahmad nor do they ever mention many minority citizens who have been accused, attacked, or are languishing in jails after being accused of committing blasphemy.
Forced conversions, abductions and blasphemy cases
In August, an eight-year-old boy from a Hindu family in Rahimyar Khan was accused of blasphemy. The boy became the youngest person ever charged with blasphemy. He was arrested but then later on released from police custody. In response, a large crowd of Muslims attacked a local Hindu temple in retaliation. The boy and his family are in hiding but what is their future, within the country, or outside.
There is little official response to the constant entreaties of Pakistan’s Christian and Hindus asking for an end to the kidnapping of their young girls who are being forcibly converted to Islam. These ‘converts’ can never return home or rejoin their original faith as apostasy is a crime punishable by death.
The Rwadari Tehreek President, Samson Salamat, had effectively contradicted President Alvi’s pro-forma statement on Minorities Day. According to Salamat, a Christian, there was, in Pakistan, "deep-rooted religious discrimination and forms of inequality, hate speech, instigation and provocations against minorities on the pretext of false blasphemy allegations, and continuous pressure to force Hindu and Christian women and girls to convert.”
Salamat’s assertion is closer to the truth than the official line. Pakistan has had decades of a mindset that started with Ayub Khan’s overt hatred of Hindus and Bengalis. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto acquiesced to the anti-Ahmadi Second Amendment to the constitution. Zia ul-Haq’s Islamisation opened the doors for legislation that interferes with religious beliefs, except those of Sunni Muslims.
In Pakistan, all citizens are equal but Muslim citizens are more equal. And among Muslims, Sunni views are the ones that predominate in allowing others what they can believe or say, without being threatened with charges of blasphemy, disrespect (Tauheen), or hurting the religious sentiments of the majority.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has tried to address the international perception of Pakistan as a violator of religious freedoms without changing much on the ground. It has created a sham Minorities Commission and used the release of Asia Noreen (known as Asia Bibi) from prison and allowed her to leave the country as indicators of change. Similarly Rimsha Masih, a young Christian girl accused of blasphemy in 2013, was allowed to leave for Canada. These victories, however, are purely symbolic because the ground reality continues to worsen.
In Pakistan, all citizens are equal but Muslim citizens are more equal. And among Muslims, Sunni views are the ones that predominate in allowing others what they can believe or say, without being threatened with charges of blasphemy, disrespect (Tauheen), or hurting the religious sentiments of the majority.
But trying to show the international community that the government is serious about changing the situation of minorities is not the same thing as changing their situation.
A Minorities Commission which cannot stop violence against members of minority communities is an empty gesture. No government, be it military or civilian, has ever had the interest or backbone to amend Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which continue to be abused to inflict harm on minorities. Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly stated that he supports these laws. Many Sunni Muslim males feel that Pakistan and Islam are intertwined rather than embracing the pluralistic vision of Pakistan’s founder.
A Minorities Commission which cannot stop violence against members of minority communities is an empty gesture.
In 2014, the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued a landmark judgement that laid the foundation for the realisation of the rights of religious minorities.
The apex court had noted that the incidents of desecration of worship place of minorities could have been avoided if the authorities concerned had taken timely measures. The inaction on the part of law enforcement agencies, the verdict said, was because they did not properly understand the relevant law.
Apart from improvement of security for worship places, the court had also directed the authorities to promote religious tolerance in the country by developing 'appropriate curricula' at school and college levels.
However, the verdict remains unimplemented seven years later because there is little willingness to course correct.
For meaningful change in the treatment of its minorities, Pakistan will have to change its majoritarian mindset, which is easier said than done. Pakistan may have to amend or repeal the blasphemy law as Asia Noreen, a victim of this bad law, has called recently. Western International Religious Freedom NGOs, and those appointed to the task of safeguarding human rights and religious minorities’ overseas, often skate around this issue and take these laws as unchangeable.
But focusing on individual souls saved, without dealing with the law and the hatred and self-righteousness it has bred and bled into the society as a whole, is unlikely to address Pakistan’s deeper problem. It is time for citizens and foreign partners alike to demand that the government of Pakistan ensure Freedom of Religion or Belief for all citizens as stipulated in the Constitution of Pakistan article 20 and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles 2 and 18.