Religious minorities are living in a climate of fear and repression in Pakistan due to the flagrant violations of the rights of religious minorities. The state must now take urgent steps and do its utmost to counter the rising hate, uphold the rights of minorities and protect them.
This was concluded by a National Interfaith Working Group set up by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The working group comprised community leaders of different faiths and beliefs, including lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders in the field.
In an open letter issued on National Minority Day, the working group said that the fundamental rights of minorities to practice, profess and propagate their religion were protected under Articles 20 and 21 of Pakistan's Constitution apart from being upheld by the Supreme Court through various judgements, notably the 2014 Supreme Court judgement and again recently in the Mudasar Sani case. Moreover, they reminded the government that Pakistan is bound by international obligations and recommendations, which were accepted during its fourth Universal Periodic Review. Above all, it held that the right to freedom of religion or belief was unequivocally part of the vision for Pakistan, which was outlined in his speech to the constituent assembly on August 11, 1947, by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The group's letter, which was signed by its chairperson Asad Iqbal Butt, lamented that despite this, flagrant violations of the rights of religious minorities had become commonplace in Pakistan. The minorities were under attack from mob violence, forced conversions, false blasphemy allegations, hate speech - online and offline - and attacks on worship places. These attacks have escalated to the point that religious minorities live in a climate of fear and repression.
They said that instead of countering the rising hate, the state has opted to pander to far-right religious groups for far too long, helping create an increasingly radicalised society that eschews pluralism.
The group called on the state to counter the rising tide of hate and violence against minorities with a set of recommendations.
The government was urged to implement the Supreme Court's landmark judgement from 2014 in letter and spirit. This must include the formation of an autonomous statutory national commission for minorities and protect minorities' sites of worship and places of religious significance, including from mob violence, individual miscreants and illegal occupation by state and non-state actors.
The group urged the government to make it unequivocally clear that the state will not brook any form of hate speech (online or otherwise), incitement to violence or mob-led violence, including by clerics and far-right political parties or groups.
Not only must perpetrators of such rights violations be held accountable and prosecuted, but the victims should be duly compensated for the loss of life or property—without it becoming a substitute for accountability, they urged.
The government was asked to stringently regulate religious seminaries to prevent them from becoming breeding grounds for hate and intolerance against minorities.
For this purpose, it was suggested that multifaith peace committees must be established or restored, as necessary, at the council, district, divisional and provincial levels and trained regularly on human rights principles and best practices. Such committees should also be made responsible for compiling accurate data on incidents of violence and other rights violations against minorities and recording what action was taken by the state.
With the number of false blasphemy accusations drastically increasing, the group urged the government to hold to account those who level such accusations.
The Parliament should initiate a serious debate on the misuse of the blasphemy laws and ensure that they cannot be used to settle personal scores or to target vulnerable individuals or groups.
For this purpose, the group urged the government to initiate a concerted campaign promoting equal citizenship by creating mass awareness about the rights of religious minorities and the idea that national strength lies in religious and ethnic diversity. This should also include training and recruiting more teachers from minorities in public schools and universities to normalise the notion of equality while immediately removing all discriminatory material from educational curricula.
The working group urged the government to take affirmative action by protecting and promoting religious minorities' right to employment, education and political participation. Minorities' quota in jobs at the federal and provincial levels must be met without exception, while the state should promote the inclusion of members of minorities in the judiciary, civil service and law enforcement. Political parties should allocate at least five percent of key decision-making posts to party members from different faiths.
With forced conversions continuing unabated, the working group urged the government to criminalise early marriages and forced conversions—violations which frequently target girls and women from low-income minority households—and train judges of family courts to adjudicate such cases in line with international norms.
Further, the government was urged to ensure that census records reflect the actual number of people from minority groups so as to safeguard and ensure their political, economic and social rights. The government was also asked to recognise Buddhism as a distinct religion with a status equal to other faiths by including a section for Buddhists in all official forms.