Minorities continue to face discrimination in Pakistan

Pakistan’s minority communities including the Hindus, Christians and Sikhs continue to face discrimination and harassment due to persecution by the majority community, according to the reports.

Latestly.com reported that several members of minorities, including Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara, have been killed and attacked in various cities and towns of Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for allegedly committing blasphemy, which in Pakistan, is commonly used to settle personal scores relating to business, financial and land issues.

It reported that abduction, forcible conversion to Islam and marriage of Hindu girls, mostly minors to Muslims, continue unabated in various areas of Pakistan without invoking any concern and attention of the administration, human rights organisations, mainstream media and social media platforms in Pakistan.

“Amid the persecution of minorities, rights experts have said Pakistan’s legal system is in need of urgent reform to protect the safety and dignity of the minorities, including the Ahmadi community. Notably, the Ahmadi community in Pakistan lives as second-class citizens. The anti-Ahmadi Muslim sentiment is powerful in Pakistan. It is amongst one of the most persecuted minority communities in the country,” Latestly.com reported.

A member of rights groups expressed alarm and a strong sense of outrage at the continued exodus of religious minority communities in the country and said that the state has consistently failed to allay the concerns of the communities despite repeated reminders by civil society.

“They have condemned the persecution of religious minorities in Sindh and Balochistan, saying this is a reflection of the state’s failure to save these citizens from violence and discrimination,” Latestly.com also wrote.

Meanwhile, it was only in April this year that a court in Pakistan sentenced six people to death after convicting them for their roles in last year’s vigilante killing of Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha Kumara accused by workers of committing blasphemy.

The murder of Priyantha Kumara outraged many Pakistanis as well as the people across the world.

The Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore, set up inside a high-security prison, also gave life sentences to nine people, five years’ jail to one, and two-year sentences to 72, according to a statement from the public prosecutor. Eight of those sentenced were juveniles.

Priyantha Kumara was killed in December 2021 by workers at a sports equipment factory in Pakistan’s eastern Sialkot district where he was a manager.

Few issues are as galvanising in Pakistan as blasphemy, and even the slightest suggestion of an insult to Islam can supercharge protests and incite lynchings.

Hafiz Israr ul Haq, lawyer for one of the men sentenced to death, called the verdict unfair.

“This was a case of mob violence and in such cases no individual’s role can be ascertained with certainty,” he has told AFP.

Rights groups say accusations of blasphemy can often be wielded to settle personal vendettas, with minorities largely the target.

In April 2017, an angry mob lynched university student Mashal Khan when he was accused of posting blasphemous content online.

A Christian couple was lynched and their remains burned in a kiln in Punjab in 2014 after being falsely accused of desecrating the Quran.

The Centre for Social Justice – an independent group advocating for the rights of minorities in Pakistan – says at least 84 people were accused of committing blasphemy last year.

Since 1990, at least 82 people have been murdered over alleged blasphemy in Pakistan, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Five of those killings took place last year alone, including mobs stoning and burning victims to death.

Meanwhile, several activists including the New Democratic People’s Front in Sri Lanka staged a protest outside the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo urging Pakistan to take steps to end terrorism.

The protest was conducted under the themes of ‘eradicate terrorism’, ‘Pakistan should support to end terrorism’, and ‘Pakistani terrorism is a threat not only to South Asia but the entire world.’

The General Secretary of the New Democratic People’s Front, V.G. Yoharajan Pillayi, presented an appeal to the Administrative Officer of the High Commission of Pakistan requesting the Government of Pakistan to take steps to end terrorism.

The New Democratic People’s Front stressed during the protest that Pakistan should not contribute to the rise of terrorism under any circumstance.

The letter further pointed out the incident where Priyantha Kumara was brutally beaten to death by the Pakistanis.

All these negative developments in Pakistan have undoubtedly contributed to US think-tank Early Warning Project’s latest report which was released in December.

According to the report, Pakistan has topped the list of countries at the highest risk of experiencing new mass killings.

“Pakistan faces multiple security and human rights challenges, including increasing violence by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP,” Al Arabiya News said, quoting the Early Warning Project’s latest report.

The report cites violence by a local offshoot of the Taliban as one of the main challenges for the nation already facing political and economic crises.

Threats of attacks by the Islamic State (ISIS) and the country’s blasphemy laws, which have resulted in episodes of mob violence against religious minorities, were other factors for Pakistan’s high-risk ranking, reported Al Arabiya News.