Minority rights protection

The passage of the National Commission for Minority Rights Bill 2025 is a historic, if shamefully delayed, step toward justice. For over a decade, the parliament has slow-walked a Supreme Court directive to establish this body, and while the bill passed with a two-thirds majority, the very fact that it is needed is a reflection of the country's historical failure to provide safety and dignity to non-Muslims. And to add to that the parliament, essentially the government, only woke up when pushed to: media reports say that the European Union had linked the continuation of the duty-free access for Pakistani goods to the markets of the 27-nation bloc with the approval of the minority bill.

The commission's potential, meanwhile, is significant. It can investigate violations, inspect police stations and jails, and challenge hate speech. However, it should be noted that laws were already on the books to address all these problems, but there was no consistent implementation. It is hoped that a central body will help improve enforcement, especially in the case of cleaning up police stations, as law enforcers are often among the worst offenders during incidents of violence against minorities, regularly turning a blind eye, and even occasionally joining the mob.

The current version of the law is likely to secure the President's ascent, so the next challenge will be enforcement and changing the mindsets that made it necessary. A worryingly large number of elected officials openly expressed bigoted views during the debate in Parliament. Even the opposition to the bill during the assembly session illustrated how offensive the concept of equality is for many lawmakers — the government immediately backed an amendment to strike a clause that opposition religious parties claimed was soft on Ahmadis, despite only containing innocuous boilerplate language about how the new law would override older laws, as is usually the case. Given that legislators supposedly reflect their voters, there are millions who hold concerning anti-minority views.