As Pakistan approaches August 14, the day when the national flag flies from countless rooftops, the minorities of Pakistan, who are represented by the white portion of the flag, are under pressure as never before. Pakistan seems to have evolved into a torch-bearer for intolerance, and where minorities of every persuasion are killed, harassed and driven out of their houses and businesses, often out of the country altogether, with disturbing regularity. There is no minority that is completely safe and no minority can be said to enjoy the complete protection of the state. For minorities such as the Ahmadis, discrimination against them is institutionalised in the Constitution. For the rest — the Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Parsis, Christians — they enjoy a notional protection and equal rights under the Constitution, but it is notional only, the actual protection of their civil rights and liberties, their freedom to worship as they choose, lapsed into nothingness within months of Partition.
Many choose flight as the alternative to being butchered in their own homes. There is a silent but steady stream of minority citizens seeking asylum from persecution in Pakistan. They go to Canada, the UK and other European countries, or may spend years waiting to have their cases heard by the UN in countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka that currently hosts thousands of Pakistani Christians fleeing for their lives. Those who cannot flee come together in ragged camps, such as the one that has grown inexorably along the H-9 service road in Islamabad, which now stretches for almost a kilometre. The irony of being adjacent to the Christian graveyard is not lost on those who live there.
A number of recent incidents in which Sikh and Hindu youths were killed — two Hindus in Umerkot, Sindh, on August 6 and a Sikh boy in Peshawar — seem to have prodded politicians into action. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has raised the matter and the government and the opposition have agreed to form a fact-finding committee to ‘look into’ the incidence of violence and persecution of religious minorities across the country. This is a move much to be welcomed, but it must at the same time be said that committees to look into anything, be it encroachments or adulterated medicines, rarely if ever produce anything that is actionable, and if they do, there is a notable lack of action in terms of follow-up by the responsible agencies and departments.
Support for the move came from Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who commented that it was a matter of national shame that the incidence of attacks on minorities was on the rise, and that this was giving Pakistan “a bad name” in the international community. A degree of cross-party unanimity has emerged, with the PPP’s Nawab Yusuf Talpur deploring the rise of targeted killings, forced marriages and conversions and kidnapping of minorities, principally women, in Sindh.
So far, all there is — is talk. Yet it is talk against a background of increasing civil disobedience by members of minority groups, who have bitten their tongues for decades, and failed, largely, to pursue their grievances, knowing that at best they were going to get a token hearing and at worst simply ignored.
It is extremely rare for members of the Sikh community to protest about anything, but the killing of Jagmohan Singh on August 6 brought hundreds of them on to the streets of Peshawar. They blocked the GT Road with the young Sikh boy’s body, and were contemptuous of an offer of compensation by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, saying they did not need money, they needed security. His equally contemptuous response was that they should arrange security for themselves.
The manner in which successive governments of Pakistan have treated minority communities is a national disgrace and exposes the intolerance at the heart of the establishment. Another committee solves nothing, and is little more than a shabby political fig leaf.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2014.
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Who can point to a Pakistani Muslim who was willing to kill another Pakistani Muslim to save the life of a Pakistani Christian or other Pakistani minority? Isn't that, in addition to the uselessness of the courts, why minorities can be attacked with complete impunity?
Pakistan is committing suicide. The indoctrination goes on unabated, thru mosques, sermons, madrasah's, religious political parties. Not only is it very advisable for minorities to leave, all sane, normal people should leave this country, before Pakistan joins ISIS ranks, joins Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and the likes. No one wishes to invest in Pakistan, soon Pakistan will be a serious contender for a leader amongst pariah states, while next door India will woo investment, we will become more and more jealous of its achievements, as a state. In diversity lies Pakistan's salvation. With the kind of treatment that minorities receive, what do they think of the majority community, is no one's guess, what do they think of this country as a state as a nation, is also no one's guess, the answer is all to obvious. Just consider where India has gone after 14th.August 1947, and then compare Pakistan. Pakistan could not even tolerate Muslim Bengali's. This nation needs leadership with a spine, with courage, who can talk without being cowed down by mullahs, by religiosity, by militants, by religious political parties, until a person with courage stands up, this country will die in the gutters. With no one to mourn. This is where we are heading.
Surprised to observe no coverage of Chinese ban on beard and burqa. Pakistan and its media the savior of Muslim ummah globally.....:)
@ali: Then how come Muslim minorities are increasing but the minorities are wiped out in pakistan,
Given the murderous religion based persecution faced by Religious minorities like Hindu, Sikh and Christians not to mention the murderous religion based persecution faced by minority Muslim sects like the Ahmadiyya and Shia in Pakistan, it is a lesson in bare faced hypocrisy to see Pakistan lose no opportunity to pontificate on alleged cases of discrimination faced by Muslims everywhere in the world except off course in the case of the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang in China.
What makes this religious discrimination in Pakistan even more disturbing is that so much of the discrimination is not because of a break down in the law but rather because of the law. State sponsored legalised discrimination that one sees in Pakistan is particularly egregious. Here I am referring among others to the law that prohibits Non-Muslims from becoming President and Prime Minister, the government approved practise that provides bonus marks for Medical College entrance if one memorises Muslim religious text of Koran etc.
Surely time devoted by Pakistan to rail about alleged discrimination of Muslims in Kosovo, Chechnya, Palestine, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Jammu & Kashmir , Southern Thailand, Mindanao etc. could be better used to end the discrimination faced by religious and sectarian minorities in Pakistan staring with the Government sponsored ones.
"The manner in which successive governments of Pakistan have treated minority communities is a national disgrace and exposes the intolerance at the heart of the establishment. Another committee solves nothing, and is little more than a shabby political fig leaf". Above is the true replica of current scenario. Most sad part no leader ever took the issue seriously. Sheikul Islam also sees the ethics and morality only in election process. Where societal trend is going for human rights he is not bothered. Same is true for PTI so called champion of change. Unless justice prevails on Pakistani soil and each citizen treated equally noting will improve in the motherland. With current scenario continuing tantamount calling country doom day closer and closer.
This is sad and shameful, not only for those who kill or persecute minorities but also those who keep quiet and do not stand up be counted as liberal human beings. Part of the blame lies on media also who give so much space to 'muslim' causes that many think Muslims are having bad times at the hands of non muslims. When I see how many articles are written about gaza and hardly any lines about how Islamists are rounding up Christians and Shias in Iraq and 'cleansing' the country from non Muslims, I feel ashamed. The world is not divided on religion. There are millions of Muslims living in the west and have a right to go to their mosques, wear chadors and lead they lives in majority non Muslim states. I wish other can do that in Pakistan also.
the picture does not look like minorities are under siege, all qadyani and shia opponents are continuously getting killed in target killings, on average sunni muslims are far more victimized than any other minorities in Pakistan, any incident against any minority in Pakistan gets far more highlighted in media and gets much quicker and faster response from authorities. This is in stark contrast to how muslims are being treated when they are minorities, from burma to CAR to usa and europe. for instance, FBI is looking for mentally retarded muslim children and then forcing them to be part of terrorist acts planned by FBI itself in order to keep muslims scared. in addition, media and justice system in USA is also actively participating in this persecution of muslims. Offcourse, Pakistan being a poor country has issues with law and order but everyone in Pakistan is suffering and minorities are no different, however, in the west muslim minority is being targeted. http://rt.com/usa/174484-hrw-fbi-sting-entrapment/
there is no freedom of speech in pakistan and there is religous intolerance. no one has the right to kill any one and every one should have the right to say what they want to say. shame on pakistan for how it treats its minorities. it is a matter of great shame,
killing some one is never justified no matter what. we as a nation should be ashamed for this. we should learn from the west.
enough is enough ...
Pakistan is a country created by elitist with serious superiority complex and achieved their goal by inciting insecurity among the muslim masses. They did not want Pakistan to resemble India where everybody co-existed, they fought for a pure Islamic nation. So both the masses and political leaders were never ever apologetic about their pro Islam agenda. Add Saudi Arabia influence over the last 30-40 years to this already fertile ground of extremism, they keep defining the purest Islam every few years and cause mayhem in the country. Really not sure how a country gets out of this mess. The Elitist today think by strategically aligning with Saudi Arabia and China they can get Pakistan out of their Crises. What Pakistan needs is to go back to it's roots, understand for centuries they are part of the civilization that stood for tolerance. The Indian Sub-continent gave birth to a beautiful form of Islam which is unique and needs to be preserved. They can teach to rest of the Islamic world the real meaning of Tolerance, instead they are working hard everyday to copy the middle eastern mindset.
Editorials will not help minorities, only concerted pressure brought on legislators by citizens to amend the laws and strictly enforce them will.
Today, the white portion of the flag is more like a reminder to the minorities of the shroud that would be used on their dead bodies.
It is a very old tactic that when the government does not want to do anything but appear to be doing something, they refer it to a committee. Mian Mithoo was MNA from PPP and Mula Bux Chandio who headed the fake commission after Rinkle's forced conversion was a very senior member of PPP. Chandio Commission did not have any hearings, never tried to find anything and did not submit even one report and just folded up. IN Pakistan, no Commission has ever submitted any report that was made public, be it Hamoodur Rahman Commission or the several other fact finding Commissions from Bhutto's hanging to Zia's assassination/accident or presence of OBL in Pakistan. So as this editorial correctly concludes: Another committee solves nothing, and is little more than a shabby political fig leaf.
If any muslim in Pakistan is sincere and truthful he/she would demand to find out the current marital status and whereabouts of at least a few dozens out of the thousands of hindu and christian girls who were forcefully converted over the last several decades. Are Rinkle, Latha and Asha still married to the same muslim who converted them and are they still with the same muslim family where they were taken to? I don't think that these girls are still married to the same muslim who converted her and nor are they in the same muslim home they were taken to. The muslim families who converted them have pushed them elsewhere and their entire neighborhood knows this. All details are readily available in Pakistan government's NADRA records itself. But, none including, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Imran Khan, Shireen Mazari, Shabaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif, Marvi Memon, and perhaps even Altaf Hussein and the Chief Justice of Pakistan will ever demand this.
As usual, I do not expect even one muslim, not just a muslim from Pakistan, but a muslim (sunni, shia or of any sect.) residing anywhere in the world (India, UK, USA, Canada, Europe etc.) to ask for these inconvenient truth. Just follow this comments section and I shall be proved correct.
Pakistan was fought for muslims, by muslims . But unfortunately they lie at the bottom of the pile among even muslim nations, forget about the rest of the world. What a pity. Minority protection is just one issue in which Pakistan is below the bottom. Other issues like Polio, state sponsored terrorism, "democratic" rule, poking into neighbours affairs, corruption, distorted education and syllabi, pervasion of religion into every walk of life, blasphemy are among many issues which Pak has to sort out if they want to just survive as a nation. "Nuclear bum" is not going to get them anywhere,
Pakistan has hardly any minorities left, every decade a new minority is created. Wasn't Pakistan created for political Islam?
"..Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who commented that it was a matter of national shame that the incidence of attacks on minorities was on the rise, and that this was giving Pakistan “a bad name” in the international community...." So the well being of the minorities is not the real issue - the 'bad name' is!
"His equally contemptuous response was that they should arrange security for themselves." Brilliant - essentially the Chief Minister has absolved himself and the state of providing its minority citizens security.