The South Asia Partnership-Pakistan has launched eight different publications, which highlight how religious minorities living in Pakistan are persecuted in different forms. These publications also suggest those steps the taking of which can help protect and promote the constitutional rights of these minorities.
The launching ceremony was held here at a local hotel on Friday. People belonging to different walks of life including: the media, human rights organisations, students, lawyers, community members and government bodies attended this event. These analyses reports include: Performance of the National Assembly and provincial Assemblies of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and studies on forced conversion of religion, none-availability of ethics books and teachers, religious freedom of minorities and over hate speech.
SAP-Pakistan's National Consultant and editor of these studies briefing the participants about these publications said that analyses reports on the business of legislative assemblies basically cover that how these legislative houses focused on the business relating to religious minorities during their last parliamentary year. She unfolded that according to the studies it was unfortunate that during the whole parliamentary year no specific legislation relating to the issues of minorities was made in these assemblies.
Highlighting about these studies cum analyses reports she said that reports on assemblies reflect that what business the assemblies adopted to protect and promote the rights of religious minorities, what was the contribution of assembly members regarding the issues of minorities and what is more needed to be done.
Speaking over the study on ethics books, hate speech and forced conversion, she added that they speak about how the none availability of alternative subjects to Islamiyat or the none availability of ethics books and teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was creating problems for students belonging to religious minorities, how hate speech and hate material was overall effecting our society and was helping to further seclude religious minorities from mainstream life and how the cases of forced conversion in Sindh were affecting citizens of Pakistan belonging to religious minorities. She also presented how all that was damaging the repute of Pakistan in the international community and how dangerous was it for the whole society.
These publications also highlight that how important was it to honour the international commitments and implement what guarantees the Constitution of Pakistan provides for the protection of marginalized sections of the society especially people belonging to religious minorities. These publications also ascertain those circumstances and factors that are contributing towards the seclusion and marginalisation of such communities, she adding said that through these publications some valuable suggestions have also been given which in case are taken can help promote the concept of equality, protection of life and participation of such people in real political, social and economic life of the country.
Kari Jalil, the author of study on religious freedom of minorities, earlier also spoke on how the study in question ascertains that the right of religious freedom of minorities is infringed. She also discussed about how this study was conducted while keeping in view the National Action Plan of the government to counter terrorism. SAP-Pakistan's National Manager Naeema Malik also shared the objectives of conducting those studies. Before the commencement of the programme, Punjab Member for National Commission of Human Rights and renowned journalist Rifat Alam cut the ribbon for launching the publications.
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