Pakistan Today

US think tank wants Pakistan to be added to genocide watch list

Amidst increasing report of persecution of religious minorities and the violation of their human rights, an eminent American think tank has demanded that Pakistan be put on the genocide watch list. “In recent years, anyone who is not a Muslim in Pakistani society – or groups of Muslims who are not considered to be Muslim socially and religiously or under Pakistan’s law – have been facing a sustained campaign of hate and religious persecution by Islamic groups and individuals, including government officials, legislators, judges, lawyers, police officers and clerics, who interpret the law on their own terms and enforce it with the objective of making Pakistan a purer-than-ever Islamic nation,” says a report of Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute. The persecution manifests in the imprisonment of Christians and Ahmadis on charges of blasphemy; abduction of Hindu and Christian girls and their forced conversion to Islam; demolition and desecration of houses of worship; denial of food relief to non-Muslim flood victims by both government officials and wealthy philanthropists; denigration of and attacks on Shia Muslims and the deliberate and systematic killing of members of all these communities, MERI said in its report released on Tuesday. The report says that discrimination against Christians and Hindus is anchored in the Pakistani constitution, which bars them from holding any senior government posts. In addition, a law from 1974 declares the Ahmadis non-Muslim, and, in conjunction with some later laws, forbids them to use Muslim names and symbols, even though they identify themselves as Muslims and follow the teachings of Quran. The pressure on the religious minorities has led many to convert to Islam in order to survive, the paper says. Though not all Pakistanis are involved in the hate campaign and discrimination against religious minorities, and many would probably oppose persecution, the social climate is such that it is difficult for a large majority to speak out, observes the paper.

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