A film festival on “Plight of Christian Minorities in Pakistan” is scheduled to be showcased in Geneva, Switzerland on March 12, during the 37th session of United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), due to be held in the city.
According to a tweet by the European Organisation for Pakistani Minorities, “Plight of Pakistani Christian Minorities posters displayed in Geneva during the Human Rights Council in the Geneva City Centre urging the international community to help our brothers and sisters in Pakistan.”
Plight of Pakistani Christian Minorities posters displayed in Geneva during the Human Rights Council in the Geneva City Centre
Urging the International Community to Help our brothers and sisters in Pakistan#ChristiansBleedinginPak#HumanRightsCouncil@VaticanCulturapic.twitter.com/KdkHtToSUI
— EOPM (@EOPMinorities) February 28, 2018
A video is also available on the internet showing the campaign that has kicked-off with buses carrying adverts of the film festival with the slogan, “Journey through the lens, Plight of Christian Minorities in Pakistan.” Apart from the bus advertisements, billboards with this slogan have appeared all over the city as well.
In 2017, similar ad campaigns appeared on taxi cabs in London and New York with slogans stating, “Free Balochistan” or “Free Karachi”. Pakistan had strongly condemned and protested against the said campaigns.
Earlier in September 2017, “Free Balochistan” posters appeared on local transport services in Geneva in a similar ad campaign at the 36th session of the UNHRC, after which Pakistan had lodged a protest with the Swiss government for letting a banned-outfit, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), operate from its soil to ‘spread the propaganda.’
In a letter to the Swiss authorities, Pakistani envoy to Switzerland Farukh Amil termed the incident as a belligerent attack on the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan” by giving calls for ‘free Balochistan’.
Ambassador-designate of Switzerland, Thomas Kelly, was also summoned to the Foreign Office (FO) by Additional Secretary (Europe) Zaheer A. Janjua to lodge a protest against the display of “anti-Pakistan posters and an insidious paid campaign against Pakistan”, an FO handout read.
On Sept 21, the Senate agreed to suspend till further notice the workings of a Pak-Switzerland Friendship Group in reaction to the appearance of “Free Balochistan” posters in Geneva.