The Jinnah Institute’s Open Democracy initiative has published a research-based analysis titled “A Question of Faith: A Report on the Status of Religious Minorities in Pakistan”, a report that documents the deterioration in the political, economic and social status of members of these communities in the context of the rising tide of vigilante violence and religious extremism in the country.
Two critical questions are addressed by the findings of this report. First, will Pakistani continue to discriminate against its citizens and turn a blind eye to the spread of cultures of cruelty and vigilantism? Second, will the majority of Pakistanis continue to condone and collude in the discrimination and persecution of minorities? The case studies set out in the report have been carefully selected from 125 interviews with members of some of Pakistan’s religious minorities by the research team.
They serve to provide examples of mob violence against members of religious minorities, attacks on places of worship, problems faced by minorities in employment, problems faced by minorities in education, abductions and forced conversions of minority women.
