Pakistan intensifies persecution of religious minorities during pandemic

NEW DELHI: In a complete onslaught on marginalized communities, simultaneous assaults have been launched on minorities of Pakistan. In the latest case, a 17-year-old Sikh woman was kidnapped from her house and was forcibly transformed. 

The woman was kidnapped from her house in Hassanabdal metropolis of Attock district on August 31. However, it took greater than two weeks for the information to floor within the media because the Pakistani press was hardly bothered to cowl the unlucky incident.

As quickly as this information surfaced within the media, Pakistani envoy to India was summoned by the Indian authorities over the difficulty, adopted by a protest by the Sikh teams in entrance of the Pakistani embassy in New Delhi.

Sikhs who inhabited the landmass often known as Pakistan in tens of millions throughout the partition now quantity beneath 10,000. The silence of pro-Khalistani forces within the West raises critical questions on their intentions and reinstates the very fact of Pakistani-Khalistani nexus highlighted by veteran Canadian journalist Terry Milewski in his newest report ‘Khalistan: A mission of Pakistan’.

Amidst all this, it’s Sikhs who face continued genocide in Pakistan.

The Christian neighborhood has additionally come underneath quite a few assaults and abductions by radical Islamists prior to now few weeks. According to media reviews, an underage Christian woman Sanesha Kinza Iqbal on her approach to the native church in Faisalabad was kidnapped by 30-year-old Saeed Amanat on July 22. It took nearly a month for the woman’s household to get a police criticism filed. 

The woman was transformed to Islam and forcibly married to her abductor, who proceed to roam free and risk the minor’s household to undergo dire penalties in case they demand their daughter’s return.

The abductions and compelled conversions of minor Christian women additionally has an institutional sanction which is mirrored in a current choice of the Lahore High Court by which it requested a 14-year-old minor Christian woman to return to her abductors. 

On 4 August, the Lahore High Court ordered Maria Shahbaz to return to her abductor Mohammad Nakash, who kidnapped  her at gunpoint. The courtroom additionally requested her to get married to the abductor. However, it was later reported that the woman managed to flee from her abductor’s home and fled to Faisalabad alongside together with her mom and siblings.

According to International Christian Concern — an organisation taking care of human rights problems with the Christian neighborhood, reported that policemen attacked a Christian youth Younis Masih and his sons on 21, June on false costs and looted the home. Masih’s sons had been additionally forcibly detained by the police and brought away. Younis Masih went by way of a coronary heart assault after a few hours and left the world quickly after.

In one of many more moderen acts of radical Islamists to assault Christian areas and desecrate them, an armed group led by a few radical Islamists grabbed a 70-year-old Christian graveyard in Kasur district of Punjab province on August 17. 

Armed males additionally desecrated a number of graveyards and Christian holy crosses and spiritual verses inscribed on the partitions. 

Musclemen from the Muslim neighborhood have now occupied the land and tied their cattle to it. Law enforcement businesses have seemingly refused to behave on the difficulty and it’s believed the land has been completely misplaced by the Christian neighborhood.

Christian employees with weak financial standing are going through the most important warmth from radical Islamists of Pakistan. Last month, an 18-year-old Christian home maid was tortured and exploited by her Muslim employer in Lahore for refusing to forcibly convert to Islam. 

She claimed that she usually bought overwhelmed up and abused for touching utensils of the household as part of her routine work as she got here from a distinct religion. In the identical month, a sanitation employee belonging from the Christian neighborhood was attacked by a Muslim mob in Gujranwala district of Punjab for pushing his rubbish trolley by way of a Muslim space whereas they had been celebrating Eid-al-Azha competition.

In an identical incident, a Christian autorickshaw driver was overwhelmed up by a Muslim mob after he was barred from choosing up Muslim passengers due to his faith. The auto driver – Nasir Parvaiz advised Pakistani media that he was not allowed to take passengers within the entrance of a clinic in Phoolnagar of Punjab province. He claimed that usually rickshaw wallahs teased him due to his title and he was chased away from choosing up passengers due to his spiritual id. He additionally argues that individuals have been calling him names and terming him as an ‘untouchable’.

Similarly, radical Islamists are additionally exploiting financial misery to transform Christians to Islam. In August 2020, a Christian aged couple from Khanewal district of Punjab was pressured to transform as a way to clear off money owed. The couple, Sultan Masih and Sofia Bibi, borrowed a mortgage from a Muslim service provider to run their enterprise. However, resulting from financial misery and ongoing pandemic, they had been going through difficulties clearing off their debt. The service provider requested the couple to both convert to Islam or face penalties. Consequently, the couple needed to convert to Islam throughout a ceremony organised by the service provider.

Collectively, there have been over two dozen incidents of assaults, abductions and compelled conversions of the Christian minorities by radical Islamists in Pakistan prior to now two and a half months. This highlights the depth of the persecution being confronted by the Christian neighborhood in Pakistan.

Besides assaults on Sikh and Christian communities, a senior citizen from the persecuted Ahmadiyya neighborhood was shot at by two assailants in Peshawar on August 14 – Independence Day of Pakistan. A spokesperson of the neighborhood termed it a focused assault and a hate crime towards the neighborhood member. He additionally argued that the households of deceased senior residents had been additionally receiving loss of life threats from radical Islamists on spiritual grounds.

Recently, on International day of Enforced Disappearances (30″August), the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) requested the Pakistan authorities to criminalize the offense of enforced disappearances by way of a full-fledged legislation. Currently, a number of activists and civilians have been lacking for numerous time — so long as over a decade. The areas and whereabouts of activists like Dr. Deen are nonetheless unknown even after over a decade of their disappearance.

Similarly, Pakistan can also be coming underneath immense stress from worldwide human rights defenders for the enforced disappearance of a distinguished human rights activist from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa late final 12 months. Pakistani media had uncovered that he was detained by the federal government and was charged underneath the Official Secrets Act and was being tortured. His present location and standing are but unknown.

According to Pakistan’s personal claims, at the moment, 2,113 circumstances of enforced disappearances are but to see progress. However, many human rights defenders imagine that the precise quantity could possibly be fourfold of what Pakistan has been formally claiming.

Recently on August 17, relations and acquaintances of involuntarily disappeared Shias underneath the banner of ‘Joint Action Committee for Shia Missing Persons’ launched a vigorous protest in entrance of the Governor’s home in Karachi. They demanded the rapid launch of 149 Shia neighborhood members who had been arbitrarily detained. The protesters had been decided and refused to again off. The protest ended solely after Federal Minister Ali Haider Zaidi met the protestors and went right into a dialogue with them.

It is prerogative for the worldwide human rights defenders to take cognizes of the continual genocide towards spiritual minorities in Pakistan. It can also be necessary for researchers to doc the incidents and tabulate as a way to spotlight the magnitude and depth of assaults on minorities. Many imagine that moreover United Nations Agencies, the Special Procedure Mandate Holders of the UN have to be apprised about these incidents and requested to take cognizance, thereby pressurizing the Pakistani authorities to test the continuing massacres. Hence the necessity for the hour for the civil society to succeed in out to Special Procedure Mandate Holders recurrently, in massive numbers, urging them to take motion on the continuing genocide.