US report assails Pakistan over state of ‘religious freedom’

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The report on Pakistan said that the country continued to experience chronic sectarian violence targeting Shias, Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus.

Ahmadi publisher Tahir Mehdi Imtiaz Warraich,was sent to jail last month for
publishing Quranic verses in Ahmadiyya publications

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Daily Dawn Pakistan
By Anwar Iqbal | May 2, 2015

WASHINGTON: Violent attacks on religious minorities in India have increased after the Modi government came to power, according to a US congressional report released on Friday.

The latest US Commission on International Religious Freedom report also noted that “Pakistan represents one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom”.

The United States, however, has not designated Pakistan as a “country of particular concern”, a designation that can bring economic sanctions.

The commission has again recommended that Pakistan be designated a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The commission has been making this recommendation every year since 2002.
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SECTERIAN VIOLENCE: The report on Pakistan said that the country continued to experience chronic sectarian violence targeting Shias, Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus.

“Despite positive rulings by the Supreme Court, the government failed to provide adequate protection to targeted groups or to prosecute perpetrators and those calling for violence.”

The report pointed out that Pakistan’s “repressive blasphemy laws and anti-Ahmadi laws “continue to violate religious freedoms and to foster a climate of impunity.”

The blasphemy laws “target members of religious minority communities and dissenting Muslims”, the report added.

The chapter on Shias noted that during 2014, militants and terrorist organisations continued to target processions and mosques, as well as social gathering places, with impunity.

Police, if present, have failed to stop attackers before people are killed, and the government has not cracked down on the groups that repeatedly target Shias. The government has not successfully prosecuted the leader of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi who is regularly released due to a purported lack of evidence, the report alleged.

The report also made a mention of forced conversion of Christian and Hindu girls and young women into Islam and forced marriage remains a systemic problem.



Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2015


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