Religious Persecution in Pakistan
In his first speech before the members of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah said that non-Muslims would be equal citizens in the new country and that every person living in the country would be an equal citizen, irrespective of his or her community, caste, colour, or faith. History is witness to the fact that what Jinnah said was not even remotely accurate as to what would happen.
Minority communities firstly face discrimination under the Constitution. The Constitution of Pakistan, in article 25 (1), guarantees that “all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law.” Article 5 provides that “adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures,” and article 33 declares that it is the state’s responsibility to discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian, and provincial prejudices among citizens. However, these provisions have never been fully implemented in practice, and are contradicted by other provisions of the Constitution.
Please note that religious persecution is not the same as religious denomination persecution (i.e. persecution based on sects). So though Ahmadis have been excluded from this article, I am presently writing about it, and I will post about it once I am done.
Laws and the Constitution
Minority communities firstly face discrimination under the Constitution. The Constitution of Pakistan, in article 25 (1), guarantees that “all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law.” Article 5 provides that “adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures,” and article 33 declares that it is the state’s responsibility to discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian, and provincial prejudices among citizens. However, these provisions have never been fully implemented in practice, and are contradicted by other provisions of the Constitution.
Firstly, article 2 declares that “Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan,” and article 31 states that it is the government’s duty to foster the Islamic way of life. Article 41(2) provides that “a person shall not be qualified for election as President unless he is a Muslim,” and article 227 (1) states that “all existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah, in this Part referred to as the Injunctions of Islam, and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such Injunctions.” Even Article 20 of the Constitution, which enshrines every citizen’s “right to profess, practice and propagate his religion” and that “every religious denomination and every sect thereof shall have the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions”, is “subject to law, public order and morality,” and is thus contradicted in law and practice when it comes to the rights of religious minorities in Pakistan.
Please note that the above two paragraphs have been heavily lifted from https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/57fb91e54.pdf because I don’t think I could possibly write it any better.
In 1980, religiously-mandated punishments were assigned to various violations under Sharia law, including drinking alcoholic beverages, theft and bearing false witness. The punishments included hanging, amputations and other corporal punishments.
Pakistan also has Sharia Courts, which act as a “super-legislature” as compared to the Superior Courts. It has the power to order immediate revision of national laws and its rulings are binding on high and lower courts. The legal system is hence, by definition, discriminatory to those who do not follow the State’s interpretation of Islamic Law.
Pakistan also has blasphemy laws consisting of a group of laws – the centrepiece of which is section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which provide penalties for blasphemy and other “offences against religion,” ranging from a fine to the death sentence.
Although section 295-A of the PPC criminalizes the “deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of the citizens of Pakistan,” the other offenses relating to religion outlined in the PPC specifically protect Islam and Muslims:
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Section 295-B states that “whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur’an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life”.
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Section 295-C provides that “whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”
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In 1990, the Federal Shari’a Court (FSC) ruled that “the penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet (…) is death and nothing else,” and on 1 May 1991, the death penalty became mandatory for persons convicted under section 295-C.
The vague nature of these laws has made it easy for the Pakistani government to practice religious discrimination. The report by RefWorld goes on to mention that “the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, during her mission to Pakistan in 2013, received reports that in cases involving the blasphemy laws, judges have been coerced or pressured to decide against the accused, even without supporting evidence, and that lawyers, in addition to their reluctance to take up such cases because they are afraid for their security, are targeted and forced not to represent their clients properly.”
One prominent example of this was the case of Aasia Bibi, who was sentenced to death by hanging under the Blasphemy act. She had allegedly made rude comments about the Quran and the Prophet, which led to her arrest. When the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, expressed his support for Aasia and criticised the way in which the Blasphemy law was practiced, he was shot dead by his own bodyguard (Gregory, 2012).
In November 2005, 3000 extremists attacked Christians in Sangla Hill in Pakistan and destroyed Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and United Presbyterian Churches. The attack was sparked due to blasphemy charges against a Pakistani Christian.
Many Hindus are also kidnapped for ransom and are often charged under the Blasphemy Laws, though there is no credence to it.
Land Grabbing and Impunity
When Pakistan was formed, thousands of non-Muslims fled to India for refuge, leaving behind thousands of homes and places of worship. A committee, the Evacuee Trust Property Board, was formed to maintain these places of worship and land with religious symbolism. The Board did not have the right to sell these buildings or land, however, most of the buildings and land has been occupied and sold. In Hyderabad (Pakistan) alone, of 350 temples and gurudwaras, only five to ten are privately managed while the rest have been occupied and sold. Only one temple is still managed by the Board.
The government also reportedly leased much of the land belonging to individuals who had fled Pakistan by unlawful means.
In Sindh, most of the burial places that belonged to Shudras and Dalits were taken over by Muslims, and Hindus belonging to these communities were not allowed to bury their dead there.
In 2009, anti-Christian violence erupted in Gojra in the province of Punjab. Horses were burned and 8 Christians, including a child, were killed. No one was held guilty.
The Media
The media often reports on conversions of non-Muslims to Islam in a positive light but remains silent when it comes to forced mass conversions.
Hindus are also often portrayed in a negative light, with Hindus being depicted as agents of India, and Hindu characters being depicted as “opportunists”, “usurers” and “unpatriotic” to Pakistan. Christians are depicted as agents of the West.
Schooling
Universities in Pakistan have small quotas for non-Muslim students – thereby limiting the number of non-Muslims students who can gain admission, even if they outperform Muslim students.
During admission exams, 15 to 20 marks are also given to students who have memorised the Quran.
A 2005 report by the National Commission for Justice and Peace in Pakistan found that Pakistan Studies textbooks in Pakistan have been used to articulate the hatred that Pakistani policy-makers have attempted to inculcate towards the Hindus.
“The public school system and religious schools have also been found to promote fundamentalism, militancy and sectarianism. In 2012, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child documented how these institutions were responsible for the recruitment of children into religious armed groups and their participation in hostilities. UNESCO further reported an increase in the recruitment of children from such religious schools for training as suicide bombers.
Abductions, Forced Conversions, Forced Marriages
Muslim law requires the consent of a guardian of the bridge for a marriage to be recognised however, the same principle does not apply when a Hindu girl is being converted and married to a Muslim man. “So many Muslim men seek out young Hindu girls to forcibly convert and marry, as they legally need not bother with getting the girl’s guardian’s consent or permission”.
Sindhi Hindu girls and Christian girls are suffering heavily in that they are being abducted, forcefully converted and then forcefully married. The police are also not taking action against those who have been accused. You can read about the plight of the Sindhi Hindus in my post.
Court rulings have also supported such discrimination, notably legally recognising coerced conversions of young girls and by legally dissolving a minority woman’s first marriage to a minority man so that she can be forcibly wed to a Muslim man.
For example, there was a case reported of a 14 year-old Pakistani Christian girl earlier this year, who had been abducted and forcefully converted and then married off. Lower courts had ruled that her marriage was legal as per Sharia Law.
How The Police Assists
There is also a great deal of police failure, with police officers often refusing to register FIRs. In cases that they do, the courts send the teenage girls to Islamic school centres or back to the kidnapper’s home. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that courts rule this way for girls as young as 12.
Some religious institutions also outrightly support forced conversions and are known to have the support and protection of ruling political parties of Sindh. So much so, Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mitha, a former legislator of Pakistan People’s Party was found involved in the case of Rinkle Kumari’s forced conversion and marriage in 2012.
The Price of Being Sikh and Hindu
Sikhs and Hindus are forced to pay “jazia”, a fee in exchange for being able to practice one’s faith, have communal autonomy and to be entitled to Muslim protection. Sikhs have reportedly been killed in public places for not paying this fee.
Many groups demand this fee, and Sikhs have said that if they travel to different districts, different rates are charged. The amount of the tax is typically 11,000 INR per person. When community representatives raise the issue with ministers, ministers say that they too pay a fee for protection from the Taliban.
Media reports in June 2009 also suggested that terrorists had demanded 6 million Pakistani Rupees as jazia from the Hindu community of Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Sexual Abuse
A report in 2010 revealed that every month, 20 to 25 Hindu girls are abducted and forcibly converted to Islam. Another report put it at 1000 girls per year for Hindus and Christians combined while some say 1000 Hindu girls alone are abducted every year. A highly conservative estimate would hence put the number of forced conversions of young non-Muslim girls at 50,000 since the formation of Pakistan.
In 2004, two minor girls, aged two and a half and seven, were raped in Lahore.
In 2009, a young Christian man was gang-raped by 30 men for refusing to convert to Islam.
Displacement
Dalits, which comprise 85% of Pakistan’s Hindu population, are often evicted, relocated, and forced to work without compensation. False criminal cases are also often filed against those of them who seek justice. Dalit women are often molested and the police ignores their complaints.
They are evicted from the land they occupy, relocated at distant places, and forced to work without due compensation. Bogus criminal cases are filed against the political activists among them. Their women are often molested, and the police ignore their complaints.
In July 2010, about 60 Hindus were forced to abandon their homes and take refuge in a cattle pen, at Memon Goth in Karachi after influential tribesmen of the area objected to a Hindu boy drinking water from a cooler near a mosque.
The Sindhi Hindu community has also had to migrate to India due to the religious persecution that they face – including kidnappings. Not only are Sindhi Hindu girls abducted, forcefully converted and then forcefully married, but abductions of men have also become commonplace. The abductors are given the free hand and the police and other law enforcement agencies notably patronise the abductors. Estimates have said that at least 1000 Hindu families are leaving Pakistan every year. Even people in positions of power are not spared; a Hindu member of the Sindh Assembly was forced into leaving and seeking asylum in India after receiving threats from extremists groups.
Some have alleged that forcing the Sindhi Hindu community to flee is part of an intentional demographic change. “The migration of Sindhi Hindus, and inflow of other ethnic groups in Singh will create demographic changes, converting ethnic Sindhis into a permanent minority in their own historical land” (Shah, 2012). The prominent columnist Veengas also supported this claim, saying that the mass migration is part of a conspiracy to convert Sindhis into a minority in their own land.
Pakistan’s Persecution in Numbers
There are far too many cases of religious persecution. So I have totalled the ones mentioned in this book. Between 2003 and 2015, at least 170 Pakistani Christians were killed, hundreds forced to flee their homes, hundreds were injured and hundreds jailed under the Blasphemy Laws. These are just the reported cases, making it a gross underestimate.
5000 Hindus flee Pakistan each year due to religious persecution. Between January 2013 and June 2014, 3753 Pakistanis from minority groups, especially Hindus, surrendered their passports and obtained long-term visas for India (Mansoor, 2014).
A survey by the All Pakistan Hindu Rights Movement revealed that of the 428 Hindu temples. 95% are being used for other purposes.
Bibliography
https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/57fb91e54.pdf
https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/506d3d412.pdf
https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/co/CRC-C-PAK-CO4.pdf
https://appgfreedomofreligionorbelief.org/media/Pakistan-Hindu-brief.pdf
http://hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/wp-content/pdf/ff/22.pdf
http://www.realcourage.org/2010/03/pakistan-25-hindu-girls-abducted-every-month/
https://dailytimes.com.pk/116289/forced-conversions-of-pakistani-hindu-girls/
https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/236847/9/09_chapter%202.pdf
Hadi, Abdul. (2015). Injustice and Persecution: Forced Migration of Sindhi Hindus in Pakistan. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. 6. 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s5p11.
Yousaf, Farooq. (2016). SADF Focus: The plight of Religious Minorities in Pakistan. 10.13140/RG.2.2.17953.92000.