Pakistani Minorities form Working Group for Human Rights Issues

By Dr. Radhe Shyam Kumar (PHP Managing Editor)
Sunday, June 20, 2010

(Photo : Pakistani Hindu during festival time in Sindh and according to Pakistan Hindu Council, there are about Five million Hindus in Pakistan. Nearly 4.5 million of them live in Sindh province. Most are from the low caste Dalit community. )

KARACHI : The representatives of Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Bahai, Ahmedi and Zoroastrian communities of Sindh formed on Saturday a working group on ‘Right of Communities Vulnerable Because of Their Belief’ during a meeting at a local hotel. The Human Right Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) would support the group.

The group will highlight human rights violations through fact finding reports, researches, issuing public statements and arranging press briefings and also to analyse the laws, practices and policies, which are discriminatory and would provide recommendations. The meeting also decided that the group will conduct capacity building programmes of the members of vulnerable communities and a mechanism of early warning signs to determine the tension involving minorities and would recommend appropriate actions.

During the meeting, the participants discussed the agenda of the newly formed group including the status of commission of minorities, countering advocacy of hatred based religious beliefs, discrimination being faced by the communities in services, education, family and property laws, constant threats and fear, blasphemy laws and property related issues. During the meeting the participants decided that the newly formed group would meet once in six months.

Addressing the meeting HRCP Director I A Rehman said that the group would address all the issues being faced by the communities and deal with the rights of these communities.

“Since the last several years, the living conditions of minorities has worsened and the communities have become extremely vulnerable as extremists and militants are inciting hatred,” he said, Amar Guriro