Pakistan: The land of religious apartheid and jackboot justice. Excerpts from a report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights

The Pakistan government, in its policies, programmes and laws, only recognises the religious minorities but not the ethnic, linguistic or racial minorities living in the country.

Provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), in particular, Section 295A, Section 295B, Section 295C, Section 298A and Section 298B, provide harsh punishment for alleged blasphemy. These blasphemy laws undermine some of the major provisions of the Constitution of Pakistan, such as the fundamental right to “profess, practise and propagate his religion” (Article 20), equality before the law and equal protection of law to all citizens (Article 25) and safeguarding the “legitimate rights and interests of minorities” (Article 36). The Apostasy Bill 2006 introduced by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal in the national assembly in May 2007 seeks, among other things, to provide the death sentence to any Muslim converting to other religions and imposes life imprisonment on women apostates.  

Hindus and Hinduism have been allegedly maligned and hatred against them is propagated in textbooks approved by the national curriculum wing of the federal ministry of education. Among other things, Hindus have been stated as the “enemy of Islam” in the textbooks of Class V.  

Since Ahmadis have been declared heretic, practising their faith in public can be described as blasphemous and therefore the dagger of blasphemy laws perennially hangs over their heads. Blasphemy laws have been widely abused and misused to target minorities and sometimes to settle personal vendettas even among Muslims. Between January 1 and June 1, 2007 at least 25 persons, of whom 16 were Christians, including nine women, were victimised under the blasphemy laws. In 2006, 90 cases of blasphemy were reported. Of these, only 48 were registered with the police, in which 27 accused were Muslims, 10 Christians and 11 Ahmadis. Considering that Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis constitute only slightly more than four per cent of the total population of Pakistan, they have been disproportionate victims of the blasphemy laws. On May 30, 2007 Younis Masih, a Christian, was sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy by the sessions court in Lahore. He was charged on September 10, 2005 under Section 295C of the PPC.  

Even children were not spared. On January 26, 2007 police reportedly registered cases against five Ahmadi children, identified as 11-year-old Nusrat Jahan, daughter of Hakim Muhammad Sadiq of Ahmadabad Janoobi; 8-year-old Umair Ahmad, son of Ghulam Ahmad of Ahmadabad Janoobi; Ashfaq Ahmad, son of Muhammad Mumtaz of Khai Kalan; Rafi Ahmad, son of Muhammad Yousaf of Omerabad Majoka; and Abdul Sattar, son of Ahmad Hasan of Thathi Omerabad, under Section 17 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance at Chora Kalan police station in Khushab district for subscribing to the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya’s monthly children’s magazine, Tasheezul Azhan.  

Those who faced blasphemy charges continued to live in fear even after acquittal by the courts. A Christian identified as Shahid Masih of Faisalabad had to go into hiding although he was released on bail on January 17, 2007 in a blasphemy case. Judge Muhammad Tanveer Akbar granted Shahid Masih bail on the ground that evidence against him was only “circumstantial”. Yet he faced threats from the fundamentalists and had to go into hiding.  

The Ahmadis in particular have been denied freedom of expression and assembly. Since 1983 the Ahmadis have been denied permission to hold their annual religious conference. On December 15, 1989 the authorities booked the entire Ahmadi population of Rabwah (the headquarters of Ahmadis in Pakistan) in FIR No. 367/89 under Section 298C of the PPC. The FIR remains active to date. Ahmadis are prohibited from holding any public conference or gathering.  

Minorities have been systematically denied economic, social and cultural rights. Their lands and properties, including places of worship, have been forcibly grabbed. Since July 2006, Hindus have been forcibly evicted from the Panwal Das Compound area in Lyari in Karachi and Muslim butchers turned the Shiv Mandir (temple) of the Hindus into a slaughterhouse in connivance with the police. In another incident, following a notification from the Evacuee Trust Property Board of March 9, 2006, the Krishna temple in Lahore was demolished to pave the way for construction of a commercial complex. On June 18, 2006 the Lahore high court stayed the construction of the commercial complex following a writ petition challenging the demolition of the temple.  

Christians’ lands were illegally transferred to Muslims in Chawk Munda in Muzaffargarh district. On November 1, 2006 four Christian farmers namely, Khurshid Mangta, Hadayat Masih, Gulzar and Nazir Pirandita, were forcibly evicted from their lands and their crops were destroyed. Each person lost 10 acres of cultivable land which was their only source of livelihood. The land was reportedly transferred through the revenue department by Haider Shah.  

The Ahmadis too have not been allowed to maintain their own graveyards. On April 22, 2007 the Lahore police bulldozed the boundary wall of a six-acre piece of land legally procured by the Ahmadi community to extend their graveyard. Hardliners opposed the extension.

 Denial of equal treatment before the organs administering justice

Minorities have been denied the right to equal treatment and protection by law enforcement personnel. Often the police refused to register cases filed by non-Muslims. In the case of the abduction and gang rape of a minor Christian girl identified as Cheena Bibi (12) on April 8, 2007 in Punjab, the police did not act despite details of one of the accused being provided to the police by the victim’s brother, Munir Masih. In cases where the police have arrested the Muslim accused, they are often let off without investigation.  

Minorities are not provided security by the state against bodily harm and violation of the right to life. In March 2007 the Pakistan Hindu Council appealed to President Musharraf to direct the authorities to provide protection and take measures to recover kidnapped Hindus from Sakrand, Kashmore and Jacobabad. The Hindus reportedly have to pay “protection money” to local Muslim gangs or influential persons in order to avoid getting kidnapped for ransom. On February 6, 2007 kidnapped Hindu engineer, Garish Kumar, was found dead in the premises of a madrassa in the industrial area of Kotri in Sindh. The deceased’s father, Saspal Das alleged that Garish was killed for being a Hindu.

It is a crime for Hindus to have land and beautiful daughters. Kidnapping, rape and forcible marriage of Hindu girls is common practice in Pakistan. In case of arrest, the accused produce a certificate issued by any Muslim seminary stating that the kidnapped girls have voluntarily adopted Islam and the accused have married the girls. The courts generally do not consider the fact that most of the girls are minors and simply accept the certificate of conversion without any investigation. On December 31, 2006 a Hindu girl named Deepa (17) was abducted by her tuition teacher, Ashraf Khaskheli, a Muslim, in Madhwani Mohala in Tharparkar district, who forcibly married her and converted her to Islam. A certificate of marriage and conversion to Islam was reportedly issued by Ayube Jan Sarhandi, the head of a seminary, and the police allegedly refused to register the complaint filed by the girl’s parents.  

Many Christian families reportedly fled from their homes following a threatening letter received from Islamic militants at Charsadda in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on May 8, 2007, asking them to convert to Islam within 10 days or face dire consequences. In June 2007 Christians of Shantinagar village in Khanewal district in Punjab received similar threats that they should embrace Islam. The police often failed to provide adequate protection. 

Religious minorities have been systematically excluded from the voters’ list. On June 12, 2007 the Election Commission of Pakistan released a new voters’ list for the upcoming general elections. Instead of a joint voters’ list, the Ahmadis were placed on a separate voters’ list. The secretary of the Election Commission, Kunwar Dilshad Ahmed, reportedly justified the separate list for Ahmadis on the ground that a separate list for the community could help its members in checking names and information about their members.  

In July 2007 the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance claimed that 20 per cent of non-Muslim voters had been excluded from the new voters’ list. About 18 per cent of eligible voters belonging to minorities were struck off the new voters’ list in the NWFP. On July 26, 2007 the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to ensure registration of all eligible voters in the new electoral rolls.  

There have been reports of indiscriminate use of firearms and bombs by the Pakistan army and Pakistan air force against civilians while confronting Baloch armed opposition groups. On the morning of March 30, 2007 thousands of Pakistani army soldiers entered and cordoned off the Baloch villages of Lanju and Sagari in the Sui area near Mazari goot on the Balochistan-Punjab border, from Punjab, while fighter jets and gunship helicopters bombarded the villages in turns for several hours. At least 18 women, children and elderly persons were reportedly killed in the military action. Earlier, on June 14, 2006 four members of a family, including two women and two children aged seven and three, reportedly died in bombings by Pakistan air force jet planes in the Gazital area, 20 km east of the Marri tribal capital, Kahan.  

On August 1, 2007 the Supreme Court issued suo motu notices to the chief secretary and provincial police officer of Balochistan on the rising number of disappearances. Hundreds of Balochis have been arrested and disappeared. While the Balochistan National Party-Mengal claimed that around 4,000 Baloch youth, mainly political activists, were still in the custody of Pakistani intelligence agencies, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan stated that of the 242 persons who were still missing as of December 10, 2006, 110 were from Balochistan, 70 from Sindh, 42 from Punjab and 20 from the NWFP.

 Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Balochistan have been living in inhospitable situations and the government created further obstacles. According to the United Nations agencies, there were 84,000 IDPs in Balochistan, of whom 26,000 were women and 33,000 were children as of December 2006. The government deliberately created the humanitarian crisis by not even recognising the presence of IDPs in the province.

The FATA remain the dark, dark region where there is no rule of law. This is not only because Taliban inspired armed groups seek to impose medieval practices here but effectively, Pakistan too practises similar medieval legal practices under the Frontier Crime Regulation (FCR) of 1901. The entire region has been deprived of any semblance of legal reforms that took place elsewhere in Pakistan and these repressive measures have further strengthened the al-Qaeda type practices.

 The people of FATA live at the mercy of the president of Pakistan. Under Article 247(3) of the Constitution, no act of Parliament shall apply to the FATA or any part thereof unless the president so directs. As the FCR, which is antithetical to due process of law, governs the administration of justice, Pakistan has kept the region in legal darkness.  

First, the FCR provides for collective punishment of family members or blood relatives instead of punishing only the guilty.  

Second, under Section 21 of the FCR, political authorities like the political agents and assistant political agents of the government enjoy unbridled powers, including the powers of a) seizure, wherever they may be found, of all or any of the members of such tribe and of all or any property belonging to them or any of them; b) detention in safe custody of any person or property so seized; c) confiscation of any such property and, with like sanction, by public proclamation; d) debarring all or any member of the tribe from all access into the (country); and e) prohibiting all or any person within the limits of British India from all interaction or communication of any kind whatsoever, or of any specified kind or kinds, with such tribe or any section or members thereof.  

Third, the FCR does not provide any fair trial. People suspected of having committed a criminal offence are tried by the tribal jirga or council which submits its recommendations regarding conviction or acquittal to the political agent who makes a decision regarding conviction or acquittal but is not bound by the jirga’s recommendations. Moreover, the suspects are tried without legal representation. There is no provision of appeal against conviction or punishment order by the political agents, as Pakistan’s higher judiciary is barred under Article 247(7) of the Constitution from exercising its jurisdiction in the FATA.  

Tribal prisoners in the FATA regions have reportedly served two or more sentences for the same crime. While hearing a jail writ petition by Rahimullah, a division bench of the Peshawar high court, consisting of Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Qaim Jan Khan, directed the FATA security secretary to check the “unbridled” powers of political authorities and the human rights violations carried out by them. The assistant political agent (APA) of Bara had sentenced Rahimullah under Section 40 of the FCR on December 15, 2003 but before the completion of Rahimullah’s first jail term, the APA passed another order on January 14, 2005 against him in the same crime. As if that were not enough, before the completion of Rahimullah’s second illegal jail term, the APA passed a third conviction order on May 25, 2006 for another three years for the same crime.  

In the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the tribals of FATA have become victims of indiscriminate attacks by Pakistan’s military. On October 30, 2006, 82 people, including at least 12 children, were reportedly killed in an air strike on a madrassa in Damadola in Bajaur agency (bordering Afghanistan) in the FATA. The locals claimed that all those killed were Islamic teachers and students. 

In the light of the concerns expressed above, the Asian Centre for Human Rights makes the following recommendations for consideration by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). 

The Pakistan government should be urged to:

Ø Submit its 15th to 20th periodic reports (to the committee) within one year and that it should provide comprehensive reports, including the concerns to be expressed by the CERD;