KARACHI, Sept 6: Activists of civil society, human rights and other organisations on Thursday demanded that the government set up a commission comprising representatives of all religious groups to draw guidelines on faith conversions.

These concerned people had gathered at the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research centre to deliberate on challenges to access to rights the non-Muslim communities faced in the country.

A resolution read out at the gathering by Mohammad Tahseen, executive director of South Asia Partnership Pakistan, and unanimously passed demanded that the state create institutional mechanisms to do away with the caste-based discrimination. The state must fulfil its obligation of treating all citizens as equals and create conditions for equal access to rights and entitlements by all.

The participants demanded that the state revise its constitutional, legal and institutional provisions leading to discrimination against non-Muslims. Articles 2 and 31 of the constitution were particularly mentioned in that regard. Parliament, being a house representing the public interest, must make necessary amendments to the constitution and system of governance that treated all citizens equally.

The meeting called for the revision of all discriminatory laws that sought to victimise the marginalised communities. It demanded immediate reforms in the blasphemy laws “that have left a very large section of the non-Muslims as well as the Muslim communities at the whims of dominant economic and social classes that abuse the law for their own benefit”.

Most participants expressed concern over growing vulnerability in non-Muslim population, because of which a large number of families migrated to other countries. Their young girls were insecure and influential people kidnapped them and forcibly converted them. Elected representatives, police and local administration could not support the victim families, speakers said.

Journalist Zubeida Mustafa said the promotion of religious harmony was a must. She said the curriculums should be revised to educate the new generation according to global demands. She said there was a balanced curriculum in all major private educational institutes like those run by Christian seminaries and other non-Muslim philanthropists.

Dr Jaffar Ahmed, chairman of the Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi, stressed the need to take up the issue with political parties, because they were engaged in an election process. “It is the right time to engage with political parties to include the minorities rights issue in their election manifestos,” he said.

Dr Ahmed suggested that the government evaluate educational syllabuses and take steps to reduce a rural-urban bias, religious discrimination and other differences from society.

Karamat Ali, executive director of Piler, gave a background of discrimination with religious minorities. He urged a review of discriminatory articles of the constitution. He warned that constitutional discrimination would not only affect non-Muslims, but Muslim sections also.

Peter Jacob of the National Commission on Peace and Justice said non-Muslims in Pakistan were not safe economically, socially and politically.

He also said that secularists in Pakistan should clarify what kind of secularism they wanted in the country. He gave an example of inclusive nature of secularism in India and Lebanon.

Mohammed Tehseen of the South Asia Partnership Pakistan said all people were equal under the constitution. He said people belonging to non-Muslim communities should be given space in all sectors.

Dr Vijay Kumar Ahuja from Larkana said there were different mindsets in Sindh, such as fundamentalists, those who did not give importance to religious thinking and those claiming to be secular and progressive.

He said every section in society found it easy to exploit Hindus. They usually deprived minority people of their right and shares in business.

The exploitation was rampant in upper parts of Sindh — Larkana, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Ghotki, etc. In those areas Hindus could not run their business freely.

Weersi Kolhi, Malji, Menghwal and Radha Bheel pointed out that how poor girls belonging to low-caste Hindu families were being kidnapped in different areas. Neither the police nor local administration officials took those issues seriously, they said.

Speakers observed that the concept of reserved seats was meaningless as whenever the victim families approached legislators, they did not support them.

Activists also took the issue of class-based differences within the Hindu community and criticised elected representatives who “never took those issues” to the legislatures, especially the issue of forced conversion after kidnapping of non-Muslim girls.

They said a large number of Hindus were migrating from Sindh because they felt insecurity of their girls, lives and properties. They underlined the need to change the mindset and treat low-caste people equally in society.

Earlier Zeenia Shaukat introduced the aims of the consultation. Zulfiqar Shah, Gayanchand, Hansraj, Zahid Farooq, Ellahi Bakhsh and others also spoke.

Zeenat Hisam said Piler would conduct a study on religious minorities, legal, constitutional, social and economic issues concerning the non-Muslim population.—PPI