ISLAMABAD: Representatives of civil society, media and minority and human rights organisations on Saturday deplored the plight of non-Muslims living in Pakistan as Chairman One-Man Commission on Minority Rights Dr Shoaib Suddle expressed his “helplessness” in the implementation of the 2014 Supreme Court’s decision regarding the rights of the minorities.

Speaking as a chief guest at the National Advocacy Conference on Minority Rights organised by the National Commission for Justice and Peace, Dr Suddle put the blame on bureaucracy for non-implementation of the decision announced by the then judge of the Supreme Court Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani and expressed his “pessimism” about any change in the situation for the minorities without changing the national mindset and society’s attitude.

“I don’t want to be pessimistic, but it is a reality that we might not be able to come out of the [prevailing] situation,” he said.

“Our bureaucratic system is the main hurdle in the SC judgement’s implementation,” said Dr Suddle, complaining that the bureaucrats, particularly those sitting in the provinces, did not respond to his communications for months. Besides this, he said, these bureaucrats and those sitting at the helm of affairs did not give due importance to the minorities’ rights. He categorically declared that he was not getting any cooperation from the authorities.

Suddle terms bureaucracy main hurdle in implementation of SC’s verdict

Almost all the speakers condemned last week’s Jaranwala incident where a number of churches and houses of Christians were set on fire on blasphemy charges.

The speakers “condemned” the state’s role in the growing incidents of violence against minorities and its failure to provide protection to the marginalised segments of the society.

Dr Suddle termed the Jaranwala incident “shameful” and had brought a bad name to the country.

He said the SC in its decision had called for removing hate material from the syllabus and the objective had been achieved to some extent with the introduction of Single National Curriculum. However, he said, the syllabus designers had put some of the religious contents in compulsory subjects such as Urdu, English and General Knowledge.

He said the SC had announced the decision in 2014 and monitored its implementation through its own bench for five years and after facing a failure, it constituted the One-Man Commission under him.

Dr Suddle disclosed that there were some 31,000 vacancies in various government departments under the quota of minorities.

He regretted that a powerless National Commission on Minorities had been constituted in line with the SC’s verdict through a notification. He praised the role of the National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) which he said was “at least” a statutory body. He, however, added that no commission functioning in the country was empowered as per the Paris Principles.

Dr Suddle suggested creation of a separate ministry for the minorities by separating it from the religious affairs ministry which, according to him, had not been even able to manage the affairs of Haj and Umrah.

Speaking on the occasion, Archbishop of Rawalpindi and Islamabad Dr Joseph Arshad said there was no visionary leadership available in the country and even the Muslims were not getting their due constitutional rights in the country. He urged the political parties to give tickets to minorities to contest elections on general seats.

A member of the NCHR Manzoor Masih, who had visited Jaranwala a couple of days back, narrated the miseries of the Christians whose houses were burnt by a mob. He said the mob even desecrated the Christians’ graveyards and looted valuables from the houses.

Renowned scholar and a civil rights activist Haris Khalique suggested that instead of the Objective Resolution, Quaid-i-Azam’s speech on August 11, 1947, should be included in the Constitution as preamble. He was of the view that Jaranwala incident was a “terrorist act” and not merely a result of “extremism”.

Father Sarfraz Simon of the NCJP disowned those parliamentarians representing minorities on reserved seats. He said these MPs represent their parties which were equally responsible for the miserable conditions under which the minorities were living in Pakistan.

Another human rights activist Jaya Jaggi called for abolition of blasphemy laws, stating that previously they had been calling for steps to stop their misuse.

Earlier, speaking at a news conference at National Press Club, Archbishop Dr Joseph Arshad asked the government to take action against those culprits who committed blasphemy by desecrating the holy Bible and other heavenly books in Jaranwala.

He said August 16 was a terrible day in the history of Pakistan for Christians when 21 churches and heavenly books were destroyed and 47 houses of Christians were set on fire.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2023