Pakistan: ‘State’s inability to act emboldens extremists’

Religious minorities, including Hazaras, remain the target of powerful religious militant groups, which have increasingly been emboldened because of the state’s inability to punish them, speakers told a recently organized general debate by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). If these militants are not controlled now, the country would face a civil war on ethnic and sectarian lines, they warned. Those who spoke on the occasion included South Asia Democratic Forum’s Director Paulo Casaca, political analyst and commentator Tarek Fatah and Baloch nationalist leader Mehran Baloch. Baloch alleged that the religious militants remain an ally of the state institutions in Balochistan. Taking his conspiracy theory further, he accused China and Iran for interfering in Pakistan for their own strategic interests. Sectarian killers use seminaries as their centers and persecute religious and ethnic minorities, he alleged. He alleged that secular Baloch elements are being side-lined from the political process as a strategy to allow extremist right-wing parties to suppress their “nationalist movement.” Paulo Casaca urged the European Union and the United States to promote “real democracy” in Pakistan which means a state of law, freedom of religion, and respect of cultural identities. Tarek Fatah said that Pakistan’s future remains linked with secularism. Only the separation of religion and politics will help resolve Pakistan’s horrendous crises, he said. “The current chaos is linked with the ideological confusion where the dominant narrative wants to end every opposing or alternative voice. Its damaging Pakistan and a new direction is needed.”