Monday, February 17, 2014

Targeting Of Religious Minorities: Forgetting Pakistan’s Constitution

Targeting of religious minorities in Pakistan is still a painful point. Since Pew Research Center report named Pakistan, which is 96 percent Muslim, is one of the most unsympathetic states for religious minorities. Pakistan is one of the top five overall for margins on religion, for most commonly due to its blasphemy laws. Pakistani judiciary habitually use blasphemy laws to give fatality or life in prison penalties to minorities charged of offending Islam.
All religious minorities in Pakistan – and not just Christians, faces biased regulations, enforced conversions of religious faiths, bombs and shootings meant at minority sections of Muslims, such as Shiites and Ahmadis. Pakistan began a 10-year process of “Islamization” under general Zia-ul-Haq in 1978. He forced to renovate material laws into religious ones, establishin Sharia judiciary. School textbooks in Pakistan frequently demonize minorities and highlight the nation’s Islamic roots over assistances from inhabitants of other faiths. Religious minorities are time and again stuck on the inferior stage of the market, often working as servants, sweepers and day laborers. Even they are considered eligible for just such jobs. Regardless of this miserable presentation, there are accounts of minority assent. A host of interfaith activist movements is rising, approaching for multi-faith edification and less hostility. Minority leaders are now vocalizing worldwide in the media and throughout religious and human rights associations. They work for a more liberal Pakistan with less tolerance for terrorists. Among 183 million Pakistanis, religious minorities total just nine million. The biggest faiths among are Christians and Hindus, each of which accounts for less than two percent of the total population. Other faiths include Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Baha’is, Jews and Ahmadi Muslims. Shiite Muslims formulate up to about a quarter of Pakistanis, but they, too, find themselves gradually more victimized by leading Sunni Muslims. Despite the fact that Pakistan’s constitution gives assurance for freedom of religion. Reports of enforced conversions to Islam, abducting of non-Muslims, job inequity, and blasphemy imprisonments and demolishing of minority worship places have become every day’s news.
- See more at: http://www.christiansinpakistan.com/targeting-of-religious-minorities-forgetting-pakistans-constitution/#sthash.4ffCmtZS.dpuf

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