Pakistan, the West and religious minorities

IN ITS latest global report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) described Pakistan as presenting one of the "worst situation(s) in the world" in respect of liberty of thought. It cited the authorities' "grossly indequate" response to attacks on Shia processions and mosques which had cost hundreds of lives; the fact that the Ahmadis, who follow a religious teacher of the 19th century, are denied the right to call themselves Muslims, deprived of many other civil rights, and virtually disenfranchised; forced conversions and kidnappings affecting both Christians and Hindus; and above all a blasphemy law with a very low threshold of proof, which can easily be invoked in the course of petty quarrels unrelated to religion.

Over the past month, the news about religion in Pakistan has become worse, whether this is measured by the behaviour of officialdom or the horrors suffered by ordinary folk at the hands of terrorists or fanatics. Katrina Lantos Swett, who chairs the USCIRF, visited Pakistan with her fellow commissioner Mary Ann Glendon, who is also a Harvard law professor. Answering a question from Erasmus, Ms Lantos Swett gave a bleak account of what they found:

There is a rising tide of religious persecution by the state and by militants. Pakistan's blasphemy law grossly abuses human rights. The Commission is aware of almost 40 people on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy, a statistic unmatched in the world. The law fosters violence against religious minorities, such as Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis. The legal prohibitions against Ahmadis are deeply problematic as well. In addition the ongoing targeted violence against Shias requires a vigorous state response. [A] Pakistani Supreme Court decision in 2014...mandated the creation of special police to protect religious minorities and a national commission on minorities...[but] the police force has not been created and the minorities commission is buried within the ministry of religious affairs. Greater, not lesser, efforts by the international community are needed to move Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to implement the Supreme Court decision, to arrest perpetrators of violence and to see abusive laws reformed or repealed...The international community must not be silent or Pakistan's religious diversity will be forever lost.
Meanwhile the "perpetrators of violence" have not been idle. On March 15th, two Christian churches in Lahore were attacked by suicide-bombers; at least 17 people were killed and 70 wounded, and the toll would have been far higher had it not been for the bravery of volunteer security guards. This was the worst assault on Christians in Pakistan since the bombing of a church in Peshawar in 2103 which claimed nearly 80 lives. On March 16th, a protest by Christians in Lahore turned violent, and two Muslims were lynched. Christian leaders in the city, while strongly condemning the lynchings, complained that hundreds of innocent members of their community had been arbitrarily arrested. In Youhanabad, the Christian district of Lahore, many Christian families have fled, leaving their homes open to looting; police have reportedly been extorting money from poor Christians as a kind of collective punishment.

These developments pose a dilemma for Western governments. The church bombings were claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, and a central aim of Western policy has been to persuade the Pakistani authorities to crack down firmly, not faint-heartedly, against that terrorist network. Whatever messages Western governments are now sending to the authorities in Pakistan, they will presumably include fresh words of encouragement in the anti-Taliban fight, not just a long list of scoldings. Another problem, some would say, is that if Western governments are seen to advocate the interests of the Christian minority in particular, that might actually make things worse for Pakistan's Christians, by increasing the suspicion among hotheads that followers of that faith are a "fifth column" for Western interests.

At a minimum, Western governments should be thinking seriously about what they can practically do, apart from issuing rebukes. Wilson Chowdhry, who runs the British Pakistani Christian Assocation, says Britain and other European countries should look hard at how aid to Pakistan, and in particular aid to education, is used. At its worst, Pakistani education reinforces militant readings of Islam and prejudice against minorities. Well-targeted aid can help to change that situation; the poorly targeted kind can simply reinforce existing bad practice. Mr Chowdhry also wants Britain to show greater sympathy to asylum-seekers who face religious persecution in Pakistan, as the Netherlands and Canada have recently started doing.

Lisa Curtis, a Pakistan-watcher at the Heritage Foundation, a think-thank in Washington, DC, thinks Western governments should be sending a calibrated mixture of signals to that country. "The recent suicide attacks are part of [a] broader terrorist campaign aimed at...undermining the authority of the state, and they remind the international community of the importance of supporting Pakistan in its fight against terrorists. These terrorist strikes merit a policy response which is different from the response to religious persecution that takes place within society, for instance the use of the blasphemy law against religious minorities...[which] should be condemned in the strongest terms."

Faced with dramatic images of wounded worshippers or police deploying tear gas, it might seem surprising that the USCIRF, which is mandated by Congress to monitor freedom of belief round the world, should focus so much on procedural issues, like the implementation of a Supreme Court decision. But there is also some merit in that approach. For obvious historic reasons, governments in the developing world are resentful of being told what to do by agencies in the rich global North. But it is less provocative to say something like: you say you are committed to upholding the rule of law, and to protecting religious diversity, so in that spirit we respectfully urge you to do what your own institutions (in this case, the Supreme Court) are telling you to do.

For all the travails of its religious minorities, Pakistan does at least accept, in principle, the legal right of different faiths to exist. There are some countries in the world, from the atheist regime in North Korea to the hard-line Muslim one in Saudi Arabia, which don't even go that far.  That acceptance provides a basis for discussion, at least, between Pakistan and other countries who wish it and its people, in all their diversity, well.