Saturday, December 30, 2023
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Saturday, August 5, 2023
Population Growth and Pakistan's Demographic Challenge: Navigating the Societal Imperatives
Saturday, June 17, 2023
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Saturday, June 10, 2023
Sunday, June 4, 2023
#Pakistan- FM Bilawal to reach #Iraq on three-day visit
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will reach Iraq on a three-day visit on Monday, ARY News reported.
During his visit, FM Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will meet his Iraqi counterpart. The foreign minister will also visit the holy sites along with the party leaders.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) central and provincial leaders have also reached Najaf – Iraq. The leaders include Faisal Karim Kundi, Sharjeel Memon, Nasir Hussain Shah, Nadeem Afzal Chan, Mukesh Chawla, Qasim Naveed Qamar.
Earlier, the Foreign Office (FO) said that FM Bilawal will meet with Iraqi leadership and hold a detailed meeting with his counterpart during the visit. Important agreements will also be signed during the visit.
FM Bilawal is undertaking this visit at the invitation of the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Iraq, Dr. Fuad Hussein.
Pakistan: 57 Blasphemy Cases Reported In 2023; Two Christian Teenagers Charged, Jailed In Lahore – OpEd
According to the registered First Information Report (FIR) No 902/23, Sohail alleged that the boys uttered blasphemous remarks against the Holy Name of the Prophet Muhammad while he was walking to a mosque for prayer. Adil Baber is eighteen years old, and Simon Masih is fourteen years old.
The families of the accused vehemently deny the allegations, asserting that this is the result of a personal dispute between the two boys and Sohail, as they had a previous altercation. Moreover, the families argue that during the initial confrontation, witnesses present at the scene demanded evidence to substantiate the claims, but none was reportedly provided at the time of the arrest.
While demanding a free trial, the family is urging authorities to address their concerns about the fairness and objectivity of the investigation process, with questions surrounding the potential bias given that the accuser is also a police officer.
As per the statistics shared by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) and Peoples’ Commission for Minorities Rights (PCMR), at least 57 cases of alleged blasphemy have been registered in Pakistan from January to May 2023. The highest number of blasphemy cases, 28 in total, were reported in Punjab. Sindh followed with 16 cases, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded eight cases, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir reported five.
Human Rights activist Joseph Jansen and chairperson of Voice for Justice, condemned the incident, adding that the increase in the misuse of the blasphemy laws and its use as a retaliation act to settle personal disputes must be stopped, as numerous people languish in prisons for years until the courts finally realize the miscarriage of justice and set them free.
A fair trial is the right of every citizen guaranteed in the constitution of Pakistan, and the protection of accusers until proven guilty is the responsibility of the state. Jansen further asked for a proactive response from the authorities to safeguard the young boys and their families during and after the legal proceedings, as such fabricated accusations often lead to the climate of mob violence and vigilante justice targeting religious minorities.
Suggesting the government and authorities, Jansen stressed the need for the engagement of all-important stakeholders to set up a platform for the generation of collective wisdom, which can preempt further incidents of this nature.
The Head of Voice of Justice Pakistan also expressed that the authorities should take serious action against individuals making baseless allegations for personal gains over personal vendettas, as the blasphemy laws have a significant impact on religious faith communities, particularly curbing their right to speech, life, and freedom of religion.
Jansen called upon the government to uphold the rule of law and ensure the safety and protection of all individuals, regardless of their religious beliefs.
The 2023 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom underscores the increasing helplessness of the religious minorities towards the prosecution and violence that is based on the incorrect blasphemy allegations in Pakistan and reported it as a major contributor to the intolerance for the religious diversity in the country. Blasphemy cases continue to pose a significant threat to religious freedom, often accompanied by mob violence, stated the report
The Commission report also underlines the weaponization of blasphemy laws in Pakistan by the mainstream politicians to gain political mileage against each other’s rivals. The report noted that the new government under Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif also leveled the blasphemy allegations against former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet members, to make them a target.
Pointing to the vulnerability of the religious minorities, the report cited the case of Notan Lal as an example, who was the owner and Principal of a school in Ghotki, Sindh, and who was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly committing blasphemy. The report also highlights the case of Muhammad Mushtaq, a mentally ill man accused of burning the Holy Quran, who was stoned to death by an angry mob in the Punjab Province. These incidents quoted in the report illustrate the ongoing challenges faced by religious minorities last year and stressed the need for the greater protection of religious freedom in Pakistan.
Human Rights Defender Zara Amoon Gill, noted the increase in the misapplication and inappropriate use of this law as a tool to suppress marginalized sections of the society by radicals clearly reflects upon the rising extremism in the country.
Responding to the documentation and reporting of such cases by the global Human Rights watchdogs, she urged the authorities to wisely respond to this pressing issue with considerable and proactive measures, by using both of ideological and repressive state apparatuses to further develop a softer image of the country on global fronts.
In addition, Gill suggested that a collective effort is required to overcome the challenges that are erupting due to the raging extremism in the nation. We all as citizens share equal responsibility to play our individual role for social change, she said.
“As a responsible and tolerant citizen, we must discourage the social injustice rooted in radicalism and leading to anarchism”, Gill said.
According to data collected by the Center for Social Justice, since 1994, at least 92 individuals have lost their lives in incidents related to religious offenses. Among the victims, 50 were Muslims, 23 were Christians, 14 were Ahmadis, two were Hindus, one was Buddhist, and the religious affiliation of two other individuals could not be determined. These statistics shed light on the ongoing prevalence of blasphemy accusations and the grave consequences that they can have on individuals in Pakistan.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/04062023-pakistan-57-blasphemy-cases-reported-in-2023-two-christian-teenagers-charged-jailed-in-lahore-oped/
Sunday, May 28, 2023
#Pakistan and #Islamist Threat to Schools: #Christians and #Shia targeted
Recent school attacks in Pakistan highlight the fear that religious minorities face – along with females of all faiths in Sunni Islamist areas that oppose female education.
Several forces are at play. This includes the sectarian nature of religious attacks, which mirror wider society where minorities face persecution. For example, young Christian, Hindu, and Sikh girls face the serious issue of being forcibly converted to Islam: while Shia Muslims are targeted concerning Sunni Islamist sectarian attacks.
Terrorists have also committed attacks against Christians and other minorities. However, in general, the Shia have suffered countless massacres in Pakistan at the hands of Sunni Islamists over many decades.
Educational attacks against children and teachers are either religious based – anti-Christian and anti-Shia – or similar to Afghanistan, Sunni Islamists seek to close female schools down in militant areas irrespective of Christian, Shia, or Sunni.
Concerning the recent tragedy at the Sangota Convent School when two girls were killed, Kashif Nawab reports: “The incident has sparked outrage and raised questions about the vetting and re-employment processes within the police force, as attacker Alam Khan had previously faced suspension before being reinstated and assigned security duties at the Christian school just three months ago. The Sangota Convent School was built in 1962 and is administered by the Rawalpindi Catholic Archdiocese Education Board.”
Kashif Nawab continues: “The recent attack on the Catholic school has raised serious concerns regarding the safety and security of Christian institutions – and religious places of worship. This notably concerns the Islamist conservative peripheries of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.”
Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore said: “This man was in charge of security for the children, the staff, the parents, everybody. That is what he was paid for. But in a moment of madness, he did this because the school teaches girls. This shows how aggressive these groups that are opposed to women’s education can be. Everybody has a right to an education.”
Aid to the Church in Need reports, “Earlier, extremist group Jan Nisaran-e-Islam threatened the school following false accusations that the Sisters were trying to convert its several hundred Muslim students to Christianity.”
SHIA ATTACK
In another attack against religious minorities that took place in early May – and aimed at education – seven Shia teachers (some reports say teachers and attendants) were shot dead. Another incident also led to the death of a Sunni teacher at the same school.
AP reports, “The teachers were gunned down by unidentified assailants who stormed a school in Kurram, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.”
Pakistan President Arif Alvi said, “The attack on teachers by the enemies of knowledge is condemnable.”
The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is more active again in the Swat Valley – and this is leading to fear. Accordingly, while the recent attack that killed 7 Shia isn’t fully known, memories of the TTP remain vivid.
This includes sectarian attacks against the Shia and destroying at least 100 schools for girls.
Pakistan is once more blighted by political intrigues. Accordingly, the nation needs a reset – corruption, military power, and attacks against former leaders are nothing new in this country.
http://moderntokyotimes.com/pakistan-and-islamist-threats-to-schools-christians-and-shia-targeted/
#Pakistan - Bilawal establishes organising committee for #PPP labour wing
In a significant move, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the Chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), has formed a six-member organising committee for the party's Labour wing on Sunday. The committee comprises prominent political figures from different regions of Pakistan.
The newly appointed committee members include seasoned politician Raza Rabbani, Chaudhry Manzoor, Saeed Ghani, Haji Talha Mehmood representing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Malik Ashiq Bhutta hailing from South Punjab.
Additionally, Iqbal Shah from Balochistan has been appointed to represent the province on the committee.
The notification announcing the formation of the committee was issued under the directives of PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, demonstrating his commitment to strengthen the PPP's outreach to the labor community.
The committee's members, chosen for their political acumen and experience, are expected to play a crucial role in formulating and implementing policies aimed at protecting and advancing the rights of workers.
Their extensive involvement in regional politics is likely to contribute to the committee's ability to address specific labor-related challenges faced in their respective areas.
With the establishment of the organising committee, the PPP aims to further solidify its position as a political force that champions the rights of the working class.
https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/727347-Bilawal-establishes-organising-committee-for-PPP-labour-wing
Sunday, May 14, 2023
#Pakistan - Imran Khan’s Arrest, the Army and Pakistan’s Perennial Crisis
The current turmoil is unprecedented, but its roots lie in the country’s founding ideology.The conflict between Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Army seems to have come to a head after building for more than a year. On Tuesday, a throng of black-helmeted paramilitary forces arrested the 70-year-old Mr. Khan on corruption charges, setting off dramatic protests that threaten to destabilize the nuclear-armed nation of 230 million. On Thursday the Supreme Court declared Mr. Khan’s arrest unlawful but said he should remain for now at a police guest house under court supervision. It’s still unclear whether Mr. Khan will walk free, but this week’s events have already triggered unprecedented turmoil in Pakistan. On Tuesday, for the first time in the country’s history, civilian protesters breached the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi. In Lahore, pro-Khan mobs looted the official residence of the powerful army corps commander. In Peshawar, rioters attacked the provincial assembly and set fire to the regional headquarters of Radio Pakistan, the state broadcaster. At least eight people have died in clashes between protesters and authorities. Mr. Khan’s supporters have also rallied in London, New York and Toronto to demand his release. So far, neither the coalition government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif nor the army—which is widely believed to be calling the shots—shows any signs of yielding. On Wednesday police arrested senior members of Mr. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party. Authorities have severely restricted access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, robbing the PTI of its most effective means of communication and mobilization. The immediate question is obvious: Will the army, which has dominated the country’s politics for most of its history, succeed in squelching Mr. Khan’s determined bid to regain power? The former prime minister, a charismatic populist with a large following, has so far refused to bend under pressure. The repercussions of their contest will dominate Pakistan’s domestic politics and influence its relations with, among others, the U.S., the Gulf countries and India. Ideally, the crisis would force Pakistan to correct its broader self-destructive trajectory. Though this week’s chaos puts a particularly fine point on it, the country has long struggled with the lethal combination of a stagnating economy, rising religious fundamentalism and an outsize military that it can’t afford. Though Pakistan is only the world’s 42nd-largest economy, it boasts the sixth-largest military. The country won’t be able to pull itself back from the brink unless its leaders question the ideas that brought it to its current calamity. There’s a template of sorts in Bangladesh, which broke away from Pakistan in 1971 to become an independent nation. Once derided by Henry Kissinger as a “basket case,” over the past two decades Bangladesh has quietly proven naysayers wrong. It has emerged as one of the world’s largest garment exporters, developed close economic and diplomatic relations with India, and firmly subordinated its army to civilian power. In 1999 Bangladesh had a per capita income of about $400, slightly lower than Pakistan’s ($420). By 2021, Bangladesh’s per capita income of $2,460 was more than 60% higher than Pakistan’s. Nearly three-quarters of Bangladeshi women are literate, compared with less than half of Pakistani women. Manufacturing—an important measure of a poor country’s ability to boost productivity by moving workers from farms to factories—accounts for 21% of Bangladesh’s economy compared with only 12% in Pakistan. Bangladesh’s foreign-exchange reserves of about $30 billion are almost seven times as large as Pakistan’s.
That Pakistan lags behind what was once the poorer half of the country speaks to more than a failure of specific policies. The big difference is how each country conceives of itself. Pakistan’s problems go back to a founding ideology rooted in arguments used to carve a Muslim-majority homeland from British India, argues former Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani in his 2018 book, “Reimagining Pakistan.” The country “decided to base itself as an independent state on the same grounds that it had sought its creation,” he writes. “Islamic nationalism, pan Islamism and competing with ‘Hindu India’ superseded” a more pragmatic approach that embraced “the ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences” of Pakistanis while also pursuing their material interests.
In Mr. Haqqani’s telling, Pakistan has clung to a counterproductive ideology, championed most fiercely by the military, that includes “militarism, radical Islamist ideology, perennial conflict with India, dependence on external support, and refusal to recognize ethnic identities and religious pluralism.” Mr. Khan’s confrontation with the army may have set off the current conflagration, but the roots lie in a worldview that prevents Pakistani leaders from pursuing more-practical policies such as economic modernization and peace with India.
Mr. Khan’s supporters see his beef with army Chief Gen. Asim Munir as proof that Mr. Khan is the only politician capable of pressing a reset button on Pakistan. But if you examine his record and rhetoric, the opposite picture emerges. Mr. Khan represents a curious blend of traditional Pakistani pan-Islamism with Oxbridge leftist anti-Americanism. He may portray himself as a revolutionary figure, but in a deeper sense he embodies the dying gasps of the old order. It will fall on either a different civilian leader or a more enlightened military leadership to alter the country’s course.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/imran-khan-the-army-and-pakistans-perennial-crisis-tehreek-e-insaaf-imran-khan-shehbaz-sharif-fa368a18
#Pakistan - SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE RISE OF THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL
https://www.dawn.com/news/1753082
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Don’t use terrorism as diplomatic tool: Pakistan's Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto
Founded in 2001, the SCO is a political and security bloc in Asia consisting of Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.Bhutto-Zardari is making the first visit to India by a Pakistani foreign minister in 12 years.On Friday, he emphasised a united response to security threats faced by member countries, reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to peace in the region and highlighted historical losses it has suffered.“The collective security of our peoples is our joint responsibility,” the foreign minister said during his address at the SCO.Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has urged the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member nations to avoid using “terrorism” as a diplomatic instrument in an apparent riposte to India.Bhutto-Zardari is on a two-day visit to the Indian city of Goa for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the forum’s eight members and four observer countries.
“Terrorism continues to threaten global security,” he said. “Let’s not get caught up in weaponising terrorism for diplomatic point scoring. Our success requires us to isolate this issue from geopolitical partisanship. Practical, pragmatic solutions exist for us to put an end to this chapter once and for all. We must stop conflating non-state actors with state actors.”
Prior to Bhutto-Zardari’s speech, Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in his opening address, highlighted the “menace of terrorism”, warning that taking eyes off it would be damaging to the region’s security interests.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/5/dont-use-terrorism-as-diplomatic-tool-pakistan-fm-in-india
Friday, May 5, 2023
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Minorities becoming increasingly vulnerable in Pakistan; Balochis, Hindus, Christians targeted
Recently, on International Women's Day, the Aurat March brought together Pakistani minorities to raise awareness about crimes against non-Muslim women. Pakistan's rulers use religion for national cohesion and claim the constitutional role of guarantor of Islamic tenets. Minorities are becoming increasingly vulnerable as a large number of ordinary Muslims justify church attacks and forced conversions as the means to achieving and maintaining sovereignty.
Christian girls face forced conversions, and those who resist face beatings, acid attacks, kidnapping, rape, or even murder by Muslim men, the Baltimore Post Examiner reported. A recent report titled 'Conversion without consent' lists over a hundred cases of abduction, rape, and conversion of minor Christian girls between 2019 and 2022. An overwhelming 97 per cent of these attacks took place in Punjab and Sindh.
Moreover, the discriminatory attitude of the police and the judiciary adds to the plight. Political and religious organizations support the criminals, making it impossible for the victims to use legal counsel against the perpetrators, the Baltimore Post Examiner reported. In most cases, conciliators coerced the girls into marrying their Muslim kidnappers and rapists, the Baltimore Post Examiner reported.
The story of 20-year-old Kainat encapsulates the lives of average Pakistani Christians who pay huge costs to preserve their religious identity. Kainat's mother was kidnapped as a child and forced to convert to Islam by her elderly Muslim abductor, with whom she had four children. While ignoring the risks, Kainat's mother took her children to church and introduced bible reading at home. At the age of fourteen, Kainat's father died, and the family forced her mother to remarry her uncle. They had to stop going to church after their secret visits were discovered. In October 2017, Kainat's relatives attacked her house, and shot her brother in the ribs and lungs., the Baltimore Post Examiner reported.
According to the records of Lahore's Madrasa Jamia Naeemia, on average, 55 Christians convert to Islam each month. That is a peek into only one Madrasa in a country with thousands of Madrasas and Mosques. The assistant protocol officer at the Badshahi mosque in Lahore admitted to having converted dozens of Christians on a daily basis. All of these conversions, in the opinion of Joseph Francis, National Director for the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, are involuntary.
In Pakistan, Christians have one of the lowest literacy rates. The principal of Jamia Naeemia, Raghib Naeemi said that more than 90 per cent of converts are illiterate. Many Christian girls drop out of school due to vulnerability to kidnapping, molestation, and forced conversion. In 2019, the media reported three incidents of school staff coercing Christian students to convert to Islam. Similarly, in 2021, a 12-year-old female Christian was kidnapped and taken to a Madrassa in Khankah Dogran, where she was converted.
According to studies, Christian girls suffer acid attacks from Muslim suitors in retaliation for rejection. In February 2023, Kamran Allahbux disfigured Sunita, his 19-year-old Christian neighbour, with acid after she declined a marriage proposal. Sunita's family tried for months to report Kamran to the police prior to the incident, but the authorities ignored them, the Baltimore Post Examiner reported. Julie Aftab, a Christian who fled to the United States, claimed that Muslims attacked her at the age of sixteen for wearing a cross. The attackers grabbed her by the hair and poured acid down her throat. People refused to transport her to the hospital because of her faith, and Muslim doctors refused to treat her. She had lost more than two-thirds of her oesophagus and was missing teeth, gums, an eye, and both eyelids due to acid burn.
The Pakistan government views media coverage of crimes against non-Muslims as an attack on Islam and the constitution. To avoid litigation, many organizations self-censor and minorities lose important allies while criminals gain impunity and safe havens. A few weeks ago, Pakistan's censor board banned a documentary on the life of a minor Christian girl from Faisalabad that was scheduled to be released on International Women's Day. The film which received eight international awards violated Pakistani culture by depicting the abduction, involuntary conversion, and marital rape of religious minorities, the authorities said.
In 2022, conservative Pakistanis were outraged when the British government sanctioned Mian Mithoo for forcing girls from religious minorities to convert and marry their captors. A few months later, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association invited Mian Mithoo to speak at a seminar titled "Forced Religious Conversion and Its Reality."
Mian Mithoo claimed during his speech that young Christian and Hindu girls willingly accept Islam and marry the elderly Muslim men they love to which the audience applauded Mian Mithoo for exposing false accusations and thanked him for his selfless services. The constitution of Pakistan is ambiguous regarding non-Muslim inheritance and divorce rights. The marriage act, inserted into the constitution during the reign of General Zia-ul-Haq, complicates the divorce process for Christians who seek escape from marital cruelty and toxicity.
Christian girls who drop out of school and take employment to help families make ends meet are vulnerable to elderly Muslim employers. In February 2023, 60-year-old Rana Tayab of Faisalabad raped and converted his minor Christian servant, Sitara, and claimed her as his second wife. Reporting a similar incident, the Baltimore Post Examiner reported that, in 2021, two Christian sisters, Sajida and Abida aged 28 and 26 respectively, were raped and killed in Lahore by their employer for refusing to convert.
Human rights organizations repeatedly request the government to review blasphemy laws, which have become an effective conversion tool. Blasphemy laws are used to settle personal disputes or seize Christians' property. Many Christians convert to Islam to avoid death sentences in blasphemy cases. In 2014, a mob burned a Christian couple in the Kasur district in a brick kiln for blasphemy. The police said that the couple was demanding unpaid wages and the kiln owner used blasphemy to get rid of them.
Recently in District Nankana Sahib, a Muslim falsely accused a Christian colleague of blasphemy to secure his job. The contentious blasphemy laws frequently result in premeditated attacks on Christian burial grounds and places of worship. Denying burial grounds and destroying places of worship is a direct violation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, to which Pakistan is a signatory.
During riots, villages inhabited by Christian labourers and harvesters face large-scale demographic shifts, cultural regression, and the seizure of assets. In 2017, a church attack in Quetta killed nine. Likewise, during the Easter celebrations in 2016, a suicide bomber killed seventy Christians and injured 340 others in Lahore. Between 2013 and 2015, four bomb blasts in different churches in Peshawar and Lahore killed and injured over two-hundred Christian worshippers.
Moreover, in 2005, a Muslim mob burned down churches, homes, and schools in Sangla Hills, displacing an entire Christian neighbourhood population. Tens of thousands of Christians have fled to India and Western countries in order to escape the unbearable situation. Christians are not allowed to cast ballots in the general election or choose their representatives in the parliament. They are also prohibited from holding the positions of president, prime minister, or commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces.
In October 2022, six UN Special Rapporteurs wrote to Pakistan's government urging them to put an end to the abduction, rape, forced conversion, and child marriage of Christian girls. The Rapporteurs accused Pakistani law enforcement of colluding with the kidnappers and chastised politicians for failing to protect the victims. Pakistan, which takes pride in its democracy, should heed international advice and treat Christians with dignity and equality.
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/international/2413448-wrapup-1-taiwan-determined-to-safeguard-freedom-democracy-president-tsai-says
Christians slam Pakistan’s ‘faulty’ census
Many members of various minority groups, including Christians, are not being counted, they claim.
Christian leaders in Pakistan have slammed the ongoing national census saying the questionnaires were erratic and accused the enumerators of not counting many members of minority groups.“Many parish houses [parsonages] have been skipped. Maybe they thought no one stays in churches. Since every parish has at least three priests, at least 40 people will be missing in the count [in the city],” Father Mario Rodrigues, rector of St. Patrick’s High School in Karachi, the country’s largest city, told UCA News. The population in the port city stands at more than 16.5 million as per the seventh national population and housing census that started last month. Christian leaders like Rodrigues in Karachi and those in other cities have issued a series of allegations against the first-ever digital census including undercounting, faulty questionaries, and delaying tactics. Based on the latest data, the state-run Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said the current population of the country is estimated at 235 million. The agency did not reveal data on the religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim country. The bureau initially planned to hold the census from March 1- April 1, but it was later extended to April 30, media reports say. The field activities were halted on April 20 for the Eid-ul-Fitr festival and will resume on April 26.
Anglican Bishop Humphrey Sarfaraz Peter of Peshawar Diocese, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, alleged the bureau has been adopting delaying tactics to undercount Christians.
“The usual lack of transparency is an attempt to undercount Christians of Pakistan who are the biggest and most vocal religious minority in the country. Tribal Christians of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were mostly skipped in the last census as well,” Peter said.
The last national census of 2017 showed Pakistan had 2.6 million Christians who made up 1.27 percent of a population of 207 million. Hindus were at 1.73 percent.
Majid Abel, executive secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan accused the bureau of engaging insufficient and untrained staff in the census process leading to undercounting.
“The entire population with its religious, ethnic, caste, gender or racial identity must be reflected in the results which should be available at the union council level. People must be allowed to identify the missed population,” he said.
On April 17, the Lahore-based Center for Social Justice (CSJ) and Peoples Commission for Minorities Rights voiced grievances over irregularities in the census and demanded remedies.
“In violation of the instructions, the census enumerators have used an incomplete and different paper questionnaire instead of [computer] tablets to collect household data at least in four cities including Lahore,” CSJ executive director, Peter Jacob, told a press conference.
He also said the standard questionnaire omitted columns on Baha’i and Kailash, both among 18 state-recognized religious groups.
"Usage of multiple census forms will create confusion"
The bureau "neglected rigidly the necessary aspects of preparation. This is an injustice and a betrayal of the nation,” Jacob said, adding that the census must continue until these issues are addressed.
The standard census form provides columns for religious groups in seven categories including Muslim, Christian, Hindu Jati, Ahmadi, Scheduled Cast, Sikh, and Parsi. The unnamed minority groups are lumped together in the “others” category.
Peter Jacob, a Catholic, said that the enumerators used a second paper questionnaire that skipped the categories of religion, transgender, and disability. He claimed CSJ volunteers who were engaged in a census awareness campaign in 24 districts reported the discrepancy.
Anglican pastor Emanuel Khokhar, dean of Raiwind diocese in Punjab province, claimed a third questionnaire was used.
“The original one mentions Christians as Masihi while this one refers to us as Isai. Usage of multiple census forms will create confusion. It was revoked at least in our locality after local Christians protested but this is a dangerous trend,” he said.
Ashiknaz Khokhar, a Christian youth activist and census observer in Sahiwal, Punjab province, alleged that 30 Christian brick kiln families in city suburbs were not counted.
On April 11, Pakistan Minority Rights Commission secretary-general Roheel Zafar Shahi filed a complaint with the government about the “incomplete census” of the Bahar Colony, home to 350 churches and around 50,000 Christians in Lahore.
Christians from Youhanabad, the largest Christian colony in Lahore with some 150,000 residents, also made similar allegations.
https://www.ucanews.com/news/christians-slam-pakistans-faulty-census/101102