According to a Human Rights Observer 2023 fact sheet in Pakistan, during the year 2022, the amount of anti-minority religious content in curricula and textbooks grew, and several enduring and new issues with the educational system surfaced in the Islamic nation. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) issued the annual fact sheet on March 30.
The report addressed five significant issues that have an impact on religious minorities, including prejudice in the educational system, the prevalence of forced conversions to Islam, the misuse of blasphemy laws, the creation of the National Commission for Minorities, and jail remissions for minorities’ prisoners.
‘Blasphemy laws’ claiming dozens of victims
As per the information divulged in the fact sheet, 171 persons have been charged with violating blasphemy laws, with Punjab and Sindh accounting for 65% and 19%, respectively.
Karachi recorded the highest occurrence, which was then followed by Chiniot, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Nankana Sahib, Lahore, and Sheikhupura. The majority of the victims (88) were Muslims, followed by 75 Ahmadis, four Christians, and two Hindus.
However, the religious identity of the two accused could not be ascertained. Four individuals were executed extrajudicially in 2022, two in Punjab, and one each in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bringing the total number of such killings from 1987-2022 to 88.
From 1987 and 2022, at least 2,120 people had been charged with blasphemy. In Punjab, the abuse of blasphemy laws has increased by more than 75% overall over the previous 36 years. Despite their modest percentage (3.52%) in Pakistan’s population, 52 per cent of the accused belonged to minority communities.
‘Girls and women from minority communities are being forced to convert to Islam’
The fact sheet examined 124 documented instances of girls and women from minority faiths being forced to change their religious beliefs. Of these, 81 were Hindu, 42 were Christian, and one was Sikh. Merely 12 per cent of the victims were adults, while 28 per cent of the victims’ ages were unknown.
Twenty-three% of the victims were girls under the age of 14 and 36% were females between the ages of 14 and 18. In 2022, 65% of incidents of forced conversion were reported in Sindh, followed by 33% in Punjab and 0.8% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, respectively.
Even though this concession has been provided to Muslim convicts since 1978, the fact sheet revealed that no progress had been achieved in giving remission to minority prisoners throughout 2022.
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM), is yet to be established. In March 2023, a poor and imbalanced draught was reportedly presented to parliament, which might lead to more delays and the eventual foundation of the NCM.
Peter Jacob, the executive director at CSJ and editor of the human rights observer, commented that the annual fact sheet contained recommendations to address the problems as well as concrete steps for the realisation and protection of minorities rights. He urged the government to take stock of these problems and uphold the human rights of minorities.
Notably, this is not the first time Pakistan has come under fire for its egregious treatment and appalling condition of religious minorities living in the country. Another similar revelation surfaced earlier this month, exposing the terrible lies Pakistan uses in its textbooks to instil its hate of India and Hindus in the next generation.
According to the report, history textbooks taught in Pakistani schools for grades 8 and 9 are full of material that is anti-India and anti-Hindu, including veiled references to Mahatma Gandhi, accusations, blame, and claims of being ‘Muslim nationalists.’
The textbooks provided to young minds present pupils with an incorrect and antagonistic image of their neighbouring country from the very beginning. They are written and produced by academics of the country in line with its national curriculum.
In 2021, a BBC documentary exposed the blatant anti-Hindu bias in Pakistani textbooks. In the video, several Pakistani Hindus drew attention to the ubiquitous and pervasive anti-Hindu propaganda promoted in the school textbooks and describe the humiliation they suffered at the hands of their friends, coworkers, and classmates just because they were Hindus.
The video additionally demonstrated how anti-Hindu bigotry has become commonplace in Pakistani government-approved school textbooks.