Save Pakistan Hindus (Image credit: The Nationalist Review)

This Monday (30 January 2023), the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of Pakistan’s human rights record will take place in Geneva. This article is a timely reminder to the UN body to hold this rogue state accountable for the worst human rights violations against women, and religious and ethnic minorities. It will also expose the false claims made by this rights abuser state in its submissions to Human Rights Council. 

Rampant violations of the rights of religious and other minorities are reported from Islamic countries on a daily basis. In this context, Pakistan is a living hell for women, and religious and ethnic minorities. In this context, regarding its submissions to the UN body, Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch rightly points out that, “Pakistan’s submission to the UN about its human rights record is filled with lies”.

Some of the false claims made by Pakistan in its submissions to the UN body are being exposed here.

On Protection for Minorities

Pakistan’s Claim: “In order to protect minorities and promote their public participation, the Government has taken several legislative, policy and administrative measures”.

Reality: Minorities constituting around four per cent of Pakistan’s population are subjected to the worst rights violations by both state and non-state actors. The 2017 census data shows that Muslims have become 96.47% of the total population and on the other hand, religious minorities have shrunk. Hindus, for example, are at their all-time low at 1.73% of the population. Religious minorities are not treated as equal citizens and this fact is even boasted by the constitutional heads of the country. For example, Khawaja Nazimuddin, the 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan, had said, “I do not agree that religion is a private affair of the individual nor do I agree that in an Islamic State, every citizen has identical rights, no matter what his caste, creed or faith be”. 

In Pakistan, there lies religious merit in converting non-Muslims to Islam and the whole state machinery is found complicit in such activities against minorities. According to their own human rights commission report, around one thousand young Hindus and Christians are forced to convert to Islam every year. Atrocities on Hindu minorities, particularly on Scheduled Caste Hindus and women are worse. 

In recent times, according to many media reports, religious minorities have come under severe violent attacks from fundamentalists and other state and non-state actors. Recently, an increased instance of killings, abduction attempts and forced conversion of Hindus and Sikh girls summarize the constant fear under which non-Muslims, particularly Hindus and Sikhs are forced to live in Pakistan. Sindhi Women are the worst victims of this cycle of violence directed at minority women.