Excerpt from The Targeting of Minority ‘Others’ in Pakistan As for the blasphemy laws, they “are a true instrument of institutional violence and suppression on behalf of the state religion”, conclude Bouvier and Cosadia. Under Article 295 C of the Pakistani Penal Code, “anyone who desecrates the name of the Prophet Muhammad faces the death penalty. Members of religious minorities are harassed, tortured by the police or by inmates or guards while in prison, physically assaulted during trials, and heavily sentenced each year by the judiciary. The sentences”, as substantive documentation on the matter clearly shows, “are often based on…
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Excerpt from the targeting of minority ‘Others’ in Pakistan: Security forces, including Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, were implicated in a number of gruesome murders and disappearances of political activists from nationalist parties and ‘suspected insurgents’. As an Amnesty International report noted: “Muzaffar Bhutto, a senior member of a Sindhi nationalist political party in Pakistan, was found dead on 22nd May 2011, after being allegedly abducted by plain- clothed intelligence agents and police on 25th February 2011. Amnesty International calls for the killing to be investigated and the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Muzaffar Bhutto was the General-Secretary of Jeay Sindh…
Excerpt from the Targeting of “Minority Others” in Pakistan: With a population estimated at over 187 million and as the fifth most populous country in the world and the second most populous country with a Muslim majority Pakistan has been experiencing a major human rights crisis in recent years. Minority Rights Group International, in its annual State of the World’s Minorities reports for both 2007 and 2008, for example, placed Pakistan in the top ten (out of nearly 200 states) of its lists of states violating minority rights. “The recent wave of intolerance toward minorities”, Ahmed Rashid has argued, “is…
Excerpt from the Targeting of “Minority Others” in Pakistan: In this highly politicised context in which human rights violations against the ‘minority Other’ have been taking place in Pakistan, and many asylum seekers and human rights campaigners have been – and are being – targeted for deportation and/or criminalisation in the UK for exposing the injustices and targeting that befalls the ‘minority Other’, we hope that concerned members of parliament, the public, anti-deportation campaigners, asylum seekers appealing their deportation notices, human rights organisations and campaigners, policy makers, lawyers, students, academics and church and other faith and non-faith groups will find…
A Pakistani Christian politician, an MPA in the Balochistan Provincial Assembly Mr Handery Masih, was assassinated outside his home by his own bodyguard today. He died of his injuries in hospital shortly after. His nephew was also injured in the assault by bodyguard Ghulam Mohi-ud-din, according to reports from the scene. The exact motivation for the attack is unknown, but it comes after a moderate Muslim governor Salmaan Taseer (click here) was assassinated several years ago by his own bodyguard for opposing the blasphemy laws, and the assassination of Pakistan’s most senior Christian politician, Federal Government minister Shahbaz Bhatti soon…
Rape and murder victim Shazia Bashir was presented to her mother. Some lawyers groups are, to all intents and purposes, Muslim extremist pressure groups in themselves, whom police are often afraid to go against, as witnessed in last year’s case of the 12 year old Shazia Bashir, a Christian girl who was raped, beaten and tortured to death by her employer, a supreme court advocate. The police covered up the cause of death by falsifying the autopsy until the family ordered a second autopsy, and the police refused point blank to accept a report about the murder. Thank you for…
Lyn Julius leader of Harif a group that represents Middle Eastern and North African Jews and Wilson Chowdhry Chair of the BPCA stand united against oppression of Minorities. Sign our petition for Meriam Ibrahim (click here) Today (Friday 6th June 2014) Christians of all diversities and humanitarians from other Minority Groups met outside the Sudanese Embassy and demanded freedom and justice for Meriam Ibrahim. People were drawn to the protest event after hearing the tragic story of the Christian Sudanese doctor who was sentenced to death and to 100 lashes for apostasy, that is converting from Islam to Christianity, and…
The BPCA will be collaborating with Christian Voice to hold a witness for Meriam Ibrahim outside the Sudanese Embassy on Friday 6th June 2014 from 2pm to 4pm. Sign our petition here: (click here) This is despite false reports of Meriam’s imminent release. The address of the Sudanese Embassy is 3 Cleveland Row, St. James, London SW1A 1DD Meriam Ibrahim is the Christian Sudanese doctor sentenced to death and to 100 lashes for apostasy, that is converting from Islam to Christianity, and for adultery, that is marrying a man who is not a Muslim. Despite Meriam being brought up by…
The UK Border Agency rejected his assertion that his family had been threatened and his brother beaten by militants looking for him. In other words, they think it was made up. One of the reasons they gave for disbelieving him is that his family also never went to the authorities. The fixation the BA official has with the fact that people did not go to the police indicates ignorance of the fact that very many crime victims do not go to the police in Pakistan because of police corruption and fear of blackmail by the police. Christians especially have found…
“I have been contacted on several occasions by Pakistani Christian asylum seekers desperate for help with preparing their appeal. I have also been contacted by the chaplain at Yarl’s Wood detention centre out concern over the lack of support they are receiving. “Twin sisters detained at Yarl’s Wood, who cannot be named, told me that one of them had been kidnapped after refusing to convert to Islam. “In another case, one woman’s entire family in Pakistan is suffering because her nephew has refused to convert to Islam. Instead of her nephew, she has had to pay the price of his…