India flags atrocities against minorities in Pakistan at 54th UNHRC

India slammed Pakistan during the 54th Session of the Human Rights Council for making false accusations against New Delhi and bringing attention to atrocities being committed against minorities in Pakistan.

Speaking on behalf of India, PR Thulasidhass, Under Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations Human Rights Council, brought up the recent attack on the Christian community in Pakistan and criticized the country for failing to provide them with basic human rights.

When asked about the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities in Pakistan, India said, “Pakistan has failed miserably in protecting the rights of its ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadiyas, and Shia Muslims, who are systemically persecuted on a daily basis and deprived of their human rights, especially their freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and right to life.”

Contrasting the “empty rhetoric” offered by the Pakistan delegation at the Council, the Indian statement said, “Just last week, the Pakistan police and radicals in Punjab province destroyed nearly 75 graves and the minarets of two worship places belonging to the Ahmadiya community.” Daska city is still on edge because extremists are threatening to destroy the minarets of a historic mosque belonging to a group that was officially classified as non-Muslim by the Pakistani Parliament in 1974.

PR Thulasidhass told the Council that in August of this year, more than 19 churches were destroyed and 89 Christian homes were burned down in Jaranwala, a district in the Faisalabad region of Pakistan, by vigilante mobs on claims of blasphemy.

Pakistan recently increased minimum punishment for those who insult revered personalities from three to ten years in response to recommendations to repeal or amend its blasphemy laws, which carry a potential death sentence and have been misused to target minorities, India added in its statement.

India also brought up the plight of Pakistan’s minority groups, citing a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan study that stated that one thousand women from minority groups were kidnapped, converted, and married off in the country every year.

Women from minority groups continue to face extremely difficult circumstances,” the statement added. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates that every year around one thousand women from minority communities are abducted, converted, and married against their will.

As Thulasidhass pointed out, “The Council must also pay attention to the continued sufferings of millions of people in Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he was speaking up for the people of those provinces.