Members' Briefing
Pakistan: a Human Rights Update
By Richard D. Land, Commissioner
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
May 13, 2004
SERIOUS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM PROBLEMS PERSIST IN PAKISTAN: THE COUNTRY
SHOULD BE DESIGNATEDAS A COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN UNDER THE
INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT
Introduction
Congressman Tancredo, distinguished members of the Caucus, I want
to commend you for holding this briefing on an important subject
that deserves serious attention from Congress.
The Commission has for several years raised concerns about the
situation for human rights, including religious freedom, in Pakistan.
We have issued a full report with recommendations, and Commission
staff has traveled to the country. As a result of its extensive
examination of Pakistan, the Commission continues to recommend that
Pakistan be designated a "country of particular concern,"
or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
To date, the State Department has not designated Pakistan a CPC.
Although the government of Pakistan itself may not be engaged in
a systematic effort to repress religious minorities, it is clearly
not doing enough adequately to protect the religious freedom of
all of its citizens. Religious minority groups, including
Shi'a Muslims, Christians, and Ahmadis, are subject to violent
sectarian attacks by Sunni militants, often resulting in dozens
of deaths. Although the government has taken some steps to
hold the perpetrators to account, its efforts have not been sufficient.
In addition, the government has been criticized for not taking the
necessary steps to halt the activities of certain religious schools,
or madrassas, that have been implicated in the violence against
religious minorities. Members of the Ahmadi religious community
are prevented by law from engaging in the full practice of their
faith. The criminal laws against blasphemy are abused, resulting
in detention of and sometimes violence against religious minorities,
as well as the targeting of numerous Muslims on account of their
religious beliefs. Finally, the country's Hudood ordinances,
which call for harsh punishments for those who purportedly violate
Islamic law, frequently result in violations of the rights of women
in Pakistan.
General Pervaiz Musharraf, who took power in a military coup in
October 1999, made some announcements early in his tenure that appeared
to indicate that his government was going to begin to address some
of these problems. Unfortunately, his government has, so far,
failed to live up to many of the expectations that it had raised.
Moreover, it has been criticized in Pakistan for capitulating to,
and thus emboldening, political and other societal forces that advocate
policies that are antagonistic to the protection of religious freedom
for all Pakistanis and the equal citizenship of all religious communities.
These concerns were reinforced after the 2002 elections in which
changes to the election rules resulted in the strengthening of the
Islamist parties.
Violence Against Religious Minorities
Sectarian and religiously-motivated violence, much of it committed
against Shi'a Muslims by Sunni militants, is chronic in Pakistan.
Religious minorities such as Ahmadis and Christians have also been
targeted by Sunni extremist groups. Attacks on Shi'a
worship services in February and July 2003 produced multiple fatalities;
the July attack alone resulted in over 50 deaths. In October
2003, gunmen fired on a bus carrying Shi'a Muslims, killing
at least five, and in March 2004, armed men opened fire on Shi'a
worshippers during a religious procession commemorating Al-Shura
in the town of Quetta, leaving 45 dead and 160 wounded. As
recently as last week, 14 Shi'a Muslims were killed when a
suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a mosque in Karachi.
In the last two years, there has been an upsurge in anti-Christian
violence, including fatal attacks on churches and other Christian
institutions. In September 2002, armed men killed seven people
on the premises of a Christian charitable organization; in December,
three children were killed and 14 injured in a grenade attack on
a Christian church in Chianwala village in Sialkot; and in January
2004, a church compound that includes a Christian school for girls
was bombed. Also in January, a Christian pastor was killed
by "unknown assailants"; his family continues to be
harassed. In April, another pastor was killed in a village
near Lahore. Most recently, only a few weeks ago, a Christian
college student was killed after being held for five days inside
an Islamic school, where he was reportedly tortured.
In most if not all of these cases, police protection appears ineffective,
and no one has yet been successfully prosecuted for these crimes.
Perpetrators of attacks on religious minorities are seldom brought
to justice. In the case of the death of the Christian student,
police did register an investigative report against the staff and
clerics of the Islamic school and the head of the school is being
held for questioning. The Commission commends the Pakistani
authorities for launching an investigation of the case and we will
continue to monitor the situation to ensure that the perpetrators
are held to account for this crime.
Religious Extremism
According to Shi'a and Sunni political leaders, as well as
government officials, the violence against religious minorities
is not the result of societal intolerance among religious communities,
but is organized and carried out by groups of religious extremists.
Despite the closer cooperation established between our two governments
following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Pakistani
government's finding and capturing al-Qaeda leaders, the forces
of intolerance have gained ground in Pakistan. As a result
of changes to the election rules initiated by the Musharraf government,
Islamist political parties made strong gains in Pakistan's
national and provincial legislative elections in October 2002. The
legislature in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, dominated
by a coalition of these parties, recently passed legislation imposing
social controls reminiscent of the Taliban regime in neighboring
Afghanistan. Pending provincial legislation would establish
religious police and enforcement mechanisms unaccountable to the
courts. This has led to intensified concerns about the potentially
negative implications in these developments for freedom of religion,
freedom of expression, and the rights of women.
Pakistan has a large number of Islamic religious schools that play
an important role in the country's educational system.
There have been reports that a very small percentage of these schools
provide weapons and other training and thus contribute to religious
violence. A scholar who testified before the Commission and
who has studied Islamic religious schools has concluded that some
of these schools run by particular religious groups provide ideological
training and motivation to those who go on to fight in Afghanistan
and Kashmir, and take part in violence targeting religious minorities
in Pakistan as described above. The government has been criticized
in Pakistan for not taking steps to disarm these schools and to
put a stop to their involvement in acts of violence.
Legal Prohibitions on Ahmadis
The Ahmadis are a religious community of approximately 3-4 million.
Although they consider themselves to be Muslim, some Muslims in
Pakistan hold the opposite view because of the Ahmadis' claim
that their founder was a recipient of divine revelation and a prophet
of God. This claim is believed by some Muslims to violate
a basic Islamic tenet regarding the finality of the prophet Muhammad.
This religious difference has been used in the past by certain Pakistani
governments to justify a number of legal restrictions on the Ahmadis'
practice of their faith. In 1974, a constitutional amendment
was passed that declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslims for purposes
of the Constitution and law. Beginning in 1984, a number of
criminal provisions were promulgated that specifically targeted
Ahmadis, essentially punishing any Ahmadi who "poses"
as a Muslim.
Because the religious practices of the Ahmadis are essentially
the same as those of most Sunni Muslims, these legal prohibitions
have the effect of a far-reaching ban on the public practice of
their faith. As these laws have been interpreted and applied,
it is illegal for Ahmadis to call their places of worship "mosques,"
to worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms (otherwise
open to all Muslims), to perform the Muslim call to prayer, to publicly
quote from the Quran, to wear on their person the medallion carrying
the Kalima which states the basic affirmation of the Muslim faith,
to preach in public, to seek converts, to use the traditional Islamic
greeting in public, and to produce, publish, and disseminate religious
materials. Ahmadis have reportedly been arrested for all of
these acts.
The Ahmadis report that since 1984, at least 3,000 individuals
have been charged under anti-Ahmadi laws and/or with blasphemy or
other religious offenses. The major Ahmadi religious organization
has not been able to hold an official meeting since 1974.
Ahmadis also report that they are prevented from advancing to high
posts in the government and the military, and that they are unable
to obtain government scholarships to, or sometimes even admission
into, colleges and universities. In addition, Pakistani Muslims
who apply for a passport must declare that they consider the Ahmadi
founder to be an "imposter" and that his followers are
non-Muslims. This means that Ahmadis are unable to obtain a passport
or to travel abroad without violating their conscience, i.e. declaring
themselves to be non-Muslim. Similarly, because they are required
to register to vote as non-Muslims, a policy that was reaffirmed
by Pakistani government officials in February 2004, Ahmadis who
refuse to disavow their claim to being Muslims are effectively disenfranchised.
Many Ahmadis believe that the enforcement of criminal laws and
other discriminatory measures against them is not primarily the
result of a direct campaign of the Pakistan government or of widespread
social enmity, but results from pressure by small groups of religious
extremists on local government officials to initiate and prosecute
cases against Ahmadis. However, the current government is
criticized for not opposing the activities of these extremists or
adequately supporting local officials in their efforts to resist
such pressures.
Abuses of the Blasphemy Laws
During military rule under Zia ul-Haq, provisions were added that
penalize defamation of the Prophet Muhammad (punishable by death),
persons associated with the Prophet, and the Quran. There
appears to be widespread agreement among government officials, legal
advocates, and leaders of many religious communities in Pakistan
that these criminal provisions against blasphemy are being abused.
Numerous Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims have been charged
under the blasphemy laws. There has reportedly been an increase
in recent years in abuses of the blasphemy laws against Muslim religious
targets, including Sufis and Muslim religious scholars. Following
an abortive attempt in April-May 2000 at introducing procedural
reforms, the Musharraf regime has made no further effort to reform,
much less repeal, Pakistan's blasphemy laws, and blasphemy
cases continue to be filed under the Musharraf government.
The instigators of a blasphemy charge, alleged to be almost always
false, are reported to fall into three categories: (1) those who
have a personal dispute with the accused that is unrelated to religion
(but the blasphemy law is a convenient way to attack them); (2)
representatives of small but active organizations characterized
as "fundamentalists" and "extremists" that operate
throughout the country that target "deviant" Muslims,
Ahmadis, Christians, and other religious minorities for prosecution;
and (3) local Muslim religious leaders who are either ideologically
or organizationally aligned with or sympathetic to the aforementioned
groups.
Many of those charged with blasphemy are eventually acquitted at
trial, though only after serving long detentions, or cleared on
appeal to the High Court. However, the judicial process typically
takes years. Courts have handed down sentences ranging from
two years imprisonment to death for blasphemy law violations.
Moreover, there have been several well-publicized cases of mob and
terrorist violence, sometimes fatal, against those accused of blasphemy
(including those in police custody), and some accused have reportedly
fled the country on account of harassment and threats.
In March 2003, two Christians were acquitted of blasphemy charges.
The two men, who had been jailed almost four years earlier, had
been sentenced to 35 years in prison by a lower court in May 2000.
Another Christian man was also acquitted of blasphemy charges in
June. In late April, however, a Christian man who had
been arrested in 1998 on blasphemy charges was sentenced to life
in prison. And in August 2003, a Lahore court upheld the life
sentences of two Christians charged with blasphemy.
Hudood Ordinances
Pakistan's Hudood Ordinances, Islamic decrees introduced
in 1979 and enforced alongside the country's secular legal system,
provide for harsh punishments such as amputation and death by stoning
for violations of Islamic law. Although these extreme corporal
punishments have not been carried out in practice due to high evidentiary
standards, lesser punishments such as jail terms or fines have been
imposed. Rape victims run a high risk of being charged with
adultery, for which death by stoning remains a possible sentence.
In October 2003, the National Commission on the Status of Women
in Pakistan issued a report on the Hudood Ordinances that stated
that as many as 88 percent of women prisoners, many of them rape
victims, are serving time in prison for violating these decrees,
which make extramarital sex a crime and adultery a state offense.
The Hudood laws apply to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Commission Recommendations
In addition to recommending that Pakistan be designated a CPC,
the Commission has recommended to the U.S. government that it urge
Pakistan's government to:
-- work toward the abolishment or reform of discriminatory or abusive
legislation such as the blasphemy laws and the anti-Ahmadi legislation;
-- protect all of Pakistan's citizens and lawful institutions,
including places of worship and religiously-affiliated schools,
hospitals, and civic organizations, from sectarian or religiously-motivated
violence;
-- bring to justice the perpetrators of violent attacks and their
backers;
-- ensure that legislation in the North West Frontier Province
does not violate international standards of human rights, including
religious freedom;
-- remove legal impediments to Ahmadis exercising their right to
vote on an equal basis with other Pakistani citizens;
-- discourage the use of "jihadist" or similar political
rhetoric inciting hatred against any religious group;
-- oppose attempts, undertaken ostensibly to protect religion,
to stifle public debate or the right to freedom of expression;
-- make greater efforts to support interfaith dialogue and inter-communal
harmony by bringing Muslim and non-Muslim spiritual leaders and
religious scholars together to promote religious tolerance and respect
for human rights; and
-- intensify its efforts to improve the quality of public education
and to ensure that religious schools are not used as training grounds
for terrorism and sectarian violence.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, successive governments of Pakistan have seriously
violated the religious freedom of Pakistani citizens. For
this reason, the Commission continues to recommend that Pakistan
be designated a CPC. Whatever the nature of the relationship
between our two countries, the right to freedom of religion or belief
is a foundational human right that must be protected in Pakistan
in order to facilitate the political and economic development that
will blunt the appeal of extremists who incite religious hatred
resulting in violent attacks, instigate the passage of discriminatory
legislation, and foment terrorism.
Thank you for providing the occasion to draw attention to this
important matter.
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