Pakistan

Years of radicalization of the society, an educational curriculum that breeds hatred for minorities, and a judicial system that is unwilling to protect them and often even condones the behavior of aggressors are all part of the problems.

In yet another manifestation of how Pakistan’s ‘blasphemy’ laws — laws penalising criticism of Islam and its founder — are repeatedly used for persecuting religious minorities, a Hindu man has been found not guilty of blasphemy, after spending five years in jail amid death threats.

Hindus in Pakistan are a small minority, mostly in rural Sindh, facing socioeconomic challenges like landlessness and low-wage labor, as well as state-sponsored discrimination and religious extremism.
They face forced conversions, denial of supplies, attacks on properties, false blasphemy accusations, and abduction of women.
India’s Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) offers expedited citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan and other neighboring countries. However, the act has been maligned as discriminatory by anti-India forces.

In this weekly summary for the period from 3 December to 9 December 2023, we hope to provide a snapshot of such crimes and hopefully awaken more people around the world to this human rights crisis:

Pakistan continues to eliminate the final remnants of Hinduism from the country as the authorities now have attacked two prominent Hindu places of worship, a report published in CNN News18 said. The assault on religious minorities claimed the existence of the Hinglaj Mata Mandir (temple) in Sindh province where officials in the Tharparkar District demolished the holy place in the city of Mithi under the pretext of a court decision.

Several members of Pakistan’s Hindu community and other faiths were injured on Thursday after the police in Sindh province baton charged them as they held a sit-in against the increasing cases of kidnappings of Hindu traders and others from minority communities for ransom.