MRM, Civil Society put demands on National Minority Rights Day

The Minority Rights March (MRM) and affiliated Civil Society Groups & Activists have said that they stand together in solidarity to observe the National Minority Rights Day.

They maintained that currently in Pakistan there is a huge increase in persecution and violence against religious minorities; targeted attacks; desecration and seizure of worship places; discrimination in education and employment; abduction, forced conversion, forced marriage and rape of minor girls; misuse of blasphemy laws to settle vendettas – all creating an environment of fear, insecurity, resentment, and hopelessness in minority communities, especially among minority youth.

Fundamental Constitutional rights and state ratified UN Conventions are contravened; our Founder’s 11 August 1947 historic speech is forgotten; then-Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Honorable Tassaduq Hussain Jilani’s landmark minority rights judgement (2014 PLD 699 SC) remains unimplemented.

They said that we gather to march for our demands and for our rights as equal citizens of the State.

Demands

(1) Enact a Constitutional Amendment deleting the word “non-Muslim” (which negates specific religious identity), replacing it with respective identities; repeal discriminatory Constitutional clauses against equal citizenship; amend Articles 41 and 91, enabling eligibility of minorities to all State offices on merit, regardless of faith; amend the constitution and all other relevant laws to amend the format of oath to public offices to include method of oath of each religious minority.

(2) Ensure meaningful equitable political representation and empowerment of minorities; proportionally increase reserved seat quotas in federal/provincial legislatures and local governments; promote increased membership and representation of minorities in political parties at senior policymaking levels.

(3) Amend the election laws to mandate each political party to ensure at least 5% candidature of religious minorities on general seats and 20% nomination on women reserved seats; amend the election laws to ensure franchise of religious minorities on reserved seats of minorities as defined in Articles 51 and 106 of the Constitution.

(4) Ensure safe education and working spaces for minority girls and women; enact and implement legislation for protection against discrimination, sexual harassment, abduction, forced conversion, forced underage marriage and gender-based violence; establish exclusive shelter homes/dar-ul-amans for victims of such crimes belonging to religious minorities.

(5) Suitably amend and implement personal laws of religious minorities to ensure that any inter-faith marriage with a Muslim solemnized and registered under any such personal law shall only be dissolvable and voidable under the procedure provided under such personal law; protect right to alimony, assets, inheritance and all matrimonial entitlements of the spouse belonging to a minority community and any children born out of such wedlock, in such a marriage.

(6) Amend blasphemy laws to prevent frivolous blasphemy accusations by bringing them in consonance with prevalent Islamic jurisprudence, standards of criminal liability and ‘mens rea’ and due process; make these laws non-cognizable and bailable; take measures for protection of an accused, UTP or convict under these laws; legislate to prevent and penalize misuse of blasphemy laws to target minorities; vigilante mob killings and attacks on minority communities.

(7) Fully implement in both letter and spirit, the landmark SCP 2014 J. T.H. Jilani judgement (2014 PLD 699 SC); establish independent autonomous National and Provincial Commissions for Minority Rights.

(8) Ensure protection from illegal seizure or occupation of minority heritage property, worship places, educational institutions; return, repair, renovate, restore all seized or desecrated property; digitize ownership records/data; denationalize and return all minority-origin education and health institutions.

(9) Undertake urgent reforms of public sector education curriculum and textbooks, to eliminate all content fostering discriminatory attitudes or hate speech; inculcate respect for minorities; promote pluralism, peace, harmony, ethics, acceptance of diversity; restrict all religious instruction content to one subject per faith; include Quaid-e-Azam’s 11 August 1947 speech in curricula and textbooks.

(10) Promote minorities’ rights to dignity, economic empowerment, livelihoods, decent living wages; affirmative measures, e.g. facilitating registration of NADRA documentation/domicile, ensuring protection and effective implementation mechanisms for minority job quotas; promoting gender balance; recruitment at all professional ranks, levels, cadres; eliminating past demeaning attitudes on “untouchability” and discriminatory reservation of jobs for minority communities in janitorial sanitation work categories.

(11) Promote culture of inclusiveness by celebrating religious festivals of minorities at national level and ensure availability of holidays to employees during such religious festivals at both public and private sector, while ensure no public or private educational institutions shall hold any examinations for students of minority communities during such festivals.