Rights panel in Pakistan reports forced conversions, curbs on media

ISLAMABAD — An independent rights watchdog on Monday raised concerns about incidents in Pakistan of forced conversions and marriages of girls from the country’s minority Hindu and Christian community to Muslim men.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in it annual report said lawmakers need to pass effective legislation to end the practice. It said around 1,000 cases of forced conversion of Hindu and Christian girls were reported just in the southern Sindh province last year. In some cases, it said the girls were recovered on court orders, but the situation in general remained appalling.

“Unfortunately, no authentic data is available on forced conversions” and marriages in Pakistan, the report said.

Ghazi Salahuddin, a senior member of the watchdog, said Pakistani media have also faced “unprecedented curbs” in the previous year.

The “State of Human Rights in 2018,” released in the capital, Islamabad, is considered a report card on Pakistan, where Hindus, Christians and Sikhs and Ahmadis are small minorities.

The rights overview came out less than a week after a Pakistani court allowed two sisters from the Hindu community to live with their Muslim husbands, rejecting allegations from their parents saying their daughters were abducted and forcibly married.

The report said minorities “continued to face harassment, arrest or even death for simply living their lives in accordance with their beliefs in Pakistan in 2018.”

The report also expressed concern over what it says was the misuse of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, where around 70 people have been lynched since 1990 on charges of insulting Islam.

It said 40 people were currently on death row or serving a life sentence after being convicted on charges of blasphemy.