Pakistan's religious minorities continue to suffer: HRCP

Religious minorities in Pakistan, including the Hindu and Christian communities, continued to suffer in 2019, facing forced conversions and persecution under blasphemy laws, according to the country's human rights commission.

The Human Right Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that religious minorities remained unable to enjoy the freedom of religion or belief guaranteed to them under the country's Constitution.

In its annual report State of Human Rights 2019 -- released here, the HRCP said: "For minority Ahmadiyya community in Punjab, this included the desecration of several sites of worship. Both the Hindu and Christian communities in Sindh and Punjab continued to report cases of forced conversion.

In Punjab, girls as young as 14, were forcibly converted and coerced into marriage.

In Sindh, the case of two Hindu girls whose families claimed they had been kidnapped for marriage and converted forcibly, drew widespread attention when the Islamabad High Court ruled that the girls were ..