A prominent rights group in Pakistan has expressed “considerable alarm” over the state of religious freedom in the country.
In its report titled A Breach of Faith: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2021-22 released on Tuesday, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said incidents of the country’s religious minorities facing persecution remained consistent between July 2021 and June 2022. The HRCP report focused on forced conversions, the desecration of places of worship belonging to minorities and the marginalization of the Ahmadi community.
The rights group called for urgent legislation to criminalize forced conversions and demanded the state make a concerted effort to counter sectarian violence by developing a national narrative that “unambiguously eschews religious extremism and majoritarianism.”
Read more here.
