Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Islamabad (Agenzia Fides) - "In 2014 intolerance and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds increased in Pakistan, with the complicity of the authorities or lack of measures to combat it": says the new 2014-2015 Amnesty International Report on the human rights situation in the world. "In Pakistan - remarks the text sent to Fides - blasphemy laws continued to be linked to the violence of the vigilantes. Police were warned of imminent attacks regarding some people suspected of blasphemy but did not take adequate steps to protect them. Shiite Muslims were killed in attacks by armed groups; also Ahmadis and Christians were targeted".
In Asia and the Pacific, despite some positive developments, "the general trend was regressive because of impunity, unequal treatment and violence against women, torture and use of the death penalty, repression of freedom of expression and assembly, pressure on civil society and threats against human rights defenders continue", said Amnesty.
"Several countries in the region have continued to impose the death penalty. In December, an attack led by the Pakistani Taliban against the public military school in Peshawar caused 149 deaths, including 134 children: the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan's history. In response, the government cancelled the moratorium and quickly sentenced to death seven men, already convicted of other offenses related to terrorism. Over 500 people are at risk of being put to death", notes the Report, saying that "even politically motivated attacks against journalists have increased. In Pakistan, at least eight journalists have been killed as a direct result of their work, making the country one of the most dangerous in the world for those who carry out this profession". In the country, concludes Amnesty, "the practice of forced marriages of minors, of so-called honor killings, violence against women continue". (PA) (Agenzia Fides 25/02/2015)
