ASIA/PAKISTAN - Call of Catholics for the independence of the Commission for Minorities from the government

Monday, 8 March 2021 religious minorities   human rights  

Karachi (Agenzia Fides) - “The working style of the National Commission for Minorities has so far been unsatisfactory. The themes of the meetings have not been made public so far and there are members of the Committee who are not official. Furthermore, the Commission is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interreligious Harmony, and thus lacks the necessary independence", says Kashif Aslam, Deputy Director of Projects of the" Justice and Peace "Commission (CCJP) in the Catholic Bishops' Conference.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the same Commission in recent days, Kashif Aslam further said: "Establishing the Commission is one of the eight tasks assigned to the government by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on June 19, 2014, in a well-known ruling which encouraged the protection of religious minorities. The Commission needs to be independent from the government. In addition, it should include at least a third of a female delegation. As promoters of human rights, we want this Commission to have greater powers and more authority to fulfill its mission of protecting religious minorities who live in Pakistan". The National Commission for Minorities was formed in May 2020 and has six official members and twelve non-official members including Archbishop of Lahore, His Exc. Mgr. Sebastian Francis Shaw.
Zahid Farooq, joint director of the Urban Resource Center in Karachi, told Fides: "The most vulnerable people in society need more support and protection. We ask this Commission to be easily accessible to people.
Members of religious minorities should be able to come into contact with it in a climate of trust. So far, there is not an office to turn to. I urge officials to create a point of contact so that the Commission can be made aware of the challenges that need to be addressed".
Zulfiqar Ali Shah, joint director of the Pakistani Institutes of Labor Education and Research (PILER), sharing his views, said: "There is some disappointment within civil society as this Commission seems weak from the start. It should be an independent Commission that deals in particolar with health, educational and patrimonial issues of religious minorities, monitoring events and ensuring the fair implementation of the law".
Dr. Jaipal Chabbria, a Hindu member of the Commission on Religious Minorities, defends the organism's work: We are making progress to effectively improve the protection, improvement and development of religious minorities who live in Pakistan. During the meetings I recommended that the Commission be independent and placed under the aegis of the Commission for Human Rights".
Anthony Naveed, member of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh, in an interview with Fides, said: "We should communicate the challenges that religious minorities find themselves facing in Pakistan. 2020 was a black year, due to the high number of forced conversions of women from religious minorities. We should work to strengthen the Commission for Minority Rights, something we are already doing in Sindh province". (AG) (Agenzia Fides, 8/3/2021)


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