Pakistan is the biggest violator of human rights in the Muslim world after Saudi Arabia and Iran

Mr Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam.com said on 11 June 2010, addressing a parallel seminar on Human Right Concerns in South Asia organised by Inter-Faith International during UN Human Rights Council’s Session at Geneva:

“Humanity in general, but Muslims in particular, have got to become very careful about how Islam is being projected by Muslims in the eyes of the world. Thus not only world organisation like the UN, but also Muslim Organisations like OIC must intervene and seek to impress upon offending Muslim countries like Pakistan to stop following domestic and foreign policies that sully the name of Islam.”

Explaining the situation in Pakistan, perhaps the biggest violator of human rights in the Muslim world after Saudi Arabia and Iran, Mr Sultan Shahin, said: “Just a couple of weeks ago, nearly a hundred Ahmadis were killed while praying in their mosques in Lahore. This kind of killing has become virtually routine for another sectarian minority, the Shia, too. Suicide bombers regularly invade their mosques on the pretext of praying with them and explode themselves, killing scores of their co-religionists. Ethnic minorities like the Baluchis, Mohajirs, Pashtuns and Sindhis are under constant pressure of varying intensity at different times on different pretexts. Religious minorities like Hindus and Christians face similar persecution.

“There have been several incidents of these religious minorities having had their prayer houses burnt down, killing scores. Forced conversions to Islam, particularly of Hindu girls, who are abducted first, have become another routine. Hindu minorities who constituted 23 per cent of the population at the time of Pakistan’s creation in 1947 have now been reduced to barely 2 per cent. These religious minorities, along with the Ahmadis, also suffer from Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws which prescribe death for alleged defamation of Islam. In the case of Ahmadis their mere claim to be Muslim constitutes blasphemy. This leads to some ridiculous but deadly situation for the minorities. Two Ahmadi teachers were put under detention and faced the threat of death penalty merely because their bikes had a sticker containing a verse of the Holy Quran, (Is God not sufficient for His servant?). “

For the full text of speech go to: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamIslamHumanRights_1.aspx?ArticleID=3225