On the second day of the Karachi Literature Festival,  the seminar ‘Minority Rights in Pakistan’ drew an enthusiastic audience. Panelists included HRCP coordinator for Sindh Task Force, Ashothama Lohano, advocate and lecturer of constitutional law and human rights, Shaqaib Lila, women’s rights activist, Maliha Zai and founding member of Women’s Action Forum, Hilda Saeed. The session was moderated by Jamal Janjua.

Lohano made an impassioned speech, saying that if the constitution readily declared minorities as half-citizens, this is tantamount to declaring them half-human. He said that this is precisely the reason why it is so commonplace to desecrate temples and churches, to disrupt their festivities with acts of terror and we simply accept this. It is practically with the sanction of the state that a non-Muslim minor girl will be forced to marry a Muslim man much older than her and be converted to Islam.

Maliha Zai added to this sentiment, saying that from the get-go the constitution denies minorities positions in political office. She continued saying that if you have memorized the Quran you will have certain professional advantages but this isn’t the case for other religions. Such discrimination permeates into law, so the Blasphemy Law declares that it is illegal to insult any religion but the ground reality is that it is only serving to ‘benefit’ Sunni Muslims.

Then, of course, there is the fact that the government and people refuse to acknowledge that minorities have been a source of pride for Pakistan including our first Nobel Laureate.

Hilda Saeed pointed out that a bill for the protection of minorities was drafted but due to religious pressure it was withdrawn. Such is the climate of Pakistan at the moment regarding human rights for non-Muslims.