Compliance with court orders to protect rights of minorities extremely unsatisfactory: report

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The participants of the dialogue organised by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) have urged the federal and provincial governments to enact anti-conversion laws and effectively implement the Supreme Court verdict of June 19, 2014, for the protection of the minorities’ rights.The CSJ’s report titled “A Long Wait for Justice” was launched based on the five years’ assessment of compliance since the court verdict in 2014.The report observed that compliance with court orders had been extremely unsatisfactory, far from impressive and sporadic at best during the past five years.The overall and on-paper compliance level went no further than 24 percent. The implementation gap in compliance with judgments is largely attributable to lack of political will about minorities, institutional hiccups and lethargy or ineptitude on the part of the decision-makers and implementers.Peter Jacob, the CJP’s executive director, who authored the report, led the discussion, and emphasised that no civilised society can ignore accountability for rights without collective efforts to ensure all citizens’ equal access to civil liberties and social justice. It was crucial for the public representatives in the legislative assemblies to introduce legislation for protection of religious minorities in Pakistan.He said the Sindh Commission for Minorities’ Rights was yet to be established, while federal and the other provincial governments had not passed laws to constitute commissions for minorities rights. He emphasised that the court verdict had suffered neglect in implementation; therefore, the federal and provincial governments must set up an empowered inter-ministerial and cross-sectional implementation committee for effective compliance.Ali Palh, a known lawyer and rights activist, expressed his concerns over the unchecked rise in the incidence of forced conversions, and called upon the government to introduce concrete legal safeguards to enforced conversions and marriages to curb the forced or manipulated conversions. He urged the courts to check the jurisdiction of the cases involving allegations of forced conversions and marriages, and investigate the elements of coercion before passing a verdict in cases.A lawyer, Kalpana Devi, urged the government to set up inter-ministerial and inter-departmental coordination in the process of preventing, reporting, investigating, prosecuting and punishing the phenomenon of forced conversions of minorities’ women.An academic, Dr Riaz Shaikh, noted that hate content continues to be part of public textbooks despite the clear directive of the apex court regarding the development of curricula that contribute to promoting tolerance. He called for the removal of discrimination from textbooks, education policy and school setting to acknowledge religious diversity and make learning environment receptive to all students.The participants dilated upon the reservation of a five percent job quota for minorities, which remained unimplemented by the federal and all provincial governments, including Sindh, and mostly minorities were recruited for menial jobs.They called upon the government to introduce similar affirmative action (a five percent educational quota) for admissions of minority students to higher education and professional educational institutions to make the job reservation policy successful. Participants also included prominent rights activists, and journalists, including Zulfiqar Halepoto, Chaman La, Safina Javed, Chandan Kumar, William Sadiq, Ravi Kumar, Sadia Baloch, and Susan Kashif.

from The News International - Karachi http://bit.ly/2X0aMg3
The News International - Karachi