Minorities in Pakistan continue to face rights violations despite legislative measures to protect them: HRCP

LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Thursday concluded that religious minorities continue to face violations of their fundamental rights — including through the misuse of blasphemy laws, forced marriages and conversions, hate speech and discriminatory practices — despite recent legislative measures aimed at protecting them. In its seventh annual report on freedom of religion, titled “Sanctuary Denied: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2025/26”, and an accompanying press release, the HRCP highlighted that scores of individuals accused of blasphemy remained in legal limbo, while alleged perpetrators of an “organised entrapment network” had yet to be investigated.

The report documented attacks on the Ahmadi community, including two attacks in Chenab Nagar in October 2025 and June 2026, and pointed out “increasingly overt attempts to exclude Ahmadis” from public and commercial life. Girls belonging to Christian and Hindu communities continued to face abductions and forced marriages , compounded by poverty and inadequate police responses, the report said. Discriminatory employment practices, controversial changes to school curricula and the marginalisation of minority concerns in mainstream media further undermined the principle of equal citizenship, it added. At the report’s launch, HRCP Director Farah Zia warned that the state’s approach to religious minorities was becoming increasingly exclusionary, according to the press release issued by the commission. Minority rights defender Nabila Feroz Bhatti highlighted the case of Kamran Gill, a Christian medical practitioner from Sheikhupura, whose dispensary was set ablaze by a mob on Oct 9 following allegations that he had shared blasphemous content on social media. HRCP Vice-Chair in Punjab Raja Ashraf…