The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published a report Tuesday accusing South East Asian nations of systematically failing to protect their populations’ religious rights, noting that “state officials” in Pakistan often shield criminals forcing Christian or Hindu women into a Muslim marriage.
The report, titled “Limitations on Minorities’ Religious Freedom in South Asia,” tracks religious freedom variations in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, finding them all lacking in enforcing religious freedom protections, even when these exist under federal law. Pakistan, an officially Islamist country, and India, which has experienced a surge in Hindu extremism, are home to the most egregious violations mentioned in the study.
The U.S. State Department designated Pakistan a “Country of Particular Concern” on Tuesday for its religious freedom violations under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which also created the USCIRF. The designation is expected to trigger sanctions on the nation, which appears on the list for the first time after being added to the “Special Watch List” last year.
The USCIRF’s findings appear to support the State Department’s decision. The report notes that private actors commit many violations of religious freedom, but often do so with impunity. Forced marriages are high on the list of those violations.
“The Pakistani media has featured many stories with a similar series of events: a Muslim man will kidnap, sexually assault, forcibly convert, and then forcibly marry a young Christian or Hindu woman, often with the collusion of state officials, such as the police and religious leaders, and neighborhood imams,” the report reads.
On the issue of forced marriage, intended to eradicate the Christian population through conversion, the report notes that some Pakistani politicians attempted to pass laws to protect Christian and Hindu women, which make up most of the religious minority population of the country. A proposed law in 2016 would have “criminalized the forcible conversion of religious minorities,” but the governor of Sindh province, where the law originated, “refused to assent to the law and therefore it stands unimplemented or enforced.”
Governors in Pakistan who have supported measures to prevent the violation of religious rights have suffered extreme consequences. In a notable 2011 case, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, publicly expressed disapproval of the use of the nation’s blasphemy law to sentence Asia Bibi, a Christian mother, to death. His bodyguard assassinated him and remains a hero among the Islamist political majority in the country.
More at: https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2018/...into-marriage/
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