Geneva: Human rights activists and scholars from Sindh brought up the “deteriorating human rights situation” in Pakistan’s Sindh province on Friday during the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
A panel of Sindhi activists, reportedly including Fatima Gul, Muzafar Talpur, Reva Tharwani, and Sindhu Rustamani, discussed human rights violations in Pakistan at a side event under the title of “Human Rights Violations in Pakistan” with an aim to draw attention to the oppression of the Sindhi people worldwide.
“When we talk about human rights violations, the big issues are actually abductions of thousands of young girls who are then converted to Islam and enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings cases,” said Fatima Gul, a Sindhi American human rights activist.
Using blasphemy as a weapon against the community, radical Islamists in Sindh province are persecuting the minority Hindu community.
“We all Sindhis, whether Muslims or Hindus, go to school and we study Islamic studies. So, arresting Sindhi people for blasphemy is ridiculous because all religions are respected & we’ve been living together side by side with different belief systems. Human rights should be respected in Pakistan,” Gul was quoted as saying by the news agency ANI.
In addition, the activist stated that Sindhis are having a lot of issues with infrastructure, education, and the economy and that Sindh has not been Pakistan’s main priority.
Muzafar Talpur, the director of the Sindhi Foundation, said in a statement with ANI: ” “If anyone speaks about the rights, he gets disappeared. The alarming thing is we have found a lot of Sindhi activists’ bullet-riddled bodies as well. So, it’s really the big issue right now.”
According to Talpur, the majority of young Sindhis now live in fear and fear permeates every aspect of society making it the largest issue of current times in Sindh.
Human rights must be upheld, he continued. “Everything related to human rights is most important. And, I think in the state of Pakistan if human rights are respected, 95 per cent of the problem is going to be solved.”
Talpur feels Sindh’s minorities are vulnerable and simple targets. “They don’t have a representation. Most of the time, it is the economic reason too as they are vulnerable and easy to target,” he said.
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