ISLAMABAD – Over 50 members of the European Parliament, in a written letterto Prime Minister Imran Khan, expressed concerns and sought assurances thatthe persecution of religious minorities would cease immediately.
The European parliamentarians reminded the premier that oppressingminorities is a violation of the United National treaty on UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights (ICCPR).
It further explained and ICCPR Convention is part of the 27 coreconventions set out as a prerequisite criteria for the EU’s GSP-Plus statusof which Pakistan is a beneficiary.
The letter added that continued violation of the ICCPR Convention maycompel EU to call on the European Commission to suspend all subsidies andtrade preferences to Pakistan.
“Today’s Pakistan is far removed from being the country that its foundingfather, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had envisaged. Jinnah had always insisted thatPakistan would be a Muslim majority State where people from all religions,whether Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Ahmadis or Shias, would betreated equally,” read the letter.
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It said, “Over the last seven decades, successive governments in Pakistanhave contributed to implementing discriminatory systems that have resultedin political, economic and social persecution of religious minorities,which have encouraged acts of violence against them by radical Islamicgroups.”
The letter cited the case of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who wassentenced to death row on blasphemy charges but was acquitted by theSupreme Court of Pakistan in 2018.
