Participants at a virtual conference on human rights in Pakistan highlighted the suffering of minorities, forced conversions of girls, and the labeling of Pashtuns as terrorists. The event, hosted by Pakistani human rights activist Arif Ajakia, featured David Vance, a social rights activist and researcher, Azeem Masih, Vice President of the Pakistan Minorities Rights Organization (PMRO), Habibur Rahman, President of the France chapter of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), and Salih Uder, Foreign Minister of the government in exile in East Turkestan.
While discussing the state of human rights in Pakistan, Azeem Masih, Vice President of PMRO Pakistan, expressed concerns about the situation and said, “We discuss human rights issues everywhere. But I think that the issues in Pakistan are much more tense than anywhere else, especially because minorities in Pakistan are suffering. And you can see every day the churches are getting attacked, the girls are getting forced to convert and they’re kidnapped, even the underage girls are getting taken away from their parents; they’re forced to get married and all the chapters of different political parties are lashing against each other”.
“But not only for the minorities, there are different things oppressing each other in Pakistan. Some provinces have more rights than others. Some provinces have more control than others in Pakistan. All those things are mixed up and those mixed up things are making more trouble for the humans living in Pakistan,” Masih added.
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Representatives from social organizations worldwide and the foreign minister of the government in exile of East Turkestan participated in the virtual seminar on Saturday. The Asian Human Rights Forum organized a virtual discussion addressing serious human rights violations in Asian countries.
Another leader belonging to the Pashtun community of Pakistan, Habibur Rahman, the president of PTM France, said in his statement “We are here, we are raising the voice of oppressed Pashtuns, and also all other oppressed communities like Balochs, Sindhis, and the people of POK, which are suffering because of the army of Pakistan.”
During the conference, he further mentioned that “The army always talks about these terrorists, which in reality are fostered by Pakistan. They go to the area of Pashtuns by the name of Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish, like this kind of terrorist.”
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