New York: At a United Nations meeting, the United States, The United Kingdom and Canada raised the issue of suppression of religious freedom by China and Pakistan and slammed the two Asian nations for “persecuting and repressing” their religious minorities.
The US, UK and Canada raised concerns over the increasingly widespread and the undue restrictions on religious freedom in the two countries during the meet on Safety of Religious Minorities. They also pointed out the discrimination faced by the Uyghur community in China and of Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan.
” Today, a large number of people are marginalised in their own societies. The biased behaviour dwells in other areas also, like the minorities on the basis of religious affiliation as in Pakistan, Ahmadis having a situation; like China, growing number of countries using national security as a pretext for restricted religious expression at the role of religion in public domain,” said Naveen Walter, President of Human Rights Focus Pakistan.
China and Pakistan were condemned internationally for cracking down on the minorities living in their countries. The Uyghurs were oppressed and sent back to mass detention camps by China and interfered in their religious matters and the community had to undergo forceful re-education or indoctrination.
Pakistan has also been discriminating against its religious minorities in the form of heinous crimes such as targeted violence, mass killings, extrajudicial killings, abduction, rapes, forced conversion to Islam, etc. that resulted in making the Pakistani Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiyyas and Shias as one of the most persecuted minorities in the region.
“We remain deeply concerned about the Chinese government escalating widespread and undue restrictions on religious freedom in China. We urge the Chinese government to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of everyone in that nation,” said Sam Brownback, US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.
