Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Lord Suri Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Suri (Con)]

My Lords, Pakistan is a country that has prevalent issues in its adherence to Article 18 of the UDHR. Today, minorities are subject to forced conversions and marriages, blasphemy laws and even rape. The current situation is a sad state of affairs when we consider Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech to the New Delhi Press Club in 1947 which pre-empted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He highlighted the importance of religious pluralism and freedom of religion or belief, and in his address he set out the basis on which the new state of Pakistan was to be founded. In particular, he forcefully defended the right of minorities to be protected and to have their beliefs respected, saying:

“Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion, faith or belief will be secure”.

Today, however, minorities do not have the safeguards he spoke of and from current trends it appears that the realisation of Article 18 in Pakistan may become a distant dream. One area that is exacerbating the situation for minorities are the curricula and public school textbooks, which contain indoctrinating teachings against minorities. There is considerable evidence that many children from religious minority backgrounds are discriminated against in schools and some do not attend at all due to a culture of intolerance and hatred against them within classrooms. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has highlighted issues with many textbooks used in Pakistan, which are sowing discord and animosity against minorities. Its major findings are that the content of Pakistani public school textbooks related to non-Islamic faiths and non-Muslims continues to teach bias, distrust and inferiority. This perhaps provides some explanation of the deteriorating state of religious freedom in Pakistan today.

Considering that over 30% of DfID’s aid to Pakistan is allocated towards education, it is important to ensure that Her Majesty’s Government do not in any way contribute towards perpetuating the negative portrayal of religious minorities and the incitement of intolerance and hatred. Instead, we must ensure that we support vulnerable children from religious minority backgrounds and address the discrimination or persecution they may face. Not only would this help encourage more students into education but it would contribute to building peace and stability while countering prospective radicalisation. It is imperative that that these curricula and the culture are reformed to ensure that a generation of children are not brought up with a skewed and intolerant attitude to religious minorities as this provides fertile conditions for radicalisation.

Inevitably, the manifestation of intolerant attitudes will further inflame an environment which is already hostile towards minorities. It will further degrade the fragile condition of freedom of religion or belief in Pakistan. Thus we must ensure that we are doing everything we can to bring about cultural change in Pakistan in order fully to respect Article 18.