Persecution of Religious Minorities: Pakistan

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate, the importance of which is demonstrated by the number of people here to take part on both sides of the Chamber.

As hon. Friends from across the House have said, the Ahmadis are a faith group that makes a huge contribution in this country and internationally. I am very blessed to have an Ahmadi community in Scunthorpe. Although it is relatively small, it has been involved in a lot of good work on various things in the community, to the benefit of everybody. I take the opportunity to thank them for that today. I also had the privilege and pleasure of joining the Jalsa Salana in 2014. Everybody could see and feel the way in which the Ahmadiyya people live, with the “Love for all, hatred for none” belief that is central to their way of life.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) just pointed out, the international work done through Humanity First is an example of the way in which Ahmadis are not only working locally and nationally, but internationally on behalf of all of us. They should be commended for that, and the fact that they suffer in the way they do, in Pakistan in particular, is to be condemned.

Mr Muzaffar Ahmad, from the local Ahmadiyya community in my constituency, said to me recently that the

“persecution of any religious group should be taken seriously and dealt with. If this is not addressed at the source it can proliferate and reach our country as well.”

He went on to say that, sadly, there have been examples of discrimination closer to home. In a democratic, tolerant society such as the United Kingdom, we address those examples of discrimination and worse, and deal with them effectively in our own way. Sadly however, in Pakistan, the Ahmadi Muslim community is the only religious community to be targeted by the Pakistan state on grounds of faith. Ahmadis have been denied basic rights—the rights to life, to vote, to freedom of faith and to dignity after death.

On paper, the constitution of Pakistan does not permit discrimination for school admissions on the sole basis of religion, and as many colleagues have indicated, the Pakistani Government has signed the international covenant on civil and political rights, which—as hon. Members know—guarantees a variety of religious freedoms. However, I want to focus particularly on access to education.

To attend school in Pakistan, students must disclose their faith when applying to schools. That is a hindrance to the ability of Ahmadi Muslims to gain access to education. As I hope everyone in this Chamber and beyond knows, education can absolutely transform young people’s lives, and to be given a lesser education based on religion is nothing less than appalling.

As the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) pointed out, women and girls have been particularly discriminated against by the Pakistan state. They are particularly affected by discrimination because the style of their hijab is distinctive, which prevents them from participating fully in educational and professional settings, potentially furthering gender inequality in Pakistan.

Furthermore, Ahmadi children can be bullied in schools because of their faith. There is evidence that schools with a large number of Ahmadi students are generally assigned teachers who are less effective. All those things affect the quality of education received by Ahmadi students.

I will give a couple of examples to illustrate that discrimination in action. The case of the students in District Layyah serves as a worrisome reminder of how unfounded allegations can result in children being arrested and held in jail for months with no regard for their right to education or welfare. On 28 January 2009, in Kot Sultan, four children and one adult were accused of blasphemy and arrested under section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code which carries the death penalty. The police arrested the accused without establishing a credible prima facie case, charging them without evidence and before conducting any investigation. The children were accused of graffiti which defiled the name of the Prophet Mohammed on the toilet walls of a local non-Ahmadi mosque.

The inspector of the case admitted that

“the police do not know of any substantial evidence that links the four students with the crime”

and there was no evidence that anything had even been written in the first place. The accused children were later moved to the DG Khan prison, which is located a long distance from their home town, making visiting difficult for relatives.

Despite the arrests, many speeches and protests were made to boycott the Ahmadis. Looting and threats of violence took place, to the extent that Ahmadi Muslims feared for their lives and were forced to move their families out of the area. All that took place despite the fact that the two men who were the prime movers in the accusation did not bring forward anything of any quality. The children remained unlawfully detained for six months before finally being granted bail. This is just one example of the sort of thing that has been and is going on, and that we should condemn.

The second example is the removal of Ahmadi Muslim public figures from educational syllabuses. Obviously, the people who are included in syllabuses become role models for achievement and so on. No educational syllabuses include major Ahmadi Muslim public figures who shaped the history of the country. Ahmadi Muslims contributed to the establishment of Pakistan in 1947 and, prior to the anti-Ahmadi laws, served the country with distinction in every sphere of life. A number of such leading figures are also known internationally for their distinctive service and contribution, including two prominent Pakistani Ahmadi Muslims. Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan was instrumental in deciding the Pakistani boundary before partition. He was also Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister, representative at the UN and President of the International Court of Justice at The Hague—a significant figure. Another prominent and yet easily erased figure in history is Professor Abdus Salam, a ground-breaking scientist, famous for his work in the field of physics, who was awarded the first Nobel prize in Pakistani history. People of all faiths in Pakistan can be proud of them and they should be included in the literature, syllabuses and curriculum followed in that country.

I could detail many more examples of discrimination and prevention of access to education, but I will not because I want to be brief. It is important to use our leadership role to encourage Pakistan and ensure that it allows fair access for people of all faiths to education in their country. To be denied that is to be denied a central human right.

Some hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), have pointed out the importance of the Department for International Development’s budget and the significant amount that goes to Pakistan. We should ensure that it does not go without a commitment by that state to tackle these deep-seated issues, to allow all young people, wherever they are from, to have proper access to education and to ensure that the Ahmadis are no longer restricted in that access as they are currently.

Will the Minister indicate what steps the Government are taking to ensure that aid is not being misused by the Pakistani Government to promote religious intolerance and discrimination, and how the aid is being used as encouragement and a lever to ensure that the sort of practices that have too often come to our attention cease and that proper access is given? Will he also say what steps the Government are taking to ensure universities in the United Kingdom do not become partners with universities in Pakistan that promote religious hatred and discrimination in their educational material and their recruitment and admissions procedures?