The recent years have seen a rise in the trend of exclusion of non-Muslims from our national society and there are factions within the State ensuring the continuation of this process. Having said that, one cannot be stress more that no citizens, Muslims or non-Muslims should be hounded due to the religious beliefs they hold.
It’s not only un-Islamic but inhumane, but Pakistanis have seriously wrong and flawed social attitudes towards its citizens that aren’t main stream Muslim. The 2016 report “State of Religious Freedom in Pakistan” by Jinnah Institute has noted a rise in communal violence against religious minorities. During the period of 2012-2015, at least 351 incidents of violence were carried out against Pakistani minorities.
The attacks on Christian community rose steadily, fueled by a horde of religious-political groups inclined towards extremist ideologies and fundamentalism. These include Sipah-e-Sahaba, Tehreek-e-Taliban, Jammat-ud-Dawa and aided by many local clerics involved in public hate speech instrumental in rising intolerance towards Christian brethren.
Today no one in Pakistan can deny that clerics made use of the ‘mosque loud speakers” against vulnerable segments of our society including women and religious minorities. If that was not all, terrorist groups also took to public platforms for hate speech against Christian and other religious minorities.
Until yesterday, hate speech sermons like…
“The Bible contains blasphemous materials and against Muslim sentiments and should be banned in the country.”
Or something along the lines of “Christians are infidels that can be killed, they Christians and Jews are the enemies of Islam.”
We Pakistanis have been subjected to all sorts of blatant hate speech by ignorant and hardliner clerics that have enjoyed ‘unchecked autonomy’ since decades by using the mosque as a center for their hate speech goals against the disfranchised segments of the society.
Today its no surprise, that many Pakistanis carry all sorts of disturbing but acceptable societal biases against minorities like Christians, Hindus, Ahmedis, Parsis and others. When we were young, the religion of a class mate, colleague or neighbor hardly mattered but today there is this obsession of being Muslim and that too a wahabi inclined one!
This happens when State stays mum while religious bodies continue to enjoy unrestricted powers leading to widespread bigotry within society. The public hate speeches and mosque speakers have had a direct role in Pakistan’s growing intolerance against religious minorities within the country.
Since 2014, Pakistan’s government has renewed its pledge for ending terrorism and has taken various steps to quell hate speech under the National Action Plan. For the first time ever, hate crimes are listed as serious offences that will be dealt seriously and through administrative action. This is a crucial step towards better protection of powerless segments in our society – the minorities.
In a move, widely appreciated within the country, banning the use of loudspeakers except for azan and Arabic sermons during Friday prayers is one of the several measures the government had announced. Although Islamic religious bodies are divided over such moves, rights groups have welcomed the initiative.
In last year, the authorities actually went ahead and booked a number of violators of the Amplifier Act. The police have also been directed to show zero tolerance against the misuse of loudspeaker, wall-chalking, and other elements involved in printing or distribution of "provocative" material.
Alone in 2015, over 650 cases were registered against the institutions who were involved in violating the law, misuse of mosque loud speaker in particularly those provoking communal unrest violence through sermons.
Yet, harmony cannot be achieved in one day’s work but authorities must be urged to continue the state level expurgation of hate material and speech for a future. If Pakistan continues on this path, it is possible to imagine a calmer and peaceful time where different sections of the society coexist under the green and white flag that symbolizes Pakistan's commitment to all its citizens and equal rights regardless of their religious identities