Session 9- Does the Pakistani assemblies discriminates?
Pakistan is
the nation which comprises of diverse ethnic and religious sectors. As we all
know assemblies act as bridge between the governments and people and plays
important part in devising legislatures of the state. However, in certain legislations
and laws the voices and interests of minorities were suppressed.
In 1974, under Bhutto regime a constitutional amendment
declared Ahmedis as non-Muslims and in 1984, a section was added into Pakistan Penal Code which banned the practice of Ahmadiya i.e. prohibits preaching of their faith,
conference and public gathering. Any violation of these terms results in imprisonment
of 3 years and fines. These amendments disturbs the Ahemdi community and regarded
as suppression of their religious freedom.
Secondly, in Zia’s regime several controversial
polices were passed like Hudood Ordinance. According to this ordinance, the
women were required to provide the four male witnesses in case of Zina (adultery)
and Zina-bil-jabr (rape).However, Quran does not talk about the witness requirement
in case of Zina-bil- jar and any failure leads to punishment of tazir.
Moreover, according to Quran, these laws are only applicable on Muslims whereas Hudood Ordinance
applied to all citizens of Pakistan. So the women rights were repressed as it
would be extremely difficult for them to find ‘pious’ man and failure leads to
their accusation.
However, several step were taken to reduce the
gender discrepancies by the assemblies like the women representation were increased
and Women Protection Bill was passed in 2006, which repealed the Hudood
Ordinance. Moreover, new electoral process was introduced which allows the minority
to vote only for their respective communities thus increasing the chances of their
representation in assemblies.
So it is
difficult to conclude whether assemblies discriminate or not as laws were amended
and repealed according to the circumstances.
Like many other issues assemblies were not able to over come the problem of increased gender discrepancies caused by the laws. For now Pakistan stands 4th on the list of countries with highest gender inequality
ReplyDeleteI believe that in Pakistan assemblies do in a way sideline the other religious ethnic groups of the society. All the examples given above clearly shows that the people of Pakistan did not ever accept the other minorities in the country. Today, this gap between them has widen with the passage of time and countless innocent lives of Shias, Ahmedis, Christaians and others are being lost almost every year. The laws that were passed by the assemblies can be viewed simply paving this path of discrimination and injustice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mahnoor and Ariba that assemblies have failed to protect minorities from discirminatory practices.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, assemblies at large are unrepresentative of even the masses as issues such as the tax rate and large amount of Spending on defence ( at the cost of health and poverty) are largely decisions made in opposition to the masses.
Even elected members of the parliament who represent minorities fail to do much as he or she can only do so much as one pawn in a large game of chess.