Excerpt from the targeting of minority 'Others' in Pakistan "Muzaffar Bhutto"

www.britishpakistanichristians.org

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

Excerpt from the targeting of minority 'Others' in Pakistan ( Graphic text)

Security forces, including Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, were implicated in a number of gruesome murders and disappearances of political activists from nationalist parties and ‘suspected insurgents’. As an Amnesty International report noted: “Muzaffar Bhutto, a senior member of a Sindhi nationalist political party in Pakistan, was found dead on 22nd May 2011, after being allegedly abducted by plain- clothed intelligence agents and police on 25th February 2011. Amnesty International calls for the killing to be investigated and the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Muzaffar Bhutto was the General-Secretary of Jeay Sindh Muttaheda Mahaz (JSMM), an ethnic Sindhi nationalist party. He was found dead on 22nd May in Bukhari village, near Hyderabad city in Sindh province. On 25th February 2011, he was allegedly abducted by plain-clothed intelligence agents and police in Hyderabad city, Sindh province. Witnesses said around 20 men in plain clothes came out of unmarked cars and detained Muzaffar Bhutto at gunpoint. He was not seen again until his dead body was recovered. His body was reportedly found stuffed in a gunny bag, bearing torture marks with two bullet wounds, one to the head and one to his chest. The manner of Muzaffar Bhutto’s abduction, and the dumping and condition of his body fits a consistent and repeated pattern of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions of political activists and suspected insurgents by Pakistan’s security forces including its intelligence agencies”

Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

The Targeting of minority "Others" in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

Excerpt from the Targeting of "Minority Others" in Pakistan

With a population estimated at over 187 million and as the fifth most populous country in the world and the second most populous country with a Muslim majority Pakistan has been experiencing a major human rights crisis in recent years. Minority Rights Group International, in its annual State of the World’s Minorities reports for both 2007 and 2008, for example, placed Pakistan in the top ten (out of nearly 200 states) of its lists of states violating minority rights. “The recent wave of intolerance toward minorities”, Ahmed Rashid has argued, “is a sign of the rapid deterioration of the very idea of Pakistan. Many Pakistanis have forgotten that when Muhammad Ali Jinnah founded Pakistan in 1947, it was not partitioned from India to become an Islamic state. It was conceived as a democratic state for Muslims and all minorities, who could live together and worship freely. The white stripe down the side of Pakistan’s green flag represents those minorities, the non-Muslims, who would be forever protected and treated as equal citizens by the majority-Muslim population.

The flag itself illustrates their presence, and is a commitment to their survival. [But] the recent mayhem in the country has been the most disturbing since 1947, because it totally repudiates those founding principles” sharp contrast to the symbolism reflected on the Pakistani flag”. In 2011, Minority Rights Group International “ranked Pakistan as the sixth-most-dangerous country in the world for minorities”, with “Ahmadiyya, Balochis, Hindus, Mohajirs, Pashtun, Sindhis, other religious minorities” listed as those most under threat.



Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

The Targeting of minority "Others" in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

Excerpt from the Targeting of "Minority Others" in Pakistan

In this highly politicised context in which human rights violations against the ‘minority Other’ have been taking place in Pakistan, and many asylum seekers and human rights campaigners have been – and are being – targeted for deportation and/or criminalisation in the UK for exposing the injustices and targeting that befalls the ‘minority Other’, we hope that concerned members of parliament, the public, anti-deportation campaigners, asylum seekers appealing their deportation notices, human rights organisations and campaigners, policy makers, lawyers, students, academics and church and other faith and non-faith groups will find this report of use and reflect upon its findings. Selective quotations from key reports, books and articles have been used, and extensive referencing of sources has been used, particularly in Chapters 2 and 3, so that asylum seekers and anti-deportation campaigners and lawyers, concerned parliamentarians, as well as human rights organisations, concerned faith and non-faith groups and other campaign groups, in particular, can refer to them in relevant case-work, parliamentary and campaign work. Genocide scholars and Genocide Prevention campaigning organisations (of which there are many), together with investigative journalists, will hopefully also find this report of relevance to their work.

Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

The Targeting of "Minority" Others In Pakistan 12 year old Shazia Bashir

Rape and murder victim Shazia Bashir was presented to her mother.

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

Some lawyers groups are, to all intents and purposes, Muslim extremist pressure groups in themselves, whom police are often afraid to go against, as witnessed in last year’s case of the 12 year old Shazia Bashir, a Christian girl who was raped, beaten and tortured to death by her employer, a supreme court advocate. The police covered up the cause of death by falsifying the autopsy until the family ordered a second autopsy, and the police refused point blank to accept a report about the murder.


Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Excerpt from the targeting of "Minority Others" in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

The UK Border Agency rejected his assertion that his family had been threatened and his brother beaten by militants looking for him. In other words, they think it was made up. One of the reasons they gave for disbelieving him is that his family also never went to the authorities. The fixation the BA official has with the fact that people did not go to the police indicates ignorance of the fact that very many crime victims do not go to the police in Pakistan because of police corruption and fear of blackmail by the police.

Christians especially have found that going to police often means police refusing to take reports of incidents, and, indeed, often using the kidnap of Christian girls as a pretext to coerce and blackmail parents into converting to Islam.


Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Excerpt from The Targeting of “ Minority Others” in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

I have been contacted on several occasions by Pakistani Christian asylum seekers desperate for help with preparing their appeal. I have also been contacted by the chaplain at Yarl’s Wood detention centre out concern over the lack of support they are receiving. Twin sisters at Yarl’s Wood, who cannot be named, told me that one of them had been kidnapped after refusing to convert to Islam. In another case, one woman’s entire family in Pakistan is suffering because her nephew has refused to convert to Islam. Instead of her nephew, she has had to pay the price of his refusal, having been tortured and sexually assaulted by the Pakistani police during investigations. She is still wanted by the Pakistani police and it is not clear what the outcome of this situation will be.



Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Excerpt from The Targeting of “ Minority Others” in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

Concerning the shameful manner in which many Pakistani Christians and ‘Others’ are denied asylum in the UK, Nasir Saeed notes that:

 If any Westerner has any doubt as to the severity of the situation, they need only consider the accusation of blasphemy levelled against an 8^th grade pupil at a school near Abbottabad because she misspelled a word in a class test. The school’s decision to expel her only proves the extent to which the blasphemy laws are being misused. Yet, the British Government appears almost determined not to let any asylum seeker in, no matter how desperate or endangered their lives back home are. From the moment they submit their application for

asylum, Pakistani Christians have a tough time convincing the Border Agency that returning to their homeland is life threatening.

Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Excerpt from The Targeting of “ Minority Others” in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP  P&P Europe £22.10 GBP  P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP  P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

 

There was a mass deportation charter flight to Pakistan from UK on 6^th  February 2012, it’s unclear if this was the first. Another took place on 19^th March 2012 [PVT120] at least one of the airport-transfer buses for this flight was branded “Just Go! Holidays by Coach” and the plane allegedly departed from London Stansted Airport. Then, another took place on 11thApril 2012, and another on 1^st May 2012

In the main centres in which many ‘failed’ asylum seekers (inclusive of many people from Pakistan)xi are held before deportation, the following types of targeting measures have been undertaken (the descriptions below do not cover the brutalisation – some would say torture - of targeted ‘Others’ that occurs whilst restrained and in transit to the airport or detention centres, and also whilst detained in detention centres) :xii

25^th from Pakistan] detained at Yarl’s Wood immigration [detention centre] in Bedfordshire … which began on 5^th February and involved some 84 women at the start, was sparked by detainees protesting against their prolonged detention and inhumane treatment at the hands of the Serco security guards and the immigration authorities. The hunger strikers’ demands included an end to the “physical and mental torture at the centre” and “all false allegations and misrepresentations by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) regarding detainees”; an end to the detention of children and their mothers, rape survivors and other torture victims and to the separation of children from their mothers.

Two and a half weeks on, at least 20 women are still on hunger strike, while others have stopped but are refusing to eat the “repugnant” food provided by the prison management. On the 8^th February, Serco security guards tried to break up the protest by force. Some 70 women were locked in a corridor for up to 8 hours without access to food, water, toilet or medical care. Many collapsed and about 20, who tried to climb out of the windows, were beaten up and taken into isolation cells. Four of the women, singled out as ‘ringleaders’, were taken to Bedford police station and subsequently transferred to HMP Holloway in London, without being charged with any offence or brought before a judge. Testimonies by Yarl’s Wood detainees, many of whom have fled torture, rape and destitution, have revealed that racial, psychological and physical abuse had been inflicted on the hunger strikers by Serco staff. xiii

Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Excerpt from The Targeting Of 'Minority Others' in Pakistan 'Introduction'

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP P&P Europe £22.10 GBP P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

  

Chapter 1.1 Introduction by Wilson Chowdhry (Chairman BPCA)

This book- length report is one of the few collaborative efforts to highlight concerns on the treatment of minorities in Pakistan. Its wide –ranging coverage of issues pertaining to a number of different ‘Othered’ communities and groups living in Pakistan, with inputs by campaigners from varying minority groups, make it relatively unique. I felt challenged to coordinate the writing of this report as a means to highlight the ongoing persecution of minorities in Pakistan. Although the experience of the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) in the field is quite small in chronological terms, we have, in recent times, become one of the most effective and recognised voices in highlighting the plight felt by so many “Others”

For many readers, this may be the first time that the full scope of the atrocities that Pakistan’s minorities face every day will have become known to you. Some of you will be horrified by the accounts represented in our research – and others will be offended. If you feel offense, let me clarify that none of the accounts are fictional and all have been verified through supporting documents and reports, both online and paper, personal evidence and official reports. We have not tried to spin a story but have grown this report organically via the information gathered by contributors from their wide experience and sources. As a group, we are not ‘Anti – Pakistani’ but have a strong passion for improving the quality of life for all citizens of Pakistan. I have been banned from Pakistan for the human rights work and protests undertaken by the BPCA, and thus, have paid for my desire to help with separation from my family living in Pakistan.

Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.