Pakistan: Minority rights activists demand end to discrimination, forced conversion

Business To Business, Islamabad, 12 August 2026 : As violence against religious minorities continues unabated in Pakistan, the Minority Rights March and civil society representatives staged a protest outside Mazar-e-Quaid in Karachi on National Minorities Day, condemning what they described as escalating discrimination and persecution of minority communities across the country, local media reported.
 
The demonstration was joined by prominent Pakistani rights activists and community leaders, including Sheema Kermani, Pastor Ghazala Shafiq, Vinesh Arya, Sajjal Shafiq, Nathan Daniyal and Anwar Sheikh.
 
The protesters urged the government to criminalise forced conversions and amend personal laws governing interfaith marriages to safeguard the rights of minority spouses and children, Pakistani daily The Express Tribune reported.
 
They also called for the acceptance of their 11-point charter of demands, including stronger safeguards against forced conversions and protection from the misuse of blasphemy laws.
 
Other demands included a 10 per cent quota for minorities in public and private sector jobs at all levels, an end to the practice of confining minorities to sanitation and other low-paying jobs, and the protection and restoration of minority places of worship and properties.
 
The protesters also called for the digitisation of records and implementation of the Supreme Court’s 2014 judgment through setting up of national and provincial minority rights commissions.
 
They also called for the removal of discriminatory and hate-based material from school curricula and textbooks, urging greater emphasis on respect for minorities, tolerance, peace and religious diversity. The protesters further demanded that the term “non-Muslim” be replaced in the Constitution and other laws with specific religious identities.
 
Pakistan observes National Minorities Day annually on August 11 to commemorate Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s speech at the Constituent Assembly in 1947, in which he declared people were free to go to their temples, mosques or other places of worship, and that religion, caste or creed would not determine their standing before the state.
 
“The gap between Jinnah’s principle of equal citizenship and present realities cannot be ignored. It is especially troubling because these protections were articulated at the birth of Pakistan itself. Religious minorities continue to face mob violence, attacks on their places of worship, forced conversions and social and economic exclusion,” according to a report in Pakistani daily Dawn
 
“Laws intended to protect religion have at times been weaponised through false accusations, with consequences extending far beyond the courtroom. Even where the state guarantees equality, social prejudice and institutional barriers make that guarantee fragile in practice. National Minority Rights Day must be more than a ceremonial observance,” it noted.