Special report on minorities and the election

In the same week that the US State Department’s annual report on international religious freedom accused Islamabad of hostility towards certain faiths, millions of religious minorities including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Zoroastrians are preparing to cast their votes in a new inclusive electorate system on Thursday - perhaps ending more than two decades of political isolation for religious minorities in this deeply-Muslim country. Rukhsana is a Protestant, she cooks for a wealthy expatriate in the capital, Islamabad, and is preparing to cast her ballot in the elections on Thursday. She lives in a mud-built slum known as "Christian colony" in the sprawling capital. The district was the centre of attention during the frantic election campaign over the past few weeks with candidates visiting and promising everything on earth - clean drinking water, a dispensary and even ownership rights of their crumbling mud houses. This shift in attitude is the result of government’s decisions to allow non-Muslims to vote for and contest elections in all constituencies across the country. In January, Pakistan's government ended an electoral system that discriminated against religious minorities by compelling them to vote for just 10 non-Muslim seats in the overwhelmingly Muslim Parliament. Experts believe that the decision to scrap the old system could pave the way towards establishing a secular political culture in the country. But minority groups are very much on the defensive right now. Over the past few months non-Muslims, Christians in particular, have been victims of deadly terrorist attack. Last month 7 Christians lost their lives when gunmen calmly walked into the offices of a Christian NGO in the commercial capital Karachi and shot non-Muslims through the head. The attacks are in apparent retaliation for Pakistan’s backing of the US military campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan and Musharraf's moves against extremists groups at home. Christians say they are condemned to live as an under class in Pakistan. "It is difficult because we are like second type of people here. I have to keep my faith a secret," Rukhsana told IRIN. "People laugh at us and shout and throw stones when we go to the church." She is worried that her daughter, although skilled in computing, will not be able to get a job in the public sector because of the family's faith. Rukhsana’s story illustrates the plight of millions of religious minorities in Pakistan. Mostly employed as cleaners, sweepers and manual labourers at the lower end of the economic spectrum, they face marginalisation, draconian discriminatory laws as well as violent attacks at the hands of extremists. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recently recommended to the State Department to declare Pakistan a "country of particular concern" for restrictions on religious rights. "It [the change to the electoral system] is an important beginning," Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasiab Khattak, told IRIN. He added that the system of separate electorates introduced by the country’s erstwhile military dictator, General Zia-ul Haq in 1985 was never accepted by non-Muslims and it was a part of his "Islamisation" drive. "Although at the moment the general political climate is not conducive for minorities," he said, pointing towards a series of recent terrorist attacks on non-Muslims - both Pakistanis and expatriates. Khattak maintained that lack of security and intolerance were the major issues for religious minorities in the country. "While the state should ensure security, civil society should address the question of intolerance," he said. Despite the introduction of the new joint electorate system, recent attacks may explain why not a single non-Muslim is contesting some 272 general seats of the national legislature. However, some 50 Hindu and Christian candidates are running for office on general seats in the provincial legislatures of the southern Sindh and eastern Punjab province. While non-Muslims are officially estimated at between three and five percent of the 140 million people in Pakistan, their vote may play a decisive role in some 60 national assemblies and another 130 provincial assembly constituencies. Haroon Nasir, a researcher with the Christian Study Centre, a Rawalpindi-based NGO working on minority issues, told IRIN that separate electorates were against the concept of unity of a nation. "We should not be differentiated on the basis of religion and must be treated as Pakistanis," he said. Nasir maintained that minorities in Pakistan face legal discrimination under the Blasphemy laws, which are often used against non-Muslims. "Before 1977 there used to be social discrimination against the religious minorities but now after General Zia’s era it has changed into constitutional discrimination," he added. But Shabaz Bahatti, Chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, told IRIN that scrapping the old quota system was not necessarily a good thing "Keeping reserved seats is a positive discrimination for marginalised groups," he said. Other activists also object to the special quotas and the method of filling minority quota seats. "We were for the joint electorates but we were against quotas," Waseem Anthony, a human rights activist with the Christian charity, National Commission for Peace and Justice told IRIN. "We only want a normal citizen status," he said, echoing a broadly shared view. Not all minority communities are happy with the new arrangements. 'Ahmadi' or 'Qadianis' a religious sect mostly concentrated in the Punjab province, officially declared as non-Muslim under Pakistan’s constitution, have boycotted the elections on the grounds that although they have been included in the joint electorate system, they are retained on separate electoral lists - a move believed to be taken to appease the country’s strong conservative clergy. "The government should not be run on the basis of religion," a spokesman for Jammat-e Ahmadya, requesting not to be named, told IRIN. "We don’t bother about being declared non-Muslims but we should have shared the joint electoral lists with others," he said, adding that their boycott would affect some 2.5 million Ahmadi voters. Human rights activist I A Rehman told IRIN that there had been an improvement in the minority communities’ situation as a result of the abolition of the old electoral system. "But it is theoretical, it will take time before this joint electorate system produces the results that are expected," he said. Whether the new arrangements will end the marginalisation of minorities in Pakistan remains to be seen. "I am not very optimistic about the absorption of minorities into the mainstream because elections is only one part of life," Rehman said. "The state still has some laws that discriminate against non-Muslims. Many things have to be done before non-Muslims can become citizens."