LAHORE : Chief Minister (CM) Punjab Usman Buzdar has said that a vicious conspiracy is being hatched to weaken Pakistan by making national institutions controversial.

In a statement, he said that state institutions are our pride and we will foil every conspiracy against them. The nation will never forgive those elements who are raising allegations against the state institutions.

He said that those who are targeting the institutions will not succeed in their nefarious designs. “PDM is working on anti-state agenda.”Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has given a new identity to Southern Punjab.

He said that the Punjab government has resolved the issues of students of Balochistan on priority basis.

Yesterday, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz had hit out at the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an alliance of political opposition parties – saying “PDM is the third part of the axis of evil with India and Israel against Pakistan”.

Talking to media in Islamabad, the federal minister had slammed opposition leaders for attacking the country’s integrity and institutions.

The federal minister had also condemned the slogans raised by Owais Noorani regarding Balochistan during the PDM rally held in Quetta.

Islamabad, 25 October: A baseline study (http://www.ips.org.pk/forced-conversions-or-faith-conversions-rhetoric-and-reality/) conducted at Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) analyzing a number of reports by various civil society organizations alleging forced conversion of minorities in Pakistan terms them baseless, lacking empirical evidence.

Conducted by Ghulam Hussain, a PhD scholar in anthropology at Quaid-i-Azam University and a research fellow at IPS, the report titled “Faith Conversions or Forced Conversions: Reality and Rhetoric” digs into the popular narrative that suggests that the members of minority communities, particularly women and girls, are forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan – an allegation that has resonated on various forums including the Indian Parliament and USCIRF reports. Some of these reports claim that as many as 1000 Hindu and Christian girls are kidnapped, forcibly converted and married of annually in Pakistan.

Through content analysis of some three dozen reports of various human rights organizations, this baseline study suggests that the reports that are often presented as evidence for alleging that there is an organized and systematic effort of forcibly converting non-Muslims to Islam, lack any primary or empirical data. Such reports, the study claims, rely on clichés cited from another report that too is prepared without an evidence. At most, some of these reports base themselves on anecdotal evidence taken from newspaper reports and political statements and none of these reports verifies the allegations of forced conversions from ‘the supposed victims and so-called perpetrators’. Claims in these reports are tautological in nature and make circular arguments on the basis of unverified/unverifiable secondary sources.

The study also interrogates the polemics against religious clerics, lawyers, police, and the State of Pakistan that characterizes the content of the reports. It shows how the narrative is developed into a charged rhetoric through social media platforms to malign the state and society of Pakistan and the religion of Islam. It alleges that the social media accounts associated with Hindu extremist groups in India are the most active in spreading such allegations.

The study also underscores the narrative internal to minority communities, particularly the Scheduled Castes or Dalits. It suggests that caste-based divisions, endogamy, and patriarchy are among the socio-economic push and pull factors that cause faith conversion, apart from a natural and genuine urge for a more satisfying way of life as religion. In fact, the conversions have been taking place on individual and collective levels through all times in the region of Sindh and Southern Punjab where forced conversions are mostly alleged, it underscores. “To say that in Pakistan, non-Muslims are forced by religious clerics and the State will be a sweepingly naïve understanding of the very complex phenomena, and will be as flawed as the assertion that free-will conversions are always divinely inspired”, the study emphasizes. The study calls upon the civil society organizations and responsible citizens to abstain from raising ‘false alarm’ on sensitive issues through a rhetoric that tarnishes the image of Pakistan and Muslims without any clear justification and undermines genuine issues of the oppressed scheduled castes.

Given the lack of evidence of ‘forced conversion’, the study recommends against an anti-conversion law and sees it as potentially ‘immature and flawed’ without a real picture being explored.

Recommending primary research into the subject to understand the phenomenon of faith conversions, and the various factors contributing to it, the report has been launched at a time when a parliamentary committee on forced religious conversions has been inquiring into the subject and has recently returned after meeting various stakeholders in parts of Sindh.

This study is expected to give a new turn to the current debate on faith conversions in the country.

QUETTA, Oct 25 (DNA): Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal
Bhutto Zardari on Sunday asked the people of Quetta and Balochistan to
support the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an alliance of political
opposition parties in order to restore “real” democracy in the country.

Addressing the PDM rally in Quetta, the PPP leader said that the people
of Balochistan are living in miserable conditions despite having plenty
of natural resources.

“What kind of democracy is this where no one including media and people
is free,” he said and added that nation wanted freedom from poverty,
elimination of inflation and are demanding to restore “real” democracy.

Speaking over inflation, the PPP leader said that the prices of all
necessities including medicine prices have skyrocketed under the
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

The PPP chairman also criticized the government for not laying the
Pakistan Islands Development Authority (PIDA) Ordinance.” The incumbent
govt wants to seize the islands of Balochistan and Sindh”.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari once again saluted the Sindh police officers who
stepped down in the wake of the ‘Karachi incident’. Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Sunday said that the
people of Balochistan and Karachi demand that “give respect to vote”.

Addressing the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) public meeting at
Ayub Stadium in Quetta, Maryam Nawaz said that the cause of the problems
of Balochistan was that the vote was not given respect.

She said that the PML-N government, in its tenure, had given
scholarships to the students of Balochistan in Punjab’s universalities.
Maryam Nawaz said that the prevailing government has abolished the
scholarships. “The students of Balochistan and Punjab are close to my
heart,” she said.=DNA

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