By Sher Ali Khalti in The News,Dec 01, 2023
LAHORE: Nineteen children were arrested on charges of blasphemy from across Punjab between January 1, 2023 and October 16, 2023. According to data available with The News, 6 out of these 19 children are in prison charged with blasphemy while the others were acquitted.
These figures have been made public by the Inspectorate General of Punjab Prisons in an appeal submitted to the Punjab Information Commission by the director of Legal Awareness Watch, Sarmad Ali.
When contacted by The News, appellant Sarmad Ali explained that numerous children across Pakistan are facing penal charges that carry severe punishment. Ali said that some of these children are not allowed to establish their juvenility under Section 8 of the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018. Sarmad Ali elaborated: “Thus, owing to inadequate and effective implementation of [the] cited law which was promulgated in May 2018, many children have been [held] without fair trial or [have been] sentenced to severe punishment in sheer ignorance of the international standards and conventions which the state of Pakistan is signatory to.”
According to Ali, children — even if considered ‘dangerous’ — must be protected and given their due rights enshrined in the constitution and under special laws such as the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018. Internationally as well, children receive special treatment both socially and at the judicial level to ensure that their best interests remain protected. On juveniles and the law, Sarmad Ali added: “Children that are accused of having infringed any penal law must not be treated as adults as they cannot foresee the consequences of their actions.”
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1134123-19-children-arrested-for-blasphemy-in-punjab-from-jan-oct
- INDIA-PAK TIES-KASHMIR-
India committing worst kind of state terrorism in IIOJK: Speakers
Report in The News, November 30, 2023
Islamabad: The speakers in a seminar held in Islamabad have said that the Narendra Modi-led Indian government is committing the worst kind of state terrorism in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, says a press release.
The seminar, ‘Repression on minorities in India and atrocities in Kashmir’, was jointly organised by Friends of Kashmir International and Kashmir Media Service.
The speakers included Pakistan caretaker Information and Broadcasting Minister Murtaza Solangi, Special Adviser to Prime Minister on Human Rights Mushaal Hussein Mullick, former Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Yaqoob Khan, Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Khalil George, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, President of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Party Hasan Ibrahim, All Parties Hurriyat Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir chapter senior leader Muhammad Farooq Rahmani, Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, Chairperson of Friends of Kashmir International Ghazala Habib, Chairman of Kashmir Institute of International Relations Altaf Hussain Wani, former federal minister J. Salik, Vice Chairman of Friends of Kashmir International Abdul Hameed Lone, Pakistani-American entrepreneur Abdul Hafeez Khan, Senator Danish Kumar, anchor Harmeet Singh and analyst Waqar Hassan.
Caretaker Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Solangi said that a politically stable and economically strong Pakistan was vital for the protection of the rights of minorities in India, especially Kashmiris who had been struggling for their right to self-determination for over seven decades.
He said India was a so-called democracy where minorities were being mistreated and victimised by the majoritarian Hindu hardliners. He said after the unfortunate Jaranwala incident, the Government of Pakistan expressed solidarity with the victims, but the Government of India never supported the victims of the atrocities of Hindutva brigade.
Solangi said atrocities against religious minorities were continuing in India without any check and the international community had kept silent due to certain considerations. The minister said that unlike the Government of Pakistan, the Modi regime never supported the oppressed minorities of India who were continuously targeted by the extremist Hindu organisations. The Indian Government had forced various social media platforms to block the Pakistani social media accounts in India, and thus tried to hide the facts and figures about plight of minorities in the country, he added.
The other speakers said the Modi regime has usurped the rights of the minorities, especially the Muslims in the country and India has emerged as an extremist state where the existing minorities are facing prejudice, violence and oppression on a large scale.
The speakers said it is written in the Indian Constitution that the state will treat all religions equally and tolerantly, but in reality, the land is being narrowed in every way for the minorities living there and they are being forced to leave their religion and become Hindus. How can Sikhs, living in India, forget Operation Blue Star when thousands of Sikhs were killed as a result of state terrorism, they added. The speakers, mentioning the occupied Jammu and Kashmir, said after 5th August 2019, the Modi government has accelerated the repression and tyranny in the territory and at this time the Kashmiris are being completely pushed towards the wall.
They deplored that India had adopted the same policy in the occupied territory which Israel was following in the occupied Palestine. They said that the main objective of the Bharatiya Janata Party government was to turn the majority of Muslims in IIOJK into a minority but the people of the occupied territory would foil all such nefarious designs of the Modi regime.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1133791-india-committing-worst-kind-of-state-terrorism-in-iiojk-speakers
