Call to protect minority rights

Lahore: Community leaders, social and political activists from different constituencies of Lahore participated in a seminar titled “Elections 2018 and Rights of Religious Minorities” organised under the auspices of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The speakers including, I.A. Rehman, Justice (R) Nasira Javed, Hina Jilani, Wajahat Masood and Peter Jacob, encouraged the participants to participate meaningfully in elections 2018 for realisation of rights and protection of religious minorities in the country.

They emphasised that a vibrant democratic process was crucial to addressing the issues of deprivation and exclusion of the religious minorities.

The discussion focused the way forward to ensure economic, political and social inclusion of religious minorities in the national mainstream. The discussants pointed out that the successive governments failed to address the issues such as religious discriminations in the education system, implementation of job quota and institutional protection for minorities’ rights The election candidates, including Ramzan Siddique Bhatti from PML-N, Syed Zaeem Hussain Qadri, an independent candidate and Syed Imran Aleem Karamzi, an independent candidate, made commitment to make efforts to resolve the issues faced by the minorities.

Professor Victoria Patrick, Tanveer Jahan, Bushra Khaliq, Muna Baig, Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash, Michelle Chaudhry, Nabila Feroze, Tahira Habib and Kulsoom Monica were also present.

Workshops: An NGO conducted a motivational and educational campaign ‘vote first’ here on Wednesday. According to a press release, the goal of this campaign was to increase participation of voters, especially youth and women, in the elections on July 25.

For this purpose, the NGO conducted three workshops on July 11, 15 and 16 in various marginalised areas of Lahore.Participants of the workshop were provided with the necessary training, knowledge and mock ballots for better understanding the voting procedure.

The workshops were attended by fresh voters including youth and women. In each workshop, the participants engaged in an interactive dialogue with workshop facilitators. They also practically went through a mock voting process. The aim of mock voting was to ensure that all participants be confident in their ability to successfully exercise their right to vote.