Home HRCP HRCP for end to …

Lahore: Taking a serious view of the killing of two Ahmedis in Sindh and instigation to murder in a TV programme, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called for urgent action to protect the minorities’ lives and to ensure stoppage of hate-preaching through the media. In a statement issued here today HRCP said:

On Monday an eminent Ahmedi physician and cardiologist was shot dead in Mirpurkhas. The next day, another prominent Ahmedi was killed in Nawabshah. The Ahmediya community believes there is a link between these brutal killings and a programme telecast by a private TV channel in which a cleric called for death to Ahmedis and the compere concurred. Even if there is no direct link between incitement to violence on TV and the two murders neither of the offences can be tolerated. The Ahmedi community is within its legal rights to demand protection against instigators of violence against them. The government must ensure that the killers of the Ahmedi citizens are brought to justice and that nobody is allowed to use the media, especially the electronic one, to preach communal hatred and fratricide. The TV channel also has a duty to reign in irresponsible comperes. Failure to do so will confirm its complicity in a heinous crime.

Iqbal Haider
Co-chairperson

Source: http://www.hrcp-web.org/print.cfm?proId=649