Daily Times

Chris Rogers, an investigative journalist of the BBC, and Wilson Chaudhry of British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), visited Thailand undercover, and prepared a documentary about the plight of Pakistani Christian asylum seekers in Thailand. In this BBC documentary, problems and difficulties people face dealing with the UNHCR and Thai immigration authorities were highlighted to a global audience. Several thousand Christian men, women, and children have been stranded in that tourist-friendly country that has a glorious tradition of welcoming visitors. For asylum-seekers, Thailand is not a safe haven because it is not a signatory of the Geneva Convention 1951 of Human Rights to welcome and accommodate refugees/asylum seekers. But the UNCHR with a separate agreement has established its offices to register asylum seekers, and pass them on to different countries through a gateway scheme.

Due to an increasing wave of migrants throughout the world, Thailand is also under stress. The present military Thai government is not allowing migrants to stay for longer than the legal permission of six-month visitor’s visa. From March 2016 a national crackdown on all immigrants who do not possess valid visas was started. The UNHCR issues a certificate of registration to asylum seekers that are not accepted by the Thai government. However, now those certificates have been replaced by an identification card. After exhausting visit-visa term of six months, despite possessing the UNHCR Asylum Certificates/ID cards, these people are considered illegal. Due to backlog and limited staff at the UNCHR, it is almost impossible to process asylum applications within six month’s scheduled time. Applicants have to wait for years for an interview.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work to earn to feed themselves. Once their visa-limit is over, their lives become hell in Thailand. From time to time, these asylum seekers are arrested, and sent to the International Detention Centre (IDC), which is one of the worst prisons in the world. In very small spaces, hundreds of people are forced to live in inhumane conditions. Many people cannot survive this situation and they are hit by serious diseases. The way they are sometimes treated in Thailand is against humanity, but Pakistani Christians still take the incredible risk of migrating to Thailand. The British MPs and Americans Congressmen are aware of this situation, and from time to time they raise their voice. But as Thailand has no obligation to deal with this kind of issues, global authorities do not pay much attention either.

International community should take notice of the plight of Christian Pakistani asylum seekers in Thailand, as they are not economic migrants. They are forced to migrate because of certain issues, and there are always reasons for fleeing their homeland. Are not incidents of Gojra lynching of Christians, Peshawar church bombing, suicide attacks in Yahounabad, and Gulshan-e-Iqbal carnage sufficient to understand the vulnerability of Christians in Pakistan? Despite that most of them don’t even think of leaving their beloved homeland, but those who dream of a safer life outside Pakistan should not be insulted and embarrassed by international community as is the case in in Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and even some western countries.

Indeed, it is painful to think about miseries of minorities, but who is responsible for this situation? Are minorities adventurous in nature, and decided to leave the country of their birth on a whim, selling their properties, setting aside their social ties, and leaving the place where they lived for generations? These poor people never migrated from India or somewhere else to Pakistan, but since centuries they had been living in the place that became Pakistan in 1947, so why and how were they compelled to say goodbye to Pakistan? Did someone spare some time to think about miseries of minorities of Pakistan? According to the last census (if authentic) the minorities’ participation is just three percent, and this includes Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis and other scheduled caste groups. Geographically, most of the Hindu community lives in the Sindh province, whereas Christians are in the Punjab. Minorities are scattered in different parts of Pakistan with no concentration at a singular point, and therefore, they have been unable to develop their social or political strength. For the last three decades, minorities’ participation has remained symbolic in the political system of Pakistan. Practically, selected minorities’ representatives have limited ‘freedom’ to speak for their respective sections of communities. Had they been elected by communities they represent the situation would have been different. They would have had more space to argue, debate and fight for the rights of their people. This is one of the reasons why we do not hear anything from minorities’ representatives about asylum seekers struggling for their lives in Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and other parts of the globe.

In Pakistan minorities do not feel secure, and many of them get trapped in false cases including blasphemy cases. Many minority women/girls are forced into marriages with Muslim men after being forcefully converted to Islam. The truth is bitter but we have to accept these issues in order to find solutions. Problems will remain unless and until we do not resolve issues in the light of equality. In the past, it took a long time to know or understand problems, but thanks to electronic, print and now social media for its selfless services towards identifying social, economic and political issues, there is a great deal of awareness. Once a doctor diagnoses the disease correctly, it becomes very easy to cure the patient. When issues are identified, there should be proper strategies to work for solutions, but it is a matter of having sincerity and honesty to the cause.

There is a need to bring professionalism, sincerity and commitment to treat everyone equally without cultural or religious differences. Sometimes, a small thing could be a big issue to someone. There are questions in western media on this particular issue, as international organisations report the plight of minorities in Pakistan. Before it is too late, Pakistan should change its stance to make the three percent of its population comprising of minorities feel safe in Pakistan. A successful state takes care of all its citizens irrespective of their colour, caste, creed, gender, and religion. But unfortunately, In Pakistan minorities are not taken care of properly, and they are not given the position and rights they deserve. Instead, they are killed, lynched, tortured and expelled. Hindus are forced to leave Sindh, Christians are running from Punjab, Sikhs have migrated to other parts of the world, and Parsis are now merely part of the history of Pakistan. Only their graves are a witness of their existence in Pakistan. The massive exodus of minorities’ from Pakistan is alarming, and the issue demands urgent attention from government and people of Pakistan. It is high time the plight of minorities was taken seriously; otherwise, in the next few decades, only their graves would bear witness to their existence in Pakistan — once upon a time.

The writer can be reached at Kaleem.dean@mail.com