Pakistan has told the European Union that more attacks on EU diplomatic missions abroad cannot be ruled out unless the European Union represses freedom of expression, The Daily Times of Pakistan reports.

A representative of Pakistan, in an astonishing intervention at the United Nations Human Rights Council, has claimed that "It is insulting for our faith to discuss Shari'a here in this forum". The intervention, which was made as a "point of order" during an IHEU statement to the Council, can be viewed on video here.

Islam is an unchallengeable entity in all spheres of life in Pakistan. No laws or phenomena that contradict Islamic Law are given validation. LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People) rights are not supported by any political or humanitarian party that does not value self destruction.

Matt Cherry, IHEU representative at the UN New York, and chair of the UN NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion and Belief has called on Pakistan to release immediately from detention Asma Jahangir, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

In 2002 a Pakistani woman, Mukhtaran Bibi, was very publicly gang-raped as a result of a semi-judicial decision by a tribal council in her village. Her case happened to be reported, first in the local press and then worldwide. Readers were horrified. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated case of appalling abuse of women in Pakistan. What were exceptional were the publicity and the victim’s eventual reaction to what had happened to her.

The Dalits, a caste of around 260 million people in South Asia (accounting for roughly 1/4 of India’s population), are facing systemic and structural discrimination in the region due to their inferior social status. The Dalits are perceived as “untouchable”/inferior beings therefore are subjected to a life of poverty and discrimination by the higher-ranking castes. Women are especially discriminated against, even within their own caste, as there are defined as intrinsically impure beings. Dalit women are forced to perform the most degrading jobs, denied access to education and are subjected to violence, including the “Devadasi system” of forced and ritualized prostitution. Dalit women are basically stripped of all their basic human rights, having no recourse against the men perpetuating these abuses and inequalities.

IHEU's International Director Babu Gogineni has written to President Musharraf asking him to review the case of British Muslim Mirza Taher Hussain. Mirza Hussain has been in detention for 18 years and on the death row for 16 years on murder charges which Pakistani courts too have rejected. Mirza Hussain is scheduled to be executed next month.

IHEU has also asked President Musharraf to revoke the Qisas and Diyat Ordinances, which allow justly-convicted murderers to escape punishment by payment of 'blood money' to the victim's families.

Please write to President Musharraf at http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/WTPresidentMessage.aspx

Each time the state tries to enforce Islam as a deen it assumes totalistic or totalitarian characteristics. Both the religious establishment and the state should respect the freedom of the individual

PRESS RELEASE - For Immediate Release
Palais des Nations, Geneva, 23 August 2005

In the latest step in a long-running campaign at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva by three NGOs: the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), the Association for World Education (AWE) and the Association of World Citizens (AWC), the IHEU today condemned as "gratuitously insulting" an oral statement made by Pakistani's Ambassador to the UN on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC), and issued a detailed rebuttal.

The Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations, speaking on behalf of the 56 states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has responded to IHEU's complaint about censorship at the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights.

The statement read to the Sub-Commission on August 8th, 2005, is replete with claims of "Islamophobia" and attacks on the integrity of our contributors, yet fails completely to address the issue of violence in the name of religion. You can download it in PDF format below, both as the original faxed document and in OCR-translated form.