HRC49: Oral statement during General Debate under Agenda Item 3

Item 3:General Debate

Organisation:Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker: Claire Denman

Thank you, Mr President,

CSW welcomes the most recent reports by the Special Rapporteurs on minority issues and freedom of religion or belief, and thank them for bringing the Council’s attention to minorities in situations of conflict and insecurity.

CSW is particularly concerned for religious or belief communities in such circumstances.

In Pakistan, we call on the government to increase protections for the country’s Shia Muslim community after at least 67people were killed and nearly 200 were injured in a suicide bomb attack on a Shia Mosque in Peshawar on 4 March during Friday prayers.

While we welcome the government’s pledge to hold to account those responsible for the attack, the attack is not the first time Pakistan’s Shia community has been targeted in recent years. We urge Pakistan to go further in increasing protections for the country’s Shia community and to resist narratives which conflate national and religious identities and risk emboldening the perpetrators of religiously motivated violence and intolerance.

In Sri Lanka, despite the 30-year ethnic civil war ending in 2009, ongoing challenges to unifying Sri Lanka’s diverse ethno-religious population remain. Ethno-religious tensions have been fuelled by Buddhist nationalist groups since 2012. Intimidation and targeted attacks are committed against the Muslim and Christian communities in an environment of impunity. While in the northern region particularly, the Hindu community face discriminatory institutional and policy measures against them.

We urge Sri Lanka to put an end to widespread hate speech and acts of impunity based on ethno-religious grounds, to prosecute those responsible for targeted violence against religious minorities and to take steps to improve reconciliation and social cohesion among the different ethnicity and faith groups.

Thank you.