Pakistan: Christians lobby for greater representation in government
May 27 2008
Postings >> Pakistan

The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) has tabled a bill calling for more seats for non-Muslims in the Senate and in national and provincial assemblies.

Minorities, including the Christian community, have long been concerned about the small number of seats reserved for them – but their calls for reform have fallen on deaf ears.

Now APMA chairman Shahbaz Bhatti is calling for nine reserved seats for minorities in the Senate, parliament's upper house, where currently there are none.

He is also calling for the number of minority seats in the lower house, the National Assembly, to be doubled from 10 to 20. About five per cent of seats are currently allocated for minorities, including Christians, Hindus and Sikhs.

The number of seats currently allocated to minorities in Pakistan's four provincial assemblies varies. Mr Bhatti is proposing that the current number for each assembly should be doubled. So, under Mr Bhatti's proposals, in Punjab there would be 16 seats instead of eight, for example, and, in North West Frontier Province, six seats instead of three. Mr Bhatti told a press conference on May 4 that he hoped the move would help end the perception that Pakistan's religious minorities are second-class citizens.

Thank God for Shahbaz Bhatti's boldness in standing up for minorities' rights in Pakistan.
Pray God's protection over him and his organisation.
Pray that Mr Bhatti's bill will lead to greater representation for religious minorities.