UK PM Boris Johnson urges Pakistan to 'guarantee fundamental rights of all its citizens'

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on November 11 urged Pakistan to guarantee the fundamental rights of its citizens. During a parliament session on Wednesday, Johnson responded to an MP Imran Ahmad Khan’s question who asked if the British government should make it evident for Pakistan that state-sponsored prosecution must cease to exist. In his answer, the British PM said that he agrees with his friend and urged Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government to assure that all citizens get to practice their basic rights. 

Johnson said, "I agree passionately with my honourable friend, and I can tell him that that is why the Minister of South Asia recently raised this very issue with Pakistan's Human Rights Minister, and we urged the Government of Pakistan to guarantee the fundamental rights of all its citizens."

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Member of the UK parliament, Ahmad Khan said during his address that even though the entire nation was majorly focussed on the COVID-19 pandemic, Britain shall not sideline the issue of humanitarian injustices as well as the plight of persecuted minorities. The Britsih MP also noted the tragic murder of an Ahmadi civilian in Pakistan’s Peshawar on November 8, that, is the Remembrance Sunday. Ahmad questioned of Johnson agrees if the “hatred preached in Pakistan ends up on the streets” should end.

"On Remembrance Sunday, 82-year-old Mahboob Ahmad Khan was shot dead, the fourth Ahmadi recently slain in Peshawar. His crime under Pakistani law? To call himself an Ahmadi Muslim, whose creed is 'love for all, hatred for none'. Does my right honourable friend agree with me that hatred preached in Pakistan ends up on the streets, and it is in the interest of our own security that His Majesty's government should make clear to Pakistan that state-supported persecution must end?" asked Ahmad Khan.

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UN-backed NGO lists Pakistan’s human rights violations

Meanwhile, just earlier this month on November 7, UN-accredited NGO UN Watch slammed Pakistan PM Imran Khan and listed reasons as to why the country's candidacy for the UNHRC should be rejected. It also said that the presence of Pakistan at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is ‘intolerable’. The UN-recognized NGO remark was a befitting response to Imran Khan's remark 'Blasphemy in the garb of freedom of expression is intolerable' as it went on to list the gross human rights violations made by Pakistan on a day-to-day basis and also highlighted that Pakistan had voted against UN resolutions speaking out for human rights victims in Iran, Syrian Arab Republic and Ukraine. 

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