ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will host the 8th meeting of the Istanbul Process Meeting next year with a focus to evolve responses to growing religious intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief.
The announcement in this regard was made by Federal Minister for Education and Prime Minister’s Special Representative on International Religious Freedom, Shafqat Mahmood during his speech at the 7th Istanbul Process meeting, held at The Hague, Netherlands.
The Minister drew attention to the alarming levels of Islamophobia in many parts of the world, as evidenced inter alia, by growing incidents of hate crimes, negative profiling, assaults on hijab wearing Muslim women, denigration of venerated Muslim personalities and symbols. He cautioned against incendiary and populist rhetoric for electoral gains, often amplified by sections of the media, that served as catalyst for hate speech leading to acts of violence, systematic discrimination and in some cases acts of terrorism.
In the context of promoting human rights and addressing root causes of this phenomenon, Minister Shafqat Mahmood underlined the imperative of upholding the right to self-determination for people under foreign occupation. He called for eschewing ambivalence and double standards by flag-bearers of human rights in the face of grave human rights violations including in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He also expressed deep concerns over the growing incidents of systematic discrimination and state sanctioned violence against Muslims in India.
Referring to the importance of upholding fundamental freedoms, the Minister underscored that freedom of expression must be exercised with responsibility and the international community should begin to consider reasonable restrictions in this regard, both online and offline.
Minister Mahmood also shared the range of steps taken by Pakistan in the field of education, promotion of inter-faith harmony, tolerance and freedom of religion or belief. In this context, he highlighted the recent initiative taken to open the Kartarpur Corridor.
The Istanbul Process represents an operational mechanism of a consensus-based resolution at the Human Rights Council that seeks to promote implementation of 8-points Action Plan to combat religious intolerance, negative stereo-typing, discrimination on the basis of religion or belief and incitement top hatred. So far, 7 meetings of this Process have been held since 2011.
The Heart of Asia – Istanbul Process was founded on November 2, 2011 at Istanbul, Turkey to provide a platform to discuss regional issues, particularly encouraging security, political, and economic cooperation among Afghanistan and its neighbors. This region-led dialogue was launched in November 2011 to expand practical coordination between Afghanistan and its neighbors and regional partners in facing common threats, including counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, poverty, and extremism. The process has 3 pillars, namely, Political Consultation, Confidence Building Measures (CBM), and cooperation with regional organizations. India is the lead country for trade, commerce and investment CBM. The United States and over 20 other nations and organizations serve as “supporting nations” to the process.
It is an Intergovernmental organization (IGO) and its first Ministerial Conference held on November 2, 2011, at Istanbul, Turkey while second on June 14, 2012, at Kabul, Afghanistan, third on April 26, 2013 at Almaty, Kazakhstan, fourth on October 31, 2014 at Beijing, China, fifth on December 9, 2015, at Islamabad, Pakistan, sixth on December 4, 2016 at Amritsar, India and 7th held in November14, 2019 at The Hague Netherlands.
The 14 member forum of Istanbul Process have Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates.
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