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October 23, 2000 

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Charging discrimination, a Christian organization filed a case in the Supreme Court which challenges separate electorates for religious minorities in Muslim-majority Pakistan, an official of the group said Sunday.

Religious minorities, including Christians and Hindus, have separate seats in both the federal and provincial parliaments. They are not allowed to vote for Muslim candidates in elections.

Shahbaz Bhatti, president of the Christian Liberation Front, said the Supreme Court petition was filed on Saturday. No date has been set for the hearing.

Minorities have been campaigning for a joint electorate since it was abolished by military dictator Gen. Mohammed Zia-ul Haq in the early 1980s.

"Nowhere in the world, except in Pakistan has religion been made a determining factor in voting," Bhatti told The Associated Press.

"We were expecting that Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government would move to end this discrimination, but he has retained a separate electoral system for minorities," he said.

In August a minister in Musharraf's cabinet, who was a Christian, resigned to protest the separate electorate.

Musharraf, who seized power from the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999, promises to return the country to democratic rule by the end of 2002.

Musharraf's army government will hold local elections earlier. Elections for local bodies, including district councils and municipal governments will begin in December. However the voting will be staggered over several months concluding in July 2001.

In these elections Christians will be allowed to vote only for seats reserved for minorities. Muslims will vote for the general seats.

"The separate electorate disenfranchises religious minorities completely," Bhatti said.

"The system is flawed because people belonging to the minorities are not allowed to become the part of the mainstream," Bhatti said.

Minorities make up about five percent of Pakistan's 140 million population.

Human rights groups have also demanded a joint electorate system in Pakistan. But right-wing Islamic religious parties oppose the demand. Previously successive political governments also have refused to end the system of separate electorates.