03/08/2025
Press release
HRCP, SAHR call for global human rights reset
Lahore, 29 July 2025. A joint regional conference held by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) on 26–27 July has called for South Asia to lead Global South efforts to reset the human rights agenda, given the failure of the Global North to uphold international human rights law in Palestine and to prevent gender apartheid in Afghanistan.
Titled ‘Bridges, Not Boundaries: Building Regional Rights-based Movements in South Asia’, the conference brought together rights activists, artists, writers and academics from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In his welcome address, HRCP Secretary-General Harris Khalique emphasized the urgency of building cross-border solidarity amid rising poverty, displacement, xenophobia, and democratic decline across South Asia. Keynote speaker Dr Syeda Hameed called for renewed people-to-people movements rooted in South Asia’s shared heritage. Former HRCP chairperson Hina Jilani, in her keynote address, stressed that human rights work cannot thrive in isolation and urged sustained collective struggle across the region.
Discussing democracy and human rights, speakers in the first session underscored shrinking civic spaces, rising authoritarianism and discriminatory laws. While Sri Lanka and Nepal offer slivers of hope through peaceful activism and constitutional safeguards, Afghan women remain the most marginalized, facing gender apartheid under Taliban rule. From media repression in Pakistan to media and digital crackdowns in India and Bangladesh, regional solidarity, youth activism and people-to-people contact emerged as key strategies for defending rights and reclaiming democratic spaces.
Speakers on the second panel warned of the systematic erasure of religious and ethnic minorities through state-sponsored exclusion in India and Bangladesh, shrinking spaces for Muslim and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and the increasing vulnerability of religious minorities in Pakistan. The panel underscored how nationalism, populism and religious majoritarianism have fuelled dehumanization.
Climate justice campaigners emphasized the escalating climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. Speakers highlighted systemic governance failures, industrial pollution and inadequate responses by national and international actors as key contributors to the crisis and called for stronger regional cooperation on environmental justice, equitable development practices, and enhanced data-sharing for effective resource management and disaster preparedness.
Speakers in the final plenary session addressed the interconnectedness of socioeconomic rights with civil and political freedoms and called for reviving regional platforms such as SAARC and leveraging existing networks to amplify common concerns. They highlighted troubling patterns in the use of repressive laws —from anti-terror and sedition statutes to regulations curbing free speech and digital freedoms. In this context, speakers expressed the need for collective efforts to establish safe spaces and networks for rights activists facing threats and intimidation. SAHR co-chair Roshmi Goswami proposed a joint memorandum on the human rights situation in Gaza, while HRCP chairperson Asad Iqbal Butt said that cross-border solidarity was not just a luxury, but the only path forward.
Farah Zia
Director
