Textbooks in Pakistan portray Pakistani Christians as "colonial oppressors", revealing a "deeply troubling" intolerant narrative toward religious minorities, according to a new study.
"Pakistan's public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and inferior; are filled with errors; and present widely-disputed historical 'facts' as settled history," said Robert George, chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom which sponsored the study.
The study, Teaching Intolerance in Pakistan: Religious Bias in Public School Textbooks, analysed the country's teaching materials, and assessed the content for bias.
"Missing from these textbooks are any references to the rights of religious minorities and their positive contributions to Pakistan's development," said George.
"These textbooks sadly reflect the alarming state today of religious freedom in Pakistan. A country's education system, including its textbooks, should promote religious tolerance, not close the door to cooperation and coexistence."
The report found that "the public school system is still fundamentally intolerant of religious minorities".
Christian children are taught that "Christians learned tolerance and kind-heartedness from Muslims", while Hindus are forced to learn about "Hindus' conspiracies towards Muslims".
"Public shaming begins at a very young age," the report found, noting that the curriculum teaches that religious minorities – particularly Christians and Hindus – are "nefarious, violent, and tyrannical by nature".
The report also compared the current textbooks to ones analysed in the USCIRF's 2011 study, Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan.
It found that some of the passages identified as biased in the 2011 study had been removed, but many new biased and derogatory ones had been added.
The USCIRF has recommended that the US State Department designates Pakistan as a "country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, for its "systematic, ongoing and egregious" violations of religious freedom.
The study recommends the textbooks should reflect that religious freedom is a constitutional protection provided to all Pakistanis, and that peaceful co-existence be acknowledged and encouraged in the curriculum.
