The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) issued a condemnation on Sunday after it was reported that an 11-member committee of elders had declared that all transgender persons would be expelled from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swabi district.

“The HRCP strongly condemns the reported decision by community elders in Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to form a committee aimed at expelling transgender persons from the district. Such actions are unconstitutional, discriminatory and amount to incitement to violence against an already marginalised community,” the HRCP said in a statement on X.

It added that “no citizen can be deprived of the right to reside, work or earn a livelihood anywhere in Pakistan on the basis of gender identity”.

The human rights body called on the provincial and district authorities to “immediately ensure the safety and dignity of transgender persons in Swabi and uphold their fundamental rights under the Constitution and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018”.

The committee of elders in question comprises the tehsil president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Maulana Abdul Samad Haqqani and others.

From the committee, Maulana Samad has said that they want transgender persons to leave the district peacefully and earn their livelihoods elsewhere “because as long as they live here, music shows will [continue to] be arranged, negatively impacting the youth”.

Similarly, another committee member, Yasir Khan, has said that in the first phase, transgender persons would be asked to peacefully leave the district, and if that doesn’t happen, district police would be approached.

Committee members have also said that they would likely meet in the next few days and separately would also hold a meeting with the district police to discuss a strategy for “expelling” transgender persons from the district.

The development came after police arrested more than 200 individuals, including two transgender persons, in Swabi for allegedly resisting a raid and participating in a music programme. The participants of the event have also been accused of using “abusive language” against the police over the latter’s bid to stop the event.

Responding to the 11-member committee’s demand for transgender persons’ expulsion, some individuals from the transgender community released a video asserting that the expulsion would never happen.

Saying that they respected and followed local norms and values while earning a living, they stressed that the committee members should not take the law into their hands.

The transgender persons said they were “aware of the law and the Constitution, and if they were given government jobs, they were ready to stop dancing at functions.”

They added that they should be viewed keeping humanity in mind.