Despite the Sri Lankan government’s 2015 pledge to deliver truth, justice and reparation to victims of the armed conflict in the country, and to deliver reforms to prevent violations, progress was slow. Impunity for enforced disappearances remained. The government stalled on its commitment to repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act that enabled incommunicado and secret detention. However, the parliament passed an amended Office on Missing Persons Act, intended to assist families of the disappeared seek missing relatives. Enforced disappearances were committed in Bangladesh; the victims often belonged to opposition political parties. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE In different parts of South Asia, refugees and migrants were denied their rights. Bangladesh had opened its borders to more than 655,000 members of the Rohingya community fleeing a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. However, if the Rohingya refugees were forced to return to Myanmar, they would be at the mercy of the same military that drove them out and would continue to face the entrenched system of discrimination and segregation amounting to apartheid that made them so vulnerable in the first place. The number of internally displaced people in Afghanistan rose to more than 2 million, while about 2.6 million Afghan refugees lived outside the country. DISCRIMINATION Across South Asia, dissenting voices and members of religious minorities were increasingly vulnerable to attacks from mobs. In India, several cases of lynching of Muslims were reported, sparking outrage against the wave of rising Islamophobia under the Hindu nationalist government. Demonstrations against attacks on Muslims were held in several cities, but the government did little to show that it disapproved of the violence. Indigenous Adivasi communities in India continued to be displaced by industrial projects. In Bangladesh, attacks against religious minorities were met with near-indifference by the government. Those who sought help from the authorities after they received threats were often turned away. Sri Lanka saw a rise in Buddhist nationalist sentiment, including attacks against Christians and Muslims. The Maldives government used religion to cloak its repressive practices, including attacks against members of the opposition and plans to reintroduce the death penalty. Marginalized communities in Pakistan faced discrimination in law, policy and practice because of their gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or gender identity. Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which carry a mandatory death penalty for “blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad”, remained incompatible with a range of rights. The frequently misused laws were disproportionately applied to religious minorities and others targeted with accusations that were often false and violated international human rights law. A man was sentenced to death for allegedly posting content on Facebook deemed “blasphemous” – the harshest sentence handed down to date in Pakistan for a cyber crime-related offence. GENDER-BASED DISCRIMINATION Although India’s Supreme Court banned the practice of triple talaq (Islamic instant divorce), other court rulings undermined women’s autonomy. The Supreme Court weakened a law enacted to protect women from violence in marriage. Several rape survivors, including girls, approached the courts for permission to terminate pregnancies over 20 weeks, as required under Indian law; although courts approved some abortions, they refused others. The central government instructed states to set up permanent medical boards to decide such cases promptly. 40 Amnesty International Report 2017/18