Thousands of anti-Shia protesters recently gathered in the city of Karachi, with many openly showing ties to Sunni extremist groups like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which has documented links to the killing of hundreds of Shia Muslims over the past few years. The five wafaqs each represent major streams of Islamic thought in the country: Barelvi, Deobandi, Shia, Ahle Hadith, and the Jamaat-i-Islami, which is considered ultraconservative. For example, in March, media reported that a woman from Meghwar committed suicide after being repeatedly raped by a man of an upper-caste Hindu clan in Deeplo, Sindh. We call upon authorities to ensure the safety of all Pakistanis.. There are large numbers of Shia's lives in India,Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arab. Planning and execution of decennial Population & Housing Census. In a recent study conducted by the Law and Society Alliance, a New Delhi-based think tank headed by N.C. Bipindra, the population of G-B is now approximately 1.5 million, with around 39 per cent Shia, 27 per cent Sunni, 18 per cent Ismaili and 16 per cent Nurbakhshi. In Peshawar, security was increased around churches ahead of Christmas after security forces arrested four militants on December 17 who were allegedly planning an attack on Christmas Day, which is also celebrated as Quaid-i-Azam Day, the birthday of Pakistans founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Pakistan: Shia Muslims . Under the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony is responsible for reviewing internet traffic and reporting blasphemous or offensive content to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority for possible removal or to the Federal Investigative Agency for possible criminal prosecution. Her family said she had been kidnapped and forcibly converted. Islam is the state religion in Qatar. Civil society members reported authorities took no action to prevent attacks on Ahmadi mosques or punish assailants who demolished, damaged, forcibly occupied, or set fire to Ahmadi mosques. The rallies came after police charged Shia cleric Taqi Jaffar with blasphemy on August 30 for criticizing two companions of Mohammed during a Karachi Muharram procession. On October 20, HRCP reported that an Ismaili Muslim mosque in Ghizer was attacked by unknown assailants, who opened fire on the building. Some politicians acknowledged privately the bill was intended to ensure textbooks identify Mohammed as the final prophet, thereby excluding Ahmadis from the definition of Islam taught in public schools. Embassy officers met with civil society leaders, experts, and journalists to stress the need to protect the rights of religious minorities and to continue to support measures that decrease sectarian violence. Edit: August and September of 2020 has seen a renewed attack on Shia Muslims within Pakistan. In May, Daniel Masih appealed to the court in the Sargodha District of Punjab, urging authorities to rescue his brother Bashir and his family from bonded labor under a Muslim landlord. Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan, has witnessed at least four big anti-Shia rallies since September 11, held by different Sunni groups. There is a 5 percent minimum quota for hiring religious minorities (primarily Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Kalash, and Parsis but excluding Shia and Ahmadi Muslims) at the federal and provincial levels of government. According to Pew Research Center, adherents of Shiite Islam in Pakistan make up between 15-20% of the country's total population. Religious freedom activists and civil society groups said the proposal was toothless and raised concerns regarding the ministrys lack of public consultation, the limited powers of the proposed body, and the fact that Ahmadi Muslims were excluded. Legal experts and NGOs continued to state that the full legal framework for minority rights remained unclear. The teacher survived the attack and told media the man had been following and harassing her for days. For example, the Lahore Waste Management Company continued to employ mainly Christian street sweepers, which HRCP criticized as the result of employment advertisements continuing to specify that religious minorities should apply. 2020, in July, 2020, Pakistani police arrested three LeJ operatives who were allegedly planning to carry out an attack in . A complainant filed a criminal charge against them on May 3, triggering the police investigation. Other NGOs also said that 2020 had seen an increase in blasphemy cases. [see also: Population country ranks ] Nationality: NGOs expressed concern about what they stated was the increasing frequency of attempts to kidnap, forcibly convert, and forcibly marry young women from religious minority communities, especially young Hindu and Christian women. The constitution establishes a Council of Islamic Ideology to make recommendations, at the request of the parliament and provincial assemblies, as to the ways and means of enabling and encouraging Muslims to order their lives in accordance with the principles of Islam. The constitution further empowers the council to advise the legislative and executive branches when they choose to refer a question to the council as to whether a proposed law is or is not repugnant to the injunctions of Islam.. According to the governments immigration website, the Ministry of Interior could grant visas to foreign missionaries invited by organizations registered in the country. On August 12, armed gunmen attacked the house of Ahmadi Muslim Syed Naeem Ahmad Bashir in the Sahiwal District of Punjab, firing into the courtyard at night, where they reportedly expected the family to be sleeping. The Shia Muslim population in Pakistan is estimated to be between five and 20 per cent which is not considerable given that over 95 per cent of Pakistan's population are Muslims . On February 22, a Christian woman from Lahore fled to a shelter after a Muslim factory worker forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Ayaz also spoke at a seminar on interfaith harmony at the cultural center at the National Library of Pakistan in Islamabad. The government requires all madrassahs to register with the Ministry of Education in addition to registration with one of the five wafaqs. Print and broadcast media outlets continued to publish and broadcast anti-Ahmadi rhetoric. In May, after the government announced that Ahmadis would be excluded from the National Commission for Minorities, Religious Affairs Minister Qadri said on a popular television show, Anyone supporting Ahmadis is not a Muslim. Ahmadiyya Muslim community representatives stated that the Urdu-language press frequently printed hate speech in news stories and editorials, some of which could be considered as inciting anti-Ahmadi violence. . Speaker of the Punjab Provincial Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) party leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi made numerous statements denouncing Ahmadis and any effort to undermine the status of Mohammed as Islams final prophet. By years end, police had dropped the case due to lack of evidence and pressure from activists. While they do not constitute a majority in any of Pakistan's four provinces, Shia do form a majority in the Pakistani-controlled autonomous region of Gilgit Baltistan. Sunnis are generally believed to be 80-85 percent of the Muslim population, and Shia Muslims, including Hazara, Ismaili, and Bohra (a branch of Ismaili), are generally believed to make up 15-20 percent. Opponents filed a petition to stop construction with the Islamabad High Court on June 29, and vandals destroyed the lands boundary wall on July 5. Despite their well-documented extremist positions, over the past two years TLP and ASWJ have been allowed to assemble, make public anti-Shia speeches, carry out rallies, run for political office and mobilise against the Shia community, ensuring their power and influence in Pakistan has gone from strength to strength. Human rights activists reported numerous instances of societal violence related to allegations of blasphemy; of efforts by individuals to coerce religious minorities to convert to Islam; and of societal harassment, discrimination, and threats of violence directed at members of religious minority communities. Although the government continued to implement elevated security measures around Hazara neighborhoods in Quetta, some Hazara community members continued to state that these measures had turned their neighborhoods into isolated ghettos. Many have observed that outrage against Shia. Hindu community representatives welcomed the decision to return the temple to the community after 70 years. In May 2000, the Shia Muslims based in the Gilgit district of the then Northern Areas began to agitate against the recently changed curriculum of government schools in the region. Although there were no official obstacles to the advancement of minority religious group members in the military, they said that in practice, non-Muslims rarely rose above the rank of colonel and were not assigned to senior positions. In October, the Lahore High Court acquitted a Christian of blasphemy, the first such ruling since 2018. On January 22, the Hyderabad center hosted an event on educational institutions roles in promoting tolerance and creating peaceful communities. In December 2019, the parliament passed and Modi signed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which allows for the fast-tracking of citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian. In July, police arrested four men for destroying a 1,700-year-old Gandharan civilization statue of Buddha in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a video showing one of the men hammering the statue went viral on social media. According to technology companies and religious minority activists, the definition of objectionable content in the draft law was vague and subject to government interpretation. Ahmadiyya community representatives reported the word Ahmadi was written on their passports if they identified themselves as such. In July, residents in the Sheikpura District of Punjab damaged Ahmadi gravestones. Unknown assailants shot a Peshawar trader, also an Ahmadiyya community member, near his business on August 12. This declaration is also required for private educational institutions, including universities. Victims said their attackers singled them out as vulnerable due to their religious minority identity. On July 19, members of the Hindu community staged a sit-in in Khuzdar, Balochistan, to protest the July 18 killing of local Hindu trader Nanak Ram by unidentified assailants in the Wadh area of Khuzdar District. Ahmadi representatives said the wording of the declaration students were required to sign on their applications for admission to universities continued to prevent Ahmadis from declaring themselves as Muslims. The Special Adviser went on to meet with federal and provincial government officials and civil society leaders in Islamabad and Lahore. The Shia population is around 20 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. On October 5, also in Peshawar, Ahmadi professor Naeemuddin Khattak was shot and killed while driving home from work. Others said parliamentarians occupying reserved seats had little influence in their parties and in the National Assembly because they did not have a voting constituency. Sectarian persecution of Shia Muslims has been a long-running fracture in Pakistan, exacerbated by the proxy wars fought on Pakistan soil by Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shia-majority Iran, as well as the US war on terror. The NCHR was also mandated to conduct investigations of allegations of human rights abuses, but legal sources said the commission had little power to enforce its requests. The law prohibits publishing any criticism of Islam or its prophets or insults to others religious beliefs. Phillip Smyth. At least 40 cases were registered against Shias in one month In Islamabad, the deputy inspector general of police said as many as 15,000 police, Rangers, and Frontier Corps personnel were involved. On February 7, the district administration returned a century-old Hindu temple to the Hindu community in Zhob, Balochistan. On July 13, hundreds of members of the Bheel community, including women and children, marched and demonstrated against the demolition of their homes by revenue officials whom they said were in collusion with an influential landlord of the area in Mithi, Sindh. On October 10, 1993, the then Central government had announced elected . As a result, the maps are designed to give a general overview of where significant Shia population centers, zones of influence, and points of interest . Members of religious minority communities stated public schools gave Muslim students bonus grade points for memorizing the Quran, but there were no analogous opportunities for extra academic credit available for religious minority students. Non-Muslims are required to have the head of their local religious communities verify their religious affiliation. Police also deployed snipers and used closed-circuit television cameras and metal detectors to ensure the security of churches and Christmas markets. Even Fawad Chaudhry, currently serving as the minister for science and technology in Khans government, conceded that sectarianism was an issue that was getting out of hand. According to the SATP and media reports, antiterrorism courts convicted and sentenced several individuals affiliated with terrorist organizations and involved in past sectarian attacks and targeted killings. The victims, burned to death by an angry mob, were Babar Noman and Hafiz Naeem. The four men were charged with defacing antiquities. Leaders in other NGOs agreed the actual number of blasphemy cases was likely higher, but uneven reporting and lack of media coverage in many areas made it difficult to identify an exact number. I fear for myself and my family. With the police on their way to interrogate him, and fearing the violent fate that extremist Sunni groups in Pakistan inflict on those accused of blasphemy, last month Kareem and his family chose to disappear. According to Ahmadiyya community leaders, authorities continued to target and harass Ahmadi Muslims for blasphemy, violations of anti-Ahmadi laws, and other crimes. NGOs, legal observers and religious minority representatives continued to raise concerns regarding the failure of lower courts to adhere to basic evidentiary standards in blasphemy cases, and the slow pace of adjudicating these cases, which led to some suspects remaining in detention for years as they waited their initial trial or appeals, and to some convicted persons spending years in prison before higher courts overturned their convictions and freed them for lack of evidence. Following the killing of U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem in July, JUI-F leader Mufti Kifayatullah celebrated the accused killer for his act of justice. Some political figures, including the ruling PTI Partys Sindh provincial president Haleem Adil Sheikh, who is also a member of the Sindh Provincial Assembly, changed their social media profile pictures to that of Naseems killer. Unofficial estimates vary widely with regard to the size of minority religious groups. Shias are around 20% of the world muslim population. In January, an antiterrorism court sentenced 86 members of the TLP to 55-year prison terms each for taking part in violent protests following Bibis acquittal. Smaller minorities are collectively labelled as 'other'. 2.4.1 The Shia Muslim population is estimated to be between 20 and 40 million (in . As one senior security official speaking on condition of anonymity, alleged: We cant ignore the role of regional and international powers in sectarianism in Pakistan Iran supports the Shia militia here..

Nicholas Peters Florida, Who Owns Conroy's Smallgoods, Shih Tzu For Sale In Nj, Delivery Con Auto Propio Miami, Descriptive Correlational Research Design Ppt, Articles S