On October 5, also in Peshawar, Ahmadi professor Naeemuddin Khattak was shot and killed while driving home from work. The text messages stated, Sharing of blasphemy, pornography, terrorism, and other unlawful content on social media and the internet is illegal. The girls family said they feared she had been forced to convert and marry a Muslim. Sources vary on the precise breakdown of the Muslim population between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Sunni groups held three large rallies in Karachi in September, with speakers warning Shia Muslims of dire consequences, including beheadings, if they continued to blaspheme against the Prophet Mohammeds companions.
Sunni Versus Shiite: Countries, History, Impact - ThoughtCo On November 20 in a rural area of Punjab, a teenage boy killed Ahmadi doctor Tahir Ahmad and seriously wounded three of his family members. Shias, who make up 15 percent of Pakistan's 220 million population, commemorate the seventh-century massacre of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Husayn and his family and friends at the Battle of Karbala in Iraq for refusing . He fears if he is seen on the streets of Karachi, the Pakistan city he calls home, he will be a dead man walking. 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. In September, unidentified gunmen killed two prominent members of the local Shia community in the Kohat District of that province. Subsequently, Arfana Mallah, a professor at Sindh University Jamshoro who criticized Soomros arrest and the blasphemy laws, was herself accused of committing blasphemy and had to apologize publicly. They represent about 21 per cent of the total Muslim population, the highest number in a country after Iran. According to 2017 census total house hold in Pakistan are 32205111. We call upon authorities to ensure the safety of all Pakistanis.. The constitution provides for freedom to manage religious institutions. It states every religious denomination shall have the right to establish and maintain its own institutions. Minority religious leaders stated members of their communities continued to experience discrimination in admission to colleges and universities.
Sunni coalition to demand arrest of Shia clerics in Pakistan Saudi Arabia - United States Department of State The constitution states no person shall be compelled to pay any special tax for the propagation or maintenance of a religion other than the persons own. Estimates of the Zikri Muslim community, located in Balochistan, range between 500,000 and 800,000 individuals.
Also in September, according to law enforcement reports, Peshawar police rescued an Ahmadi family after a large mob gathered outside their home, accusing the family of preaching Ahmadi beliefs. Among the targets of these attacks were Shia Muslims, particularly the predominantly Shia Hazara community. Visiting U.S. government officials met with religious minority community representatives, parliamentarians, human rights activists, and members of the federal cabinet to highlight concerns regarding the treatment of religious minority communities, the application of blasphemy laws, and other forms of discrimination on the basis of religion. Median age total: 33.7 years male: 33.1 years 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. 163,601,094. The constitution states that no person attending any educational institution shall be required to attend religious instruction or take part in any religious ceremony relating to a religion other than the persons own. A complainant filed a criminal charge against them on May 3, triggering the police investigation. 3.72; Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019; US 18 Dec. 2019), or "some 17-26 million people" (Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019). Sunni coalition to demand arrest of Shia clerics in Pakistan. In February, a court in Jacobabad, Sindh, ruled that the marriage with Raza was illegal under the 2013 Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act. Unknown assailants shot a Peshawar trader, also an Ahmadiyya community member, near his business on August 12. Pakistan: Shia Muslims . This requirement effectively prohibits Ahmadi Muslims from holding elected office, as they recognize a prophet subsequent to Mohammed. Non-Muslims are required to have the head of their local religious communities verify their religious affiliation. The TLP and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, a banned organization under the National Counterterrorism Authoritys Schedule-I list, also held smaller rallies.
Anti-Shia Violence: Widening Sectarian Schism in Pakistan In October, Punjab police arrested three Ahmadis for using Islamic symbols and practices in their mosque. In Islamabad, the deputy inspector general of police said as many as 15,000 police, Rangers, and Frontier Corps personnel were involved. 2022 population pyramid Dependency ratios total dependency ratio: 59.3 youth dependency ratio: 44 elderly dependency ratio: 15.3 potential support ratio: 6.5 (2021 est.) According to Ahmadiyya leaders, the government effectively disenfranchised their community by requiring voters to swear an oath affirming the finality of the Prophethood of Mohammed, something that they stated was against Ahmadi belief, in order to register as Muslims. Although there continued to be no official restriction on the construction of Ahmadiyya places of worship, according to Ahmadiyya Muslim community leaders, local authorities regularly denied requisite construction permits, and Ahmadis remained forbidden to call them mosques. In July, a teenager killed U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem in a Peshawar courtroom, where Naseem was on trial for blasphemy. Other government officials, including Prime Minister Khan, advised Sarwar against signing the bill, according to a Lahore-based journalist. In February, a crowd occupied and vandalized a 100-year-old Ahmadi mosque in Punjab. According to the constitution, there shall be no discrimination on the basis of religion in appointing individuals to government service, provided they are otherwise qualified. Human rights and religious freedom activists and members of minority religious groups continued to report that they exercised caution and, occasionally, self-censorship when speaking in favor of religious tolerance because of a societal climate of intolerance and fear. The embassy and consulates highlighted the principles of religious freedom and examples of interfaith dialogue in the United States on their social media platforms throughout the year. In April 2021, Human Rights Watch spoke to one Pakistani Shia man who spent nearly a month in UAE detention and was released and deported in late December 2020. Those wishing to be listed as Muslims must swear they believe Mohammed is the final prophet and must denounce the Ahmadiyya movements founder as a false prophet and his followers as non-Muslim. Multiple civil society groups and faith community leaders stated the government had increased efforts to provide enhanced security at religious minority places of worship, which had been frequent targets of attack in past years. Many social media users celebrated Naseems killing. The Sindh Hindu Marriage Act also applies to Sikh marriages. The country is home to the second largest Shia population after Iran. According to some estimates, the Barelvi school of . The constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and requires all provisions of the law to be consistent with Islam. The Washington-based United States Institute for Peace said 3,800 Shias were murdered between 2007 and 2013, with 325 of those killings occurring in 2012. On September 30, media reported that a 17-year-old girl from a Hindu Dalit community committed suicide after having been gang-raped a year earlier by Muslim men and subsequently blackmailed by them in Tharparkar, Sindh.
Pakistan's growing hatred of Shias - Kashmir Reader Global AIDS Coordinator and Global Health Diplomacy, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Special Representative for Syria Engagement, U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Office of the U.S. No arrests were made, and no one was charged. The embassy highlighted the principles of religious freedom and examples of interfaith dialogue in the United States on its social media platforms throughout the year. According to the CSJ, 2020 saw the highest number of blasphemy cases in a single year in the countrys history.
Iran's Approach to Embattled Shiites in Pakistan is Different Than in They complained that Dalits, who are considered to be the lowest in the traditional Hindu caste structure, were being targeted and subjected to violence and torture in Thar and other areas. It is more accurate than the previous one. They said Christians had difficulty finding jobs other than those involving menial labor, with some advertisements for menial jobs specifying they were open only to Christian applicants. This was part of an increase in anti-Shia activity that month nationwide that included the shooting of a prominent Shia religious leader in Punjabs Mandi Bahauddin District and the shooting of a Shia employee of the National Bank of Pakistan in Islamabad. Population: 233,500,636 (July 2017 est.) The militants were also convicted for running an al-Qaida media cell in Gujranwala. The event received positive coverage in local media. The Special Adviser went on to meet with federal and provincial government officials and civil society leaders in Islamabad and Lahore. The proposal named a prominent Hindu business owner and ruling PTI party leader as the commissions chair, along with other Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Parsi, and Kalash members. There were some cases in which police received custody of the accused from a court for 14 days for a senior officer to carry out an investigation. The NCHR is also mandated to monitor the governments implementation of human rights and review and propose legislation. Courts issued two new death sentences for blasphemy and sentenced another individual to five years imprisonment. The visas were valid for one year and allowed one reentry into the country per year, although it was understood by missionary sources that only replacement visas for those taking the place of departing missionaries were available for long-term missionaries seeking to enter the country for the first time. 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. Sunni Muslims who want to distribute zakat themselves may request an exemption, and Shia Muslims are exempted by filling out a declaration of faith form. Ahmadiyya leaders stated the ambiguous wording of the legal provision forbidding Ahmadis from directly or indirectly identifying themselves as Muslims enabled officials to bring charges against members of the community for using the standard Islamic greeting or for naming their children Mohammed. . Victims said their attackers singled them out as vulnerable due to their religious minority identity. They also met with representatives of other embassies, leaders of religious communities, NGOs, and legal experts working on religious freedom issues to discuss ways to increase respect among religions and to enhance dialogue. The resolution stated, This House demands that if the chief of Qadianis [a derogatory term for Ahmadis] submits in writing declaring that they accept the Constitution of Pakistan and accept their status as non-Muslims, then we will have no objection to their inclusion into the Commission.. Following the killing of Tahir Naseem, the Department of State issued a statement expressing outrage over the killing and noting that Naseem had been lured from his home in the United States by individuals who used blasphemy laws to entrap him. Mr Haider is one of 140 Pakistani Shias to have "disappeared" over the past two years, according to community activists. 03 / Select Countries You can add more than one country or area. Violence has not begun, but its likelihood looms large.
Shias: Heretics in a Sunni Pakistan - Modern Diplomacy Pakistan's current population is estimated at approximately 185 million, of whom approximately 95 percent are Muslim. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. 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. According to eyewitnesses, police officials in at least four police vans cordoned off the area and arrested Soomro, who initially resisted. 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. A local jihadist group and a violent protest movement are driving renewed sectarian strife in Pakistan. During his February visit to Karachi, the Department of State Special Adviser for Religious Minorities told students and faculty at Karachi Universitys Department of Islamic Studies, An inclusive society creates more space for trade and prosperity. The audience applauded his comments about the protection of religious freedom for Muslims in the United States. On September 10, police saved a Hindu trader from a mob that accused him of committing blasphemy and called for his death in Kashmore, Sindh. There are large numbers of Shia's lives in India,Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arab. On June 10, police arrested Sajid Soomro, a professor at Shah Abdul Latif University, in Khairpur, Sindh, on blasphemy charges. I am being targeted because I am from a Shia religious minority. Throughout the year, Islamic organizations with varying degrees of political affiliation held conferences and rallies to support the doctrine of Khatm-e-Nabuwat.
Religion in Pakistan - Wikipedia An Ahmadi trader in Peshawar was shot near his business on August 12. The population of Pakistan in 2019 was 223,293,280, a 1.62% increase from 2018. According to media reports and law enforcement sources, in the weeks leading up to and during the Islamic month of Muharram religiously significant for Shia Muslims authorities at the federal and provincial levels again restricted the movement and activities of dozens of clerics on the Ministry of Interiors Schedule 4 listing. Members of religious minority communities said there continued to be an inconsistent application of laws safeguarding minority rights and enforcement of protections of religious minorities at both the federal and provincial levels by the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Human Rights. On August 22, another teenage Christian escaped from the home of Mohamad Nakash, a Muslim who had kidnapped her in April and had been holding her since.
Shia majority reduced to minority in Gilgit Baltistan: Barrister Hamid In May, the New York Times reported the issue, which was subsequently raised by international human rights NGOs. The penal code bans them from posing as Muslims, using Islamic terms, carrying out Islamic customs, preaching or propagating their religious beliefs, proselytizing, or insulting the religious feelings of Muslims. The punishment for violating these provisions is imprisonment for up to three years and a fine, the amount of which is at the discretion of the sentencing judge. According to her parents, the girl had been abducted and raped after being forcibly converted to Islam in Karachi. Hindu Dalits remained vulnerable to human rights violations and pressure by perpetrators to withdraw police cases. Total. In contrast, even the baseless and fake cases from the other side are being entertained by police, she said. The constitution prohibits discriminatory admission based on religious affiliation to any governmental educational institution. The population share of Hindus dropped a little from 22.06 per cent in 1911 to 20.48. Although the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act covers registration of Sikh marriages in that province, members of the Sikh community reportedly continued to seek a separate Sikh law so as not to be considered as Hindus for the purposes of the law. Ahmadiyya Muslim community leaders continued to report they were affected by discriminatory and ambiguous legislation and court judgments that denied them basic rights, including a 2018 Islamabad High Court judgment that some government agencies continued to use to deny national identification cards to Ahmadi Muslims. On December 24, the PTA issued a legal notice to two Ahmadi U.S. citizens requiring them to remove their website, trueislam.com, or face fines, sanctions, or potential prison sentences. The charges carry up to three years imprisonment and a fine. On November 23, the Sindh High Court dissolved the marriage of an underage Christian girl to a 44-year-old Muslim man. Khattaks brother, who witnessed the killing, named two suspects in his criminal complaint, including a friend of Khattak a lecturer from the University of Agriculture in Peshawar with whom Khattak had had a heated religious argument on October 4.