Similar to the previous year, some Sikh and Hindu places of worship reopened during the year. The two major powers in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, an Arab population ruled by a Sunni majority, and Iran, a Persian population ruled by a Shia majority. The government continued its warnings against blasphemy and other illegal content on social media through periodic print advertisements and text messages sent by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA). The National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), an independent government-funded agency that reports to parliament, is required to receive petitions, conduct investigations, and request remediation of human rights abuses. In contrast, even the baseless and fake cases from the other side are being entertained by police, she said. 'Every year we dig mass graves': the slaughter of Pakistan's Hazara On October 9, the PTA blocked the video-sharing social media application TikTok, based on what it called immoral and indecent content. The government continued to implement the National Action Plan against terrorism, including countering sectarian hate speech and extremism as well as conducting military and law enforcement operations against violent groups. In July, the Department of State issued a statement following the killing of Tahir Naseem 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. 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. Major cities - population 16.459 million Karachi, 13.095 million Lahore, 3.542 million Faisalabad, 2.281 million Rawalpindi, 2.290 million Gujranwala, 1.164 million ISLAMABAD (capital) (2021) Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The court ordered police to hand over the woman to her Hindu husband and no police or court action was taken against Domki. Shia majority reduced to minority in Gilgit Baltistan: Barrister Hamid 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. Other NGOs also said that 2020 had seen an increase in blasphemy cases. The Shia Militia Mapping Project | The Washington Institute Civil society activists and media reported young Christian and Hindu women being abducted and raped by Muslim men. 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. Hardcore Sunni groups publicly accused Shia Muslims of orchestrating the attack. Print and broadcast media outlets continued to publish and broadcast anti-Ahmadi rhetoric. Persecution seems to be waiting for the Shia minority, said Hamza Baloch, a founding member of Secular Shia Voices, an advocacy group. Identification cards are used for voting, pension disbursement, social and financial inclusion programs, and other services. The name also comes from one of the names of Allah, Al-Wahab, which means the all-giver.. The '2019 International Religious Freedom Report,' of the US Department of State, released on June 10, 2020, has voiced concern over the targeted killing in Pakistan of Shia Muslims, including ethnic Hazaras, who are largely Shia, and Ahmadi Muslims in attacks believed to be driven by faith. Parliament, church leaders, and advocates continued to debate the text of a draft law to govern Christian marriages nationwide, because the existing regulation dated from 1872. There are large numbers of Shia's lives in India,Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arab. On October 5, also in Peshawar, Ahmadi professor Naeemuddin Khattak was shot and killed while driving home from work. Since 1980s, Parachinar, with majority Shia population, has seen the emergence of radical Saudi-sponsored Salafist groups, and sectarian violence has become a disturbing phenomenon, fueled by local and global terrorist organizations like the Taliban and ISIS. Hindus formed 28.45 per cent. Most minority religious groups said they continued to face discrimination in government hiring. Their refusal to sign the statement meant they were automatically disqualified from fulfilling the admissions requirements. The constitution states the government shall make Islamic studies compulsory for all Muslim students in state-run schools. These conferences were organized by groups that stated they were defending the teaching that Mohammed is the final prophet but were often characterized by both secular and Ahmadi critics as engaging in hate speech against Ahmadi Muslims. 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. No casualties were reported. The year 2020 saw a rise in blasphemy charges - at least 199 people were charged, of which 70% were Shia Muslims. Azerbaijan and Iran were both conquered by Shah Ismail I around the same time where he also forced a conversion of Sunnis to Shia Islam. Although a sizeable. Syed Kareem* has been in hiding for weeks. On October 10, 1993, the then Central government had announced elected . The constitution directs the state to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of minorities, to secure the well-being of the people irrespective of creed, and to discourage sectarian prejudices. Now theyre coming up with legislation to eliminate the Shia minority.. Over the past month, Pakistan has seen an unprecedented rise in attacks and arrests of its Shia population, who make up between 15% and 20% of the Sunni-majority country, the largest Shia community outside Iran. 3.72; Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019; US 18 Dec. 2019), or "some 17-26 million people" ( Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019). Shias in Pakistan are geographically spread across the. 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. The NCHR is also mandated to monitor the governments implementation of human rights and review and propose legislation. On November 9, also in Peshawar, an 82-year-old retired Ahmadi government worker was killed by unknown gunmen while waiting for a bus. The Shia population is spread all over Pakistan. Pakistani Shia end protests; hold funerals for slain 11 miners The CLAAS legal team filed a contempt of court application, but the Lahore High Court dismissed the plea. A full bench of the Supreme Court may grant a further appeal. Police intervened on multiple occasions to quell mob violence directed at individuals accused of blasphemy. On July 22, the Punjab Provincial Assembly passed the Protection of Foundation of Islam Bill, which prohibits the printing and publication of objectionable material in the province. In August, a case was opened against three Ahmadi men after an official of a religious seminary approached police complaining that the men sacrificed an animal on Eid al-Adha. In Islamabad, the deputy inspector general of police said as many as 15,000 police, Rangers, and Frontier Corps personnel were involved. IRB - Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada - ecoi.net The man was later arrested by police after the Sindh education secretary intervened in the case. Editorial note: This project covers the period through 2019. . Then, in mid-September, a march of more than 30,000 people, organised by extremist Sunni Muslim groups, gathered in Karachi over two days to call Shia Muslims unbelievers and blasphemers and called for their beheading. In February, a crowd occupied and vandalized a 100-year-old Ahmadi mosque in Punjab. Religious minority community members also stated the government was inconsistent in safeguarding against societal discrimination and neglect, and that official discrimination against Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Ahmadi Muslims persisted to varying degrees, with Ahmadi Muslims experiencing the worst treatment. Phillip Smyth. Projections 0 100,000,000 200,000,000 300,000,000 400,000,000 Population 235,824,862 In addition to the large JUI-F conference and rallies, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami also held a large event in September in Peshawar; both parties criticized the PTI-led national government for failing to enforce Islamic law. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission reported more than 200 terrorist attacks resulted in nearly 700 Shia deaths and over 1,000 Shia injuries in 2013. At the forefront of anti-Shia campaign in Pakistan are two hardline Sunni Muslim groups, Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ) and Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). Shia Muslims constitute 10 to 12 percent of the citizen population and an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the Eastern Province's population. Pakistan: Shia Muslims . In December, using expanded authorities granted by the government in November, the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority publicly demanded the removal of sacrilegious content from the Google Play Store and Wikipedia. In April, some members of the Hindu community in Karachis Lyari area were denied food packages provided by a local charity, according to local sources. The teacher survived the attack and told media the man had been following and harassing her for days. Victims said their attackers singled them out as vulnerable due to their religious minority identity. 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. The HRCP reported that more than 40 such cases were registered under the blasphemy laws in August alone. By one estimate, in Pakistan, the Shias are. / shia surnames in pakistan. The womans family said she was pregnant at the time of her suicide and that police initially refused to file charges against the man because of his caste. Police and security forces throughout the country enhanced security measures during religious holidays in consultation with religious leaders. The law requires elected Muslim officials to swear an oath affirming their belief that Mohammed is the final prophet of Islam. An Ahmadi trader in Peshawar was shot near his business on August 12. At other times, advocacy groups reported that blasphemy trials were held inside jails for security reasons, in which case the hearings were not public, resulting in a gain in immediate security but a loss of transparency. Throughout the year, unidentified individuals targeted and killed Shia Muslims, including ethnic Hazaras, and Ahmadi Muslims in attacks believed to be religiously motivated. Total. Soomro was free on bail at years end, but the case was still pending in court. Islamic and minority religious leaders endorsed the code. (July 2020 est.) 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. Political parties elected by the general electorate choose the minority individuals who hold these seats; they are not elected directly by the minority constituencies they represent. Mr Haider is one of 140 Pakistani Shias to have "disappeared" over the past two years, according to community activists. According to the penal code, the punishments for persons convicted of blasphemy include the death penalty for defiling the Prophet Mohammed, life imprisonment for defiling, damaging, or desecrating the Quran, and up to 10 years imprisonment for insulting anothers religious feelings. Speech or action intended to incite religious hatred is punishable by up to seven years imprisonment. 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. The court ordered the chief executive officer of GEPCO to hire the two Christians, but he did not do so. The court may suspend or increase the sentence given by a criminal court in these cases. 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. Answer (1 of 19): The country Iran has the largest population of Shia. In August and September, increased security was provided throughout the country for the Shia communitys Muharram processions. On July 21, the government returned a 200-year-old Sikh gurdwara to the Sikh community in Quetta. Shia population: 17 - 26 million Pakistan participates with a similar percentage of Shia Muslim to its neighbor India, with Shia Muslims making 10 - 15% of all Muslims in Pakistan. Reports indicated parents and pastors were frequently paid by the traffickers for the women, and that some pastors were complicit in the trafficking. 1.. Edit: August and September of 2020 has seen a renewed attack on Shia Muslims within Pakistan. The accused were mostly Shia (70 percent of cases) and Ahmadi Muslims (20 percent of cases). Some religious minority leaders stated the system of selecting minority parliamentarians through the internal deliberations of mainstream parties resulted in the appointment of party stalwarts or those who could afford to buy the seats, rather than legislators who genuinely represented minority communities. According to Pew Research Center, adherents of Shiite Islam in Pakistan make up between 15-20% of the country's total population. Shares of Sikhs and Buddhists in overall population increased marginally. These attacks targeted gatherings of Shia individuals. However, violence is inevitable because the anger and anxiety on both sides seem to be mounting. 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. 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. 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 Perpetual Shia Shame - Baltimore Post-Examiner According to the 2017 census results, the population is 1.6 percent Hindu, 1.6 percent Christian, 0.2 percent Ahmadi Muslim, and 0.3 percent others, to include Bahais, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians. It was the largest anti-Shia march seen in decades in Pakistan, and was copied in other cities including the capital Islamabad. 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. In May, the Federal Investigative Agency raided the Lahore home of Ahmadi missionary and youth worker Rohan Ahmad, arresting him on charges of cybercrime, blasphemy against the Quran, and propagating the Ahmadi faith through a WhatsApp group in September 2019. Governor Sarwar did not sign the bill, which was promoted by the PML-Q party, noting controversy about its provisions and concerns that it could be seen as anti-Shia. Reactions to the PTAs measure was mixed, with many social media users praising the decision to ban TikTok, but others concerned that the government could use this to target religious minorities. Pakistan Demographics Profile - IndexMundi Minority lawmakers and civil society activists reacted strongly to the attack, stating the boys had been instigated by local Muslim clerics. Religion in Pakistan - WorldAtlas 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. To prevent a slide back into violence, Islamabad should ensure those inciting or perpetrating violent acts are prosecuted while denying hardliners the civic space to propagate their hatred. The non-Pakhtun population of Pakistan is predominantly Barelvi. Zaidi. 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. It distributes the funds through a government-run charity as stipends for poor families and students, payment for medical treatment, and support to Sunni mosques and madrassahs registered with the government. On July 27, an antiterrorism court sentenced a member of SSP to 13 years imprisonment for facilitating terrorist activities. The plan followed a 2014 Supreme Court decision that ordered the government to take steps to ensure the rights of minorities and promote a culture of religious and social tolerance, but religious freedom activists and civil society groups said the proposal was toothless and raised concerns regarding the Religious Affairs Ministrys lack of public consultation, the limited powers of the proposed body, and the ultimate decision to exclude Ahmadis. According to government figures, the remaining 4 percent includes Ahmadi Muslims (whom national law does not recognize as Muslim); Hindus; Christians, including Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants, among others; Parsis/Zoroastrians; Bahais; Sikhs; Buddhists; Kalash; and Kihals and Jains. The government continued to permit limited non-Muslim foreign missionary activity and to allow missionaries to proselytize as long as they did not preach against Islam and they acknowledged they were not Muslim. The constitution states, All existing laws shall be brought into conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah [Islams body of traditional social and legal custom and practice]. It further states no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to Islam. In October, members of a State Youth Parliament team in Gujranwala defaced a public portrait of the countrys first Nobel laureate, physicist Dr. Abdus Salam, an Ahmadi. Human Rights Report | Pakistan - Hindu American Foundation The commission also included two Sunni Muslim clerics and senior civil servants from the Ministries of Interior, Law and Justice, Human Rights, Federal Education and Professional Training, Religious Affairs, and the Council of Islamic Ideology. rate of urbanization: 2.1% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.) The law also would make desecration (including physical destruction of books or symbols, along with verbal, written, or online actions perceived to be insults) of any prophet, any of the four divine books (the Quran, Torah, Psalms of David, and Gospel of Jesus), any family and companions of the Prophet Mohammed, as well as abetting or glorifying terrorists, or promoting sectarianism in any book, punishable with a maximum of a five-year jail term and a substantial fine of up to 500,000 Pakistani rupees ($3,100). 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. Shias in Pakistan reputedly account for about 20 percent of the population or 42 million out of the population of 210 million making it the second largest Shia population in the world outside Iran. The government did not permit Ahmadis to teach Islamic studies in public schools. The Ministry of Interior maintained multitier schedules of religiously oriented groups it judged to be extremist or terrorist that were either banned or had their activities monitored and curtailed (Schedule 1) and individuals whose activities in the public sphere could also be curtailed, including during religious holidays such as Ashura (Schedule 4). According to the bill, all publishers would be required to submit to the Directorate General Public Relations, the provincial government authority with jurisdiction over printing presses and publishing houses, four copies of every edition of each title they print. AsiaNews, the official press agency of the Roman Catholic Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, reported that two members of a Christian family were shot and wounded after buying a house in a neighborhood inhabited primarily by Muslims on June 4 in the Sawati Phatak Colony of Peshawar. NGOs expressed concern that authorities often failed to intervene in instances of societal violence against religious minorities due to fear of retaliation, inadequate staff, or apathy. According to the CSJ, 2020 saw the highest number of blasphemy cases in a single year in the countrys history. 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. The penal code does not explicitly criminalize apostasy, but renouncing Islam is widely considered by clerics to be a form of blasphemy, which can carry the death penalty. Their families believe they were taken into custody by the intelligence. The population of Pakistan in 2019 was 223,293,280, a 1.62% increase from 2018. On January 21, the center in Khairpur hosted a Religious Freedom Day event at which 25 students discussed the importance of being able to practice religion freely in Pakistan. The law bans the sale of Ahmadiyya religious literature. Analysis of census data and demographic research. In September, unidentified gunmen killed two prominent members of the local Shia community in the Kohat District of that province. For 40-year-old Tehseen, Kashif was her whole world. According to the SATP, at least 10 persons were killed and three injured in 10 incidents of sectarian violence by extremist groups during the year. Pakistan People 2020, CIA World Factbook - theodora.com Inflammatory anti-Ahmadi rhetoric continued to exist on social media and was at times spread by senior members of mainstream political parties. Violence against Shia Muslims continues unabated in Pakistan - ANI News While schools were required to teach Islamic studies and the Quran to Muslim students, sources reported many non-Muslim students were also required to participate because their schools did not offer parallel courses in their own religious beliefs or ethics. On October 7, Dr. Qibla Ayaz, then chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, inaugurated a national code of conduct to promote interreligious harmony in the face of increased sectarian violence and mistreatment of religious minorities. 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. According to an unofficial and unverified estimate, between 700 and 5,000 Pakistan Shias from Karachi, Parachinar, and Gilgit-Baltistan, recruited by Iran, went to Syria to fight against the. The attackers relationship to organized terrorist groups was often unclear. On November 23, the Sindh High Court dissolved the marriage of an underage Christian girl to a 44-year-old Muslim man. Last week, in Punjab, police beat up and arrested 22 Shia Muslims, including seven women, who were taking part in a ceremony to mark a Shia martyr.