3.72; Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019; US 18 Dec. 2019), or "some 17-26 million people" ( Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019). The population density in Pakistan is 287 per Km 2 (742 people per mi 2 ). Ahmadiyya Muslim community representatives continued to state that Ahmadi families were unable to register their marriages with local administrative bodies, known as union councils, since those councils considered Ahmadis to be outside the authority of the Muslim Family Law of 1961. Shia leaders, meanwhile, denounced the specific honors prescribed by the bill to Mohammeds companions, which they said risked stoking discord between Shia and Sunnis, given their fundamental disagreements over some of the companions status within Islam. Minority rights activists said most government employment advertisements for janitorial staff continued to list being non-Muslim as a requirement. It is more accurate than the previous one. 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. Her family said she had been kidnapped and forcibly converted. 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. Parents may send children to private schools, including religious schools, at the familys expense. 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. The 16-year-old suspect was being tried as a juvenile; the two coconspirators were a prayer leader and a young lawyer involved in the blasphemy complaint against Naseem. Members of this religious group have suffered persecution specifically from Mughal Emperors. The charges carry up to three years imprisonment and a fine. On September 8, Mehwish Hidayat, a Christian woman, was reunited with her family after being abducted by a Muslim man and spending three months in captivity. By law, madrassahs are prohibited from teaching or encouraging sectarian or religious hatred or violence. Ahmadis continued to report widespread societal harassment and discrimination against community members, including physical attacks, destruction of homes and personal property, and threats intended to force Ahmadis to abandon their jobs or towns. Analysis of census data and demographic research. On April 14, police filed a blasphemy case against Shia singer Zamin Ali in Jamshoro, Sindh. 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. In Islamabad, the deputy inspector general of police said as many as 15,000 police, Rangers, and Frontier Corps personnel were involved. By Rafiq A. Tschannen on October 11, 2020 ( 1 Comment) Shia-Sunni rift on rise in Pakistan, but Imran Khan govt's silence may be strategic . Speakers at these rallies warned Shia of dire consequences, including beheadings, if they continued to blaspheme against the Prophet Mohammeds companions. The Punjab Provincial Assembly also unanimously passed a resolution in May insisting that the federal National Commission on Minorities not include a representative from the Ahmadi community until community leaders submitted in writing that they accepted their status as non-Muslims under the constitution. The Charge dAffaires, consuls general, other embassy officers, and visiting senior U.S. officials engaged government officials and senior advisors to the Prime Minister, including the Minister for Human Rights, and officials from the Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, and Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony to discuss blasphemy law reform; laws concerning Ahmadi Muslims; the need to better protect members of religious minority communities; sectarian relations; and religious respect. However, the vehement sectarian resurgence began in 2017 when the Pakistani government began making concessions to the extremist Sunni Muslim groups. In some schools, however, non-Muslim students may study ethics. Representatives of the Kalash, an indigenous group in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, continued to report their youth were under pressure from Muslim schoolteachers and others to convert from their traditional beliefs. 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. In May, the Cabinet approved a proposal creating a National Commission for Minorities within the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The Religious Affairs Ministry later issued a statement saying Ahmadis would not be included on the commission, given the religious and historical sensitivity of including Ahmadis in government institutions. 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. The author of the article wrote that COVID-19 had been hidden since the 1960s to be used against Muslims.. Throughout the year, unidentified individuals targeted and killed Shia Muslims, including ethnic Hazaras, and Ahmadi Muslims in attacks believed to be religiously motivated. Other blasphemy cases continued without resolution. 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. The Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training held consultations with minority faith representatives during the year in a review of textbooks for derogatory material. Civil society representatives said the bill targets Ahmadis, who do not have representation on the ulema board and who are barred by the constitution and the penal code from identifying as Muslims. 1. 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. 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. The court may suspend or increase the sentence given by a criminal court in these cases. The country is home to the second largest Shia population after Iran. . A media report said four people, including two Shia Muslims, one Ahmadi sect member and a US citizen who renounced the Ahmadi sect, were gunned down in September 2020. (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics) However, according to data from the 2017 Census that was made unofficially available to a lawmaker, the Hindu population may have decreased by 0.19% from 1998. On February 7, the district administration returned a century-old Hindu temple to the Hindu community in Zhob, Balochistan. On January 30, police arrested two Shia men in Tando Mohammed Khan, southern Sindh, and charged them with blasphemy. The four men were charged with defacing antiquities. 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. On June 10, police arrested Sajid Soomro, a professor at Shah Abdul Latif University, in Khairpur, Sindh, on blasphemy charges. Although students of other religious groups are not legally required to study Islam, schools do not always offer parallel studies in their own religious beliefs. His was the first acquittal for blasphemy since October 2018, when Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death in 2010, was acquitted. On August 30, police charged Shia cleric Taqqi Jaffar with blasphemy for criticizing Mohammeds companions during a Karachi Muharram procession. Unfortunately, due to the history that Pakistan has had, especially with regards to security, this remains a huge problem, said Chaudhry. Other NGOs also said that 2020 had seen an increase in blasphemy cases. 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 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 . Page 2 of 41 Preface. You can add more than one country or area. 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. On October 11, unidentified militants abducted six Shia pilgrims near the Pakistan-Iran border region of Panjgur, in Balochistan. Non-Muslims are required to have the head of their local religious communities verify their religious affiliation. 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. 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. Students who identify themselves as Muslims must declare in writing they believe Mohammed is the final prophet. Targeted killings of Shia and Ahmadi Muslims and violence and discrimination against Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadi Muslims continued to occur. On October 10, 1993, the then Central government had announced elected . In the provincial assemblies, there are three such reserved seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; eight in Punjab; nine in Sindh; and three in Balochistan. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a national NGO, expressed concern over a surge in blasphemy cases against religious minorities, particularly the Shia community, and the continued potential for sectarian violence. 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. According to the governments immigration website, the Ministry of Interior could grant visas to foreign missionaries invited by organizations registered in the country. Christian religious freedom activists continued to report widespread discrimination against Christians in private employment. Other NGOs corroborated that 2020 had seen an increase in blasphemy cases. Pakistan: Shia Muslims . In a September editorial, the largest Urdu daily, Nawa-i-Waqt, described the 1974 legislation declaring Ahmadis officially non-Muslim as a historic day in the countrys history. The situation worsened further last week when an influential Sunni religious scholar, Maulana Dr Adil Khan, was killed in an attack. A complainant filed a criminal charge against them on May 3, triggering the police investigation. 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. U.S. government cultural centers in Khairpur, Hyderabad, and Karachi held events to promote religious freedom. Twitter and WhatsApp users circulated graphic images and video footage from the courtroom, depicting Naseem slumped over a chair and crowds of men ignoring the body and seeming to congratulate the killer. 163,601,094. Sanjay Mathrani, a former participant in a U.S. government exchange program, was a featured speaker. The teacher survived the attack and told media the man had been following and harassing her for days. . Minority lawmakers and civil society activists reacted strongly to the attack, stating the boys had been instigated by local Muslim clerics. 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. A large portion of . The anti-Shia Muslim campaign first began gathering pace on social media in September, demanding that Shia Muslims were declared heretics. 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. The accused were mostly Shia (70 percent of cases) and Ahmadi Muslims (20 percent of cases). According to 1961 Census -- the first in the state after Partition, Muslims constituted 68.3 per cent of Jammu and Kashmir's population. Answer (1 of 19): The country Iran has the largest population of Shia. 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. Sources vary on the precise breakdown of the Muslim population between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Shia Muslims mourning the death anniversary of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, in Karachi on 8 October. The constitution states, Subject to law, public order, and morality, every citizen shall have the right to profess, practice, and propagate his religion. It also states, A person of the Qadiani group or the Lahori group (who call themselves Ahmadis) is a non-Muslim. The courts continued to enforce blasphemy laws, punishment for which ranges up to the death penalty.
All Principal Components Are Orthogonal To Each Other,
How To Bypass Warzone Phone Number,
Ac Valhalla Hash Id List,
Articles S
