Pakistan accused of ignoring sectarian terror outfits

Murtaza Ali ShahWednesday, March 12, 2014
From Print Edition

GENEVA: Pakistani authorities have been accused by rights groups of turning a blind eye to the banned sectarian militant groups and their relentless attacks on vulnerable communities such as Shia Muslims and other minority groups.

During a side event at the 25th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the topic of ‘The Rise of Religious Intolerance’, Pakistani campaigners alleged that the Pakistani government lacks will to tackle the issue of sectarian killings of Shias head on, helping the growth of perception amongst Shias that they have no one to turn to for their protection in this time of crisis. The session was hosted by the International Imam Hussain Council, International Association for Religious Freedom and Human Rights without Borders.

Rubab Mehdi Rizvi, Chair of the Imam Hussain Council, told members of the NGOs, campaigners and the UN officials that over 21,000 Shia Muslims have been killed in the last three decades in Pakistan “for which not a single one of the killers has been brought to justice”.

“When the alleged assassins are arrested, they are freed after a few weeks, or they somehow manage to escape. It is in the interest of mankind that terrorism be eliminated, and the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Counter-Terrorism Strategy and a Plan of Action for this purpose.”

She said that the appeasement of terrorists, giving them a platform in the media; failing to bring them to justice; failing to protect citizens from their attacks; allowing them to stand in elections, and allowing hate speech including incitement to murder are not only weakening Pakistan’s internal peace and stability but are damaging the country as a partner in the international community’s counter-terrorism strategy.

She feared that all current indications point to the likelihood that attacks of this nature will intensify across the country in the coming months. “We have come here to reclaim a vibrant and diverse Pakistan that belongs to all of us, not just one hard-line minority group.”

Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi of Pakistan Youth Alliance said that militant groups such as the supposedly banned Lashkar-e-Jehangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) and their various affiliates operate with impunity across Pakistan. This despite the fact that they have openly declared their mission to ‘purge’ Pakistan of Shias and others, including majority Sunnis, who differ with their extremist ideology, he said.

He stressed that these groups claim responsibility for terror attacks, continue to engage in hate speech against the Shia community through their madrassah networks, mosque sermons, through distribution of literature and vocal presence on social media but the government agencies don’t act.

“This is a violation of the rights guaranteed by the Pakistani Constitution, a major factor of instability within Pakistan and its also in direct breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly Article 3 and Article 18,” Zaidi said.

Hazara Human rights activist Dr Saleem Javed claimed that almost 1,500 Hazaras in 135 attacks have been killed in sectarian attacks in Quetta.

“Most of Hazara govt employees have quit their jobs in fear of getting killed. Traders, businessmen and shopkeepers who were doing small scale business with Afghanistan & Iran have either sold out their properties at throwaway prices or have closed down temporarily.

Hazara students have dropped out of university in Balochistan in entirety as their buses were targeted. The community has been effectively ghettoized in Warsaw like condition in their enclaves. The governments have done nothing practical to stop the killings rather engaged in a blame game,” he said, calling on the Pakistani govt to fulfill its promises and provide a full-fledged protection and bring the culprits to justice.

The conference called on the government to increase law enforcement capacity in Shia-majority areas and during Shia religious gatherings to protect those who are most at risk; take steps to rein in madrassahs that are responsible for inciting violence and hate speech; draft legislation that makes incitement to violence against any individual or community a criminal offense; and work with educational institutions, civil society and religious scholars of various sects to implement programmes that focus on interfaith harmony.

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The Hazaras in Quetta, Balochistan

Post by Occult Studios.

داستان زندگی زهرا

Post by Masoma Ahmadi.

HUNTING THE HAZARA

MAR 11 2014 

BY KHALED AHMED



Minhaj Ahmed Rafi—Newsweek
IF THERE EVER WAS A SIGN OF THE DEMISE OF THE PAKISTANI STATE, IT IS THE KILLING OF THE HAZARA COMMUNITY OF QUETTA.

In Pakhtun-dominated Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, they look different. Fair skinned but clearly mongoloid, they arouse curiosity and primal hatred. They belong to the Shia sect among a hardline Sunni city where the presence of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban has produced a terrorist mix seldom seen elsewhere in Pakistan. The Hazara of Quetta are in the crosshairs of the sectarian manifestation of the Taliban-Al Qaeda dominion in Pakistan.

On Jan. 21 this year, a bus carrying Hazara youths returning from pilgrimage to Shia shrines in Iran—many mixing business with faith—were blown up by a suicide-bomber’s car in the Mastung district approaching Quetta. Over 24 mangled bodies were extracted from the wreck of the pulverized bus. The Hazara of Quetta went through their routine of laying the dead bodies out on Alamdar Road and refused to bury them until the state of Pakistan pledged to take action against the killers. They pointedly rejected any assurances from the provincial government, which they have long perceived as impotent.

Two days of vigil by men, women and children alongside the limbs collected from Mastung produced results: Pakistan’s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, accompanied by Sen. Pervaiz Rashid, the information minister, flew to Quetta and vowed to take action. Accordingly, on Jan. 24, the paramilitary Frontier Corps and police swept through Mastung with a 350-strong force and arrested dozens of suspected “militants.” Special military flights were arranged for the rest of the Hazara pilgrims stranded on the Pakistan-Iran border post to avoid another bloodbath.

This was not the first target-killing on Mastung Road. In the past months, the Hazara were repeatedly offloaded from buses by gun-toting men, stood before a firing squad, and executed as the non-Hazara passengers stood aside and cowered. The Mastung Road approach to Quetta is a deathtrap despite the fact that the district contains a cadet college supplying Baloch manpower to the Army. (In the other stricken province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the district of Bannu, too, has a cadet college, but is entirely at the mercy of the Taliban.)

But this year’s massacre recalled the biggest act of mass murder in the city of Quetta. On Jan. 10, over a hundred Hazara, including women and children, died after a vehicle full of a quantity of explosives not seen in the country before destroyed a market town where the Shia have become ghettoized.

The mourners refused to leave the street where they had assembled the dismembered bodies of their families until the government ensured action against the killers. The Hazara didn’t believe a word of what the politicians said because their extermination, often referred to as genocide, had become routine. This routine began years ago with the rise of the Punjab-based Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian outfit whose name appears on the Al Qaeda flag along with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Jandullah.

In 2011, at least 26 Hazara were shot dead execution-style on Mastung Road. Terrorists had intercepted a bus going to Taftan, a town near the Pakistan-Iran border, had singled out all Hazara men, and shot them dead. Terrorists stayed at the scene for 10 minutes firing with AK-47s to ensure no one survived. Then they ambushed and killed several Hazara rushing to the scene to take their dead relatives to hospital.

From 2008 to 2012, Balochistan witnessed 758 Shia killed in 478 incidents. Of these, 338 victims belonged to the Hazara community, indicating that the Hazara remain the prime target of this violent schism....Continue Reading... 

2 Star-Crossed Afghans Cling to Love, Even at Risk of Death

By ROD NORDLAND

MARCH 9, 2014

BAMIAN, Afghanistan — She is his Juliet and he is her Romeo, and her family has threatened to kill them both.

Zakia is 18 and Mohammad Ali is 21, both the children of farmers in this remote mountain province. If they could manage to get together, they would make a striking couple.

She dresses colorfully, a pink head scarf with her orange sweater, and collapses into giggles talking about him. He is a bit of a dandy, with a mop of upswept black hair, a white silk scarf and a hole in the side of his saddle-toned leather shoes. Both have eyes nearly the same shade, a startling amber.

They have never been alone in a room together, but they have publicly declared their love for each other and their intention to marry despite their different ethnicities and sects. That was enough to make them outcasts, they said, marked for death for dishonoring their families — especially hers.

Zakia has taken refuge in a women’s shelter here. Even though she is legally an adult under Afghan law, the local court has ordered her returned to her family. “If they get hold of me,” she said matter-of-factly, “they would kill me even before they get me home.”Photo

Zakia, 18, in Bamian, Afghanistan, said her marriage plans led to family death threats.CreditMauricio Lima for The New York Times

Neither can read, and they have never heard Shakespeare’s tale of doomed love. But there are plenty of analogues in the stories they are both steeped in, and those, too, end tragically.

Zakia invokes one, the tale of Princess Shirin and Farhad the stonecutter, as she talks about her beloved, and her long wait in the women’s shelter to marry him. “I would wait until I reach my love, no matter how long,” she said.

In 21st-century Afghanistan, as well, life is no fairy tale, especially in rural places like Bamian. Young people who want to choose their own mates face the harsh reality that strict social traditions still trump new laws and expanded rights — and that honor killings in such cases remain endemic.... Continue Reading...

Afghan Hazaras Emerge as Power Brokers in President Elections

Major Candidates Courting Votes of Important Ethnic Minority

By 

NATHAN HODGE and  EHSANULLAH AMIRI CONNECT

Updated March 7, 2014 7:55 p.m. ET

Workers from Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic minority chat while waiting for customers at a market in the capital, Kabul, in September. Associated Press

KABUL—Afghanistan's once-persecuted ethnic Hazara minority, which has made strong economic and political gains since the U.S. ousted the Taliban in 2001, has emerged as a formidable power broker in the April presidential election.

The mostly Shiite Muslim Hazaras are estimated to represent 9% of the nation's population, the third largest ethnic group, and they have a high level of participation in elections, which is one reason presidential candidates these days are busy courting their vote.

Four of the six leading candidates have selected Hazara running mates in their bid to succeed Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who must step down this year, and who has a Hazara vice president himself.

Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, one of the most likely candidates to make it to a runoff, is running with Mohammed Mohaqeq, a Hazara and prominent former warlord.

Mr. Mohaqeq heads a faction of Hezb-e Wahdat, an armed party that fought against the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1980, and clashed with other ethnic militias during the civil war in the 1990s. Hundreds of Hazara civilians were killed in the so-called Afshar massacre, a 1993 looting spree by a rival militia in western Kabul during the civil war.... Continue Reading...