Azaranica

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sectarian killing: Hazara community seeks to make protest heard internationally

By Our Correspondent
Published: April 10, 2012

Hazara Democratic Party to hold protests outside several embassies against targeted killings. PHOTO: REUTERS/ FILE

QUETTA: The Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) announced that the Hazara community will hold protest demonstrations outside the embassies of European, Asian countries, America, Australia and United Nations offices against targeted killings.

Chairman HDP Abdul Khaliq Hazara announced during a news conference on Tuesday that the protests will also be registered with International Human Rights Organisation to highlight the rampant targeted killings of the Hazara community in Quetta.

“This decade was really painful for the Hazara community during which hundreds of Hazara tribesmen were killed in incidents of targeted killings and suicide attacks,” he told reporters. Khaliq was accompanied by his party leaders among other activists.

Ironically there has been no progress in investigation nor any culprit brought to justice, Khaliq said adding that inaction on the part of government and its law enforcment agencies affirm the notion that they were patronising the culprits.

“Six labourers were brutally killed on the busy Prince Road on Monday night which shows the lawlessness and utter apathy of the government. I believe no religion allows such inhumane act.
“The Members of Provincial Assembly do not even have time to condemn these killings. The chief minister is running affairs of Balochistan from Islamabad which reflects his sincerity with the suffering people of his province have to bear,” he added.

The HDP announced that they will register their protest with the international community since the provincial and federal governments have failed to curb the unending targeted killings of the Hazara community and had given a free hand to criminals.

The HDP will stage protest demonstrations in front of embassies of Asian, European Countries, America, Australia and United Nations from April 20 to 30. The Hazara community residing abroad will also register their protest with International Human Rights Organisations.

The party also announced to stage a sit-in outside the Governor House and Chief Minister’s Secretariat and convene an All Parties Conference on April 15, inviting all political and nationalist parties to evolve a strategy on a future course of action.

“The province is on the brink of civil war; all the parties and responsible people have to show sincerity, otherwise the ongoing unrest will result in an unexpected crisis or a civil war,” the leaders of the Hazara community warned.

Express Tribune

Weapons smugglers thrive in chaos of western Pakistan

BY TOM HUSSAIN
McClatchy Newspapers

KARACHI, PAKISTAN -- The P226, a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol made by the weapons manufacturer SIG Sauer, is a favorite of law enforcement agencies and militaries worldwide, from the FBI and Navy SEALs to NATO troops in Afghanistan and police departments across the United States.

But the shipment of 232 pistols that arrived in the Pakistani city of Quetta in January was intended for a different recipient: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an al-Qaida affiliate that's accused of targeting Shiite Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group used some of the pistols in deadly attacks and distributed others to favored militants - sort of a jihadi version of a corporate bonus - according to militants and criminals in Quetta.

Even more troublesome to U.S. officials, however, is the purported source. A Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant who received two of the pistols, and who gave his name only as Raees, told McClatchy Newspapers that smugglers had purchased the shipment from a gang of corrupt Afghan National Army soldiers, who'd pilfered them from a NATO armory in Afghanistan.

The prospect that al-Qaida affiliates are using the same weapons as the SEAL team that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden last May illustrates the ease with which Pakistani criminal and militant gangs draw on a network of gunrunners that operates from neighboring Afghanistan and Iran to procure a wide range of Western, Russian and Chinese weapons.

In Washington, a senior U.S. defense official said that while he couldn't confirm the report, it was troublesome to consider that the U.S.-led NATO coalition's weapons were making their way into al-Qaida hands.

"But it's more worrying that they continue to get resourced at a level that would allow them to make purchases like that," said the official, who wasn't authorized to be quoted by name.

The weapons pipeline is fraught with shadowy deal-making and persistent danger - McClatchy correspondents were detained twice while reporting this story - but it's served the militants well. Pakistani human rights organizations calculated that 89 people were killed last year alone in sectarian attacks in the western province of Baluchistan, including 63 in the provincial capital of Quetta. In the deadliest attack, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants hijacked a bus that was carrying Shiite pilgrims to neighboring Iran in September, executing 26 of them.

The weapons have contributed to a worsening crisis in remote Baluchistan, where a variety of armed groups hold sway. The sparsely populated terrain of scrubland and hills, ruled mostly by tribal chiefs with little interference from the government, has allowed nationalist insurgents to wage an eight-year rebellion against vastly superior Pakistani security forces - and makes it ideal for smuggling.....Continue Reading...

Monday, April 9, 2012

Six (Hazaras) killed in Quetta sectarian attack

By Mohammad Zafar

QUETTA: Six people belonging to the Hazara community were killed and three others were injured when armed men opened fire at a cobblers shop on the Prince Road in the provincial capital on Monday night.

Police termed the incident a case of sectarian violence and started investigation.

According to official sources, the shoemakers were sitting inside their shop when assailants on two motorcycles opened fire on them with automatic weapons, killing six of them instantly while injuring three others.

The bodies and injured were taken to Sandeman Hosptial. “At least six dead bodies and three injured were brought to the hospital,” doctors at the hospital said.

The deceased were identified as Mama Karim, Muhammad Hassan, Saeed Ahmed, Qurban Ali, Nadir Ali and Shabir Hussain while injured as Yunus, Lala Musa and Ustad Hadi.

Score of people belonging to the Hazara community reached the hospital and raised slogans against the government and law enforcement agencies for their failure to protect life and property of citizens.

Quetta Police Deputy Inspector General Qazi Wahid said that all the victims belonged to Hazara community and it appeared to be a case of sectarian target killing. A group of angry people blocked the Jinnah Road and forcibly closed shops in the area to mark the protest. Some people armed with sophisticated weapons harassed the doctors and journalists and surrounded the hospital.

Daily Times

'They won't get off this ship. They want Australia to help'

Michael Bachelard
April 10, 2012 - 10:27AM

The asylum seekers are refusing to disembark. Photo: Reuters

The 120 Afghani men and boys refusing to get off the ship that rescued them off the coast of Indonesia have pleaded with Australian authorities to help them.

In an interview by phone with this website, one of the refugees, Liaqat Ali Amini, said the people, all ethnic Hazaras, were frightened of the Indonesian police and of being put in “prison”.

“People are afraid of Indonesian police, they take away our money and mobile phones, and put behind bars, and we have no contact with our family,” Mr Amini said.

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“We don't want to get off. People say we want to get to Australia, we were in international waters when we suffered a lot from this sinking boat.

“Our destination is not Indonesia. We came to Australia. People are on this ship, and they won't get off this ship and they want Australia to help.”

Mr Amini said four of the asylum seekers were just 12 years old and 25 were aged under 18.

Mr Amini said the group had boarded the boat late on Saturday and headed for Christmas Island. But not all the engines worked and, “They were broken very soon”.

Indonesian authorities have confirmed that they had received a distress call from the boat which was sinking in the Sunda Strait south of Java at about 5.30am on Sunday. They called in the nearest ship, the Hermia, a Singapore-flagged oil tanker.

Mr Amini said they had made it to international waters, but that, as they foundered, the wind had blown them back into Indonesian waters.

Now, however, they are in dock in the port of Merak, western Java.

Mr Amini asked for help to speak to the immigration department in Australia.

“I feel in Australia I will get blessed and I see many people from my tribe are trying to get to Australia and they are getting to Australia and seeking asylum,” Mr Amini said.

He said he came from Ghazni in the mountains of Afghanistan, and that his life had been threatened by insurgents.

He had been hoping for many years to come to Australia, but had only recently raised the $US20,000 fee to pay the people smuggler, whom he identified as Haji.

They had come by plane to Bangkok, then by road and boat to Malaysia and then Indonesia. They waited for a boat for about two months in Bogor, just outside Jakarta.

Mr Amini said he had heard in Indonesia about Australia's change in detention policy, in which asylum seekers were now being kept in the community.

However, his desire to come to Australia had long predated the policy change.

National Times

Raisani sacks seven officials over killing of six Shias

Paramedics give medical treatment to an injured Shia Muslim man at a hospital in Quetta on Monday. – Photo by AFP

QUETTA: Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani on Monday sacked seven police officials on duty when unidentified gunmen shot dead six Shia Muslims in Quetta, DawnNews reported.

According to police sources, 17 suspects have also been arrested in connection with killing of Hazara community earlier today.

The drive-by shooting took place at the busy Prince Road in the Balochistan capital.

“Two gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on a shoe store killing four Shia Muslims and wounding three others,” senior police official Muhammad Tariq told AFP.

“It was most probably a sectarian incident but the police are investigating,” he said.

Another police official, Jehangir Shah, also confirmed the incident and the four casualties.

Later, two out of three injured succumbed to their injuries in a hospital.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Balochistan is rife with religious militancy and sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and minority Shia Muslims, and a regional separatist insurgency.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed since Baloch rebels rose up in 2004 against the federal government, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the oil, gas and mineral resources in the region.

DAWN NEWS