France 24; Pakistani extremists film massacre of Shiite minority group

02/07/2012 / PAKISTAN

Pakistan’s Hazara population, a predominantly Shiite Muslim ethnic minority, has long been subjected to persecution, and in recent months, increasing violence. Yet in a disturbing new trend, members of the Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has claimed responsibility for several attacks targeting the country’s Hazara, have begun filming deadly assaults on the community and posting the videos online.

Filmed just outside of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s western Balochistan province and home to a large Hazara community, the video below contains graphic images. A number of Hazara fruit and vegetable sellers were en route to Quetta from a suburb dubbed “Hazara Town” on October 4, when the bus they were travelling on was forced to stop by a group of armed men. Aiming their weapons into the vehicle, the assailants killed 13 of the passengers in cold blood.

The incident was reported by local media, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has ties to both al Qaeda and the Taliban, came forward to claim responsibility for the massacre. Footage of the attack later surfaced on the Internet.

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGES

Though the video is several months old, it is representative of the kind of deadly violence that has become increasingly commonplace in the region. The last known attack happened on June 28, when a car bomb struck a bus carrying a group of Hazara on a road near Quetta. Thirteen people were killed and 25 others injured. The next day, members of the city’s Hazara community staged a demonstration to protest against the bloodshed.

According to Abdul Qayuum Changezi, head of the organisation Hazara Jarga, approximately 60 Hazaras have been killed since January alone, while more than 600 have been killed since 2000.

In addition to the threat of deadly violence, Pakistan’s Hazara population are also faced with persecution, and are regularly targeted by Sunni extremists who settled in Balochistan, which lies near the border with Afghanistan, after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

CONTRIBUTORS

Hamza qasimi

“We’re an easily recognisable target for terrorists, because we look like Mongolians”

Hamza Qasimi, a Hazara, lives in Quetta. In the video, the terrorists are speaking in Baravi, a local Balochistan dialect. They are shouting ‘Kafir, Kafir!’ which means ‘non-Muslim’. To them, we are infidels. It’s not the first time that the Taliban have filmed themselves executing members of my community. Other videos are circulating on the Internet, often set to Taliban chants. To them, killing Hazaras is a demonstration of power, and a source of pride.

Video of an attack targeting Hazaras in September, 2011. In it, Taliban chants can be heard. 

We’re an easily recognisable target for terrorists because we look like Mongolians. Sometimes, they hunt us down in our stores in Quetta. My father had a shop near the central marketplace but he decided to leave town, it had become too dangerous to live here.

Hamza qasimi

This article was written with FRANCE 24 journalist Peggy Bruguière. 

Rebuilding smiles

By LIM WEY WEN
star2@thestar.com.my

On the barren mountains of Bamyan, Afghanistan, Malaysian troops employ creative approaches to help the community improve their health and quality of life.

WINTER was approaching at the central Afghanistan province of Bamyan when the third Malaysian Contingent for International Security Assistance Forces (Malcon 3 ISAF) arrived at the Kiwi Base in October.

However, the harsh weather conditions and subzero temperatures were only the first of a long list of challenges the teams faced in the poorest province in the war-torn country.
Oral help: Besides providing dental services, the Malaysian team in Afghanistan also offered a course to train Afghan students in basic dental techniques. In this photo, Malcon 3 ISAF dental officer Kapten Dr Naili Hayati Abd Mukti (centre) supervises two of her students while they treat a local in Bamyan. — Photos by Malcon 3 ISAF

The mountainous terrain, isolated villages scattered across them at more than 2,400m above sea level, and barren soil with no trees in sight were also daily obstacles to grapple with.

“We felt very sad because although we are living (in the 21st century), there are still people living in caves,” says Lt Kolonel Nordin Mohd Yusof, head of the Malcon 3 ISAF team who had returned from the mission in April. He and his team members shared their experiences with us recently in Kuala Lumpur.

“There is no electricity or water. People have to get water from the rivers or wells, some electricity comes from solar panels (supplied by international missions like Malaysia’s), and light from lamps using kerosene or whatever oil they make locally,” Nordin says.

Nordin led a team of 40 staff members to continue Malcon-ISAF missions in several districts of the Bamyan province, including the capital, Bamiyan, and rural districts such as Yakawlang, Wasar, and Panjab.

His team, which was the third deployment on a six-month rotation from Malaysia, comprised officers and enlisted personnel from the Royal Medical and Dental Corp, as well as administrative and security personnel from the Malaysian Armed Forces.

“Our mission is to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Bamyan so that they will be able to reconstruct the province,” explains Nordin, adding that “we are focusing more on capacity building.”
With female officers in its ranks, the Malcon 3 ISAF team managed to promote family spacing among Afghans who are generally very resistant to family planning. Soon, people began approaching Kapten Dr Nor Azima h Zakaria (in uniform, above) for advice as well as listening to her speak on national radio (left) in the country’s national language, Dari.

While the previous Malcon-ISAF teams focused on providing medical assistance, Nordin’s team has expanded Malaysia’s assistance to helping the community achieve some form of clinical governance, where systematic programmes are devised to help healthcare professionals in the province better care for their own people.

Together with dental surgeon Kolonel Dr Kamal Abdullah, senior medical officer Mejar Dr Mohd Zaki Mokhtar, and Kapten Dr Nor Azimah Zakaria, who led the dental, medical and health promotion teams respectively, Nordin worked with the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) to come up with innovative programmes to help the people of Bamyan gain access to clean water, an uninterrupted power supply, better oral care, and access to information on family planning.

“We do not want to implement just any programme that we bring from Malaysia. We want it to be led by the (Afghan) people for the people,” says Dr Zaki.

Clean water
By distributing toothbrushes and toothpaste to schools and orphanages, the team hopes to start young Afghans on the road to better oral health.

One of the first programmes the Malcon-ISAF team discussed with the MOPH was to introduce a water filtration system that is made locally from materials that can be found in the region.

Although there are NGOs helping to dig wells and provide containers to collect water, Dr Zaki says the need for the people to have a sustainable way of accessing clean and safe drinking water still remains.

“We are not the first to introduce a water filtration system there – organisations like the WHO (World Health Organisation), Unicef (UN Children’s Fund) and the World Food Programme have introduced some – but we were thinking of something that the Afghan people could claim ownership of,” says Dr Zaki.

“That is why we came up with the polycarbonate water filter, which you can build by using gravel, pebbles, big stones, and sand available from the river bed,” he explains.

However, during the long winter months, these filters tend to be abandoned as the water inside freezes. The Malcon 3 ISAF team overcame this by building an insulation box around the filter.

“(The water filtration system) is now available in the bazaar, and every time they go to hardware shops, they can see their own filters,” says Dr Zaki.

Healthy smiles

Another one of the team’s programmes was to work with the MOPH to come up with a system to provide dental care for the people of Bamyan.

“When we went there, we found out that there were no organisations in the MOPH that deals with oral health,” says Dr Kamal, who heads the dental team.

“They have a very simple dental clinic, which was not managed by people with licenses or degrees to practise,” he says
To help peripheral clinics in Afghanistan gain access to continuous power, Malcon 3 ISAF have embarked on a solar panel installation programme in the province of Bamyan. In this photo, Dr Zaki (second from right) and his team are helping one of the clinics install a new solar panel.

Those who provided dental services there were somewhat like the “dental carpenters” Malaya had in the 1950s, he says.

What’s more, as most people live in isolated villages spread across the mountains, many had to walk as long as three hours to get even that basic level of dental care.

“Generally, the incidence of periodontal problems (like gum problems and loose teeth) among adults is very high there,” says Dr Kamal.

“There is also a lack of dentures ... so when they have extractions done they do not know where to get (their teeth) replaced,” he adds.

The team started out by putting seven locals through a basic clinical dental training course, a 10-week programme that teaches basic dentistry techniques.

After that, the team started offering dental services at its base and later at mobile clinics it set up at hospitals in the capital Bamiyan and the Yakawlang district.

“Dental equipment was lacking there, so we also innovated the multi-purpose dental chair,” says Dr Kamal with justifiable pride, adding that the team eventually built three dental chairs with the help of local metallurgists.

At the same time, the team also worked with the Afghanistan Education Ministry on school dental health programmes and distributed close to 4,000 pairs of toothpaste and toothbrushes at schools in Bamiyan and Yakawlang.

“The team’s aim is to set up a model oral health service in one district, Yakawlang,” says Dr Kamal, adding, “If we can achieve that, the other districts can follow on their own.”

Giving gifts of life

With female officers among its ranks, the Malcon 3 ISAF team have also achieved something that was previously difficult even for local healthcare professionals: promoting blood donation and family planning.

Although family planning facilities are available in hospitals around the province, it is not well accepted.
With education and promotion, the Malcon 3 ISAF team managed to hold two blood donation drives that gained the participation of the Afghanistan national police and army.

“From what we understand, some think that they might not be able to have children after that, and that it is a way of making the Afghan population smaller,” Dr Zaki explains.

What the Malcon 3 ISAF team did instead was to introduce the concept of “family spacing” – ie, that families should wait for a few years before having another child.

“Our advantage is that we have female Muslim doctors who can talk about it,” says Dr Zaki, adding that Dr Azimah also spoke regularly on radio programmes to provide information about family spacing in the Dari language (Afghanistan’s national language) to local women.

“We have also approached the Mullah, their religious leader, to convince him that this is necessary,” says Dr Zaki.

Soon, the concept of family planning began to be more accepted by the locals and women even started approaching Dr Azimah for advice.

“With blood donation, the locals think that if they donate blood to another patient, it will take all of their blood away and they will die,” says Dr Azimah, explaining, “That was why in the past, only close relatives or family members were willing to donate blood.”

To correct these misconceptions, the team gave out flyers, put up posters in the Dari language, and educated the local community about blood donation and common diseases such as Brucellosis (an infectious disease that can pass to humans from stock animals or their products) and typhoid.

“We have even managed to conduct two blood donation drives, first with the Afghan national police and then with the Afghan national army as well,” says Dr Zaki.

“We have also called on the local press to raise public awareness about the benefits of blood donation.

“Hopefully, there will be more people who are willing to come forward to donate in the future.”

As the Malcon-ISAF teams are committed to maintaining their presence in Afghanistan until 2014, team members intend to make their programmes as sustainable as possible.

After training healthcare workers and more than 800 police, army and special forces personnel in providing basic life support, the Malcon 3 ISAF and Malcon 4 ISAF (currently in Afghanistan) started “training trainers” so that the Afghan people can eventually run the training programmes themselves.

Other efforts the teams are involved in include ensuring that peripheral clinics have access to continuous power; this involves helping those clinics install solar panels.

Worth the sacrifice

“Our message to the Afghanistan people is that the ball is at their feet, so they must take advantage of our suggestions and start doing something concrete with them,” says Dr Kamal.

While the physical demands of running these projects amidst harsh weather and environmental conditions could be overcome, Dr Zaki says that it is the emotional longing for the comforts of home that is most trying.

His fourth son was born when he was over 4,000km away from home, and Nordin welcomed his first grandson at the time.

“We could communicate with them through Skype (over the Internet) but we also wanted very much to be there for our families,” says Dr Zaki.

So is all the hardship and time away from loved ones worth it, we wonder?

It will be, say the team members, if the programmes they started continue to be practised in Afghanistan.

That would be the best reward, they conclude.

The Star

خا مو ش حکمر ان

سید طلعت حسین

Saach TV

Tony Abbott & Julia Gillard, there's a better way

Hazara holocaust and the deafening Pakistani silence

Saturday, 30 June 2012 23:01

by Anas Abbas 

Political and religious parties in Pakistan take no interest in the plight of Hazaras since none of the influential politician represents Hazara community and the issue lacks fundamental ingredients of anti Americanism which sells in public



In Pakistan, the non state actors who implement the policy of “Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die,” have been belligerently persecuting the Hazara community since 1998. A concise historical persecution account of the Hazara people was well documented by Dr Saleem Javed in his Friday Times article. He writes: “On July 4, 2003, 53 people died and 150 were hurt in a suicide attack on a Hazara mosque in Quetta. It was the first attack of its kind. Since then, more than 700 Shias, most of them Hazaras, have been killed in violent mass killings and suicide bombings in Balochistan”.

Recently these attacks have gained significant momentum as 14 were killed and 45 injured in a suicide attack on a bus in Quetta which had just returned from Iran carrying pilgrims including women and children

So the questions are:

Why Hazara community is being targeted in Pakistan?

Who are the perpetrators and what is their motive? .... Continue Reading... 

Agar - 30th June 2012

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan; Shia pilgrims’ killing exposes state’s criminal negligence

In a statement issued on Friday, the Commission said: “HRCP shares the grief of the families of those killed and injured in Thursday’s terrorist attack in Quetta...

Lahore, June 29: The killing of Shia pilgrims in Balochistan on Thursday again demonstrates that terrorists persist with their vicious and systematic campaign to target citizens on account of their religious beliefs as state has either been unwilling or increasingly unable to prevent the blatant killings, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has said.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Commission said: “HRCP shares the grief of the families of those killed and injured in Thursday’s terrorist attack in Quetta that targeted a bus of Shia pilgrims. After the brazen attack on a bus of Iran-bound pilgrims in Mastung district of Balochistan last year, it was certain that unless the culprits were brought to justice they will strike again. They did so on Thursday. This time the bus had a police escort and yet, as in the Mastung attack, neither the attack could be foiled nor perpetrators captured. About the only difference was that those dead and injured were taken to hospitals relatively quickly. The number of Shias killed in systemic and targeted attacks in Balochistan in 2012 alone has exceeded 60. Everyone knows who the perpetrators are. With each attack, allegations of the attackers enjoying sympathy and support among the security forces gain more credence, at least in the views of the targeted community. In the circumstances, the Shia population of Balochistan, and the Iran-bound pilgrims in particular, understandably feel like sitting ducks. Little wonder then that many young people from the community are prepared to take their chances to flee the country in search of safety, often risking travel in rickety boats in shark-infested waters to do so. At least 70 young men from the community had drowned in one such attempt in Indonesian waters in 2011.

“HRCP unequivocally condemns the attack and is shocked by the authorities’ inability or unwillingness to act against terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has repeatedly claimed responsibility for these attacks. The promised probe into the attack must also look into charges of support for the terrorists among the security agencies. It has also been alleged that the Iran-bound pilgrims targeted on Thursday were originally sitting in various buses but the authorities asked them all to go in one bus, which was later targeted. Some members of the community have interpreted that as proof at least some elements in the law enforcement agencies working hand in glove with the terrorists. HRCP cannot vouch for the veracity of this claim but that too should be investigated. The government should try and imagine the plight of the community whose systematic targeting is now little short of naked persecution. HRCP is sure that unless unambiguous will of the state to bring the killers to justice is demonstrated Pakistan will become an even more unlivable place than it already is.”

Zohra Yusuf
Chairperson

HRCP