Azaranica is a non-biased news aggregator on Hazaras. The main aim is to promote understanding and respect for cultural identities by highlighting the realities they face on daily basis...Hazaras have been the victim of active persecution and discrimination and one of the reasons among many has been the lack of information, awareness, and disinformation.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

پاکستان میں شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی زیر عتاب



یہ کسی معجزے سے کم نہیں ہو گا کہ نادر علی آسٹریلیا پہنچ جائے، جہاں وہ سیاسی پناہ حاصل کرنا چاہتا ہے۔ جکارتہ سے آسٹریلیا کے لیے روانہ ہونے والی اُس کی کشتی گزشتہ دو ماہ سے لاپتہ ہے۔


پاکستانی صوبے بلوچستان کے دارالحکومت کوئٹہ کا رہائشی نادرعلی شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی سے تعلق رکھتا ہے۔ کوئٹہ میں روزانہ کی بنیاد پر محنت مزدوری کر کے گزر بسر کرنے والا 45 سالہ نادر علی کسی نہ کسی طرح انڈونیشیا پہنچا تھا، جہاں سے وہ بائیس مئی کو جکارتہ کی ایک بندر گاہ سے ایک کشتی کے ذریعے آسٹریلیا کے لیے روانہ ہوا۔

قریب دو ماہ قبل اس کشتی سے رابطہ منقطع ہو گیا تھا، جس میں سوار تھا۔ گزرتے دنوں کے ساتھ ایسی امیدیں دم توڑتی جا رہی ہیں کہ نادر علی اپنے دیگر ساتھیوں کے ساتھ زندہ مل جائے گا۔ اس کشتی میں مجموعی طور پر 24 افراد سوار تھے، جن میں سے متعدد نادر علی کی ہی کمیونٹی سے تعلق رکھتے ہیں۔ اگرچہ انہیں پہلے ہی بتایا گیا تھا کہ کشتی چھوٹی ہے اور سمندر کی لہریں تند و تیز لیکن وہ پھر بھی آسٹریلیا جانے کے لیے بضد تھے۔

بنیادی طور پر اس نسل کا تعلق افغاستان سے ہے

نادر علی کے چھوٹے بھائی قادر نائل نے خبر رساں ادارے آئی پی ایس کو بتایا، ’’ابھی تک ایسی کوئی اطلاع نہیں ہے کہ اس کا بھائی ڈوب گیا ہے، اس لیے وہ پر اُمید ہے‘‘۔ کوئٹہ سے ٹیلی فون پر بات کرتے ہوئے انہوں نے مزید کہا کہ وہ حقیقت کے بر خلاف سوچ رہے ہیں۔ نادر علی نے آسٹریلیا پہنچنے کے لیے دس ہزار ڈالر کی رقم ادا کی تھی۔

شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی ملک سے فرار کیوں ہو رہی ہے؟

پاکستان میں شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی کی کل آبادی کا اندازہ ساڑھے نو لاکھ لگایا جاتا ہے، ان میں سے قریب چھ لاکھ کوئٹہ میں آباد ہیں۔ یہاں اس کمیونٹی کو نسلی بنیادوں پر امتیازی سلوک اور سزاؤں کا سامنا ہے۔ پاکستان کی سُنی مسلمان آبادی اور ہزارہ شیعہ برادری کے مابین تنازعے کی ایک تاریخ ہے۔

دنیا بھر میں ہزارہ نسل کے لوگوں کی کل آبادی 3.4 ملین بتائی جاتی ہے۔ یہ تمام لوگ اپنے مخصوص منگول نقوش کی وجہ سے فوری طور پر پہچانے جاتے ہیں۔ بنیادی طور پر اس نسل کا تعلق افغاستان سے ہے، جو وہاں موجود سُنی پشتون قبائل کی طرف سے ڈھائے جانے والے مظالم کی وجہ سے 120 برس قبل وہاں سے فرار ہونے پر مجبور ہو ئی ۔

پاکستان میں اس کمیونٹی کا پر تپاک استقبال کیا گیا۔ اس دوران اس برادری سے تعلق رکھنے والے متعدد افراد حکومتی سطح پر اعلیٰ عہدوں تک پہنچنے میں بھی کامیاب ہوئے۔ تاہم وقت گزرنے کے ساتھ ساتھ پاکستان میں بڑھتی ہوئی انتہا پسندی کی وجہ سے اس کمیونٹی کو تشدد کا نشانہ بنائے جانے کا عمل شروع ہو گیا۔

گزشتہ کچھ برسوں کے دوران بلوچستان سے شیعہ ہزارہ برادری کی ایک بڑٰی تعداد وہاں سے ہجرت پر مجبور ہو چکی ہے۔ ہزارہ ڈیموکریٹک پارٹی کے چیئرمین عبدالخالق نے بتایا کہ ایک دہائی کے دوران ان کی کمیونٹی کے پچیس ہزار افراد پاکستان چھوڑ چکے ہیں۔

شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی پاکستان میں محفوظ نہیں

پاکستان ہیومن رائٹس واچ کے ڈائریکٹرعلی دایان کہتے ہیں کہ بالخصوص کوئٹہ میں یہ کمیونٹی ہرگز محفوظ نہیں ہے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ یہ لوگ اپنی جانوں کو خطرے میں ڈال کر کاموں کے لیے گھر سے باہر نکلتے ہیں۔ دایان کے بقول یہ ہر گز حیرت کی بات نہیں ہے کہ ان مخصوص حالات میں اس کمیونٹی کی ایک بڑی تعداد سیاسی پناہ کی متلاشی ہے۔

یہ تمام لوگ اپنے مخصوص منگول نقوش کی وجہ سے فوری طور پر پہچانے جاتے ہیں

جنوبی ایشیا کی سطح پر کام کرنے والے ایک ادارے SATP کے مطابق رواں برس اکیس مختلف وارداتوں میں اسی کمیونٹی کے 47 افراد مارے جا چکے ہیں۔ نیوزایجنسی اے ایف پی نے ہیومن رائٹس واچ کے حوالے سے بتایا ہے کہ رواں برس ’ٹارگٹ ِکلنگ‘ کے واقعات میں مجموعی طور پر 320 شیعہ افراد کی ہلاکتیں رپورٹ کی گئیں، جن میں سے متعدد ہلاک شدگان کا تعلق شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی سے تھا اور ہلاکتوں کے 100 واقعات صرف بلوچستان میں رونما ہوئے۔

بتایا جاتا ہے کہ شیعہ اور بالخصوص شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی کے خلاف منظم حملوں کے لیے سنی جہادی تنظیمیں سرگرم عمل ہیں۔ انتہا پسند تنظیم لشکر جھنگوی نے 2011ء میں شیعہ ہزراہ کمیونٹی کو خبردار کیا تھا کہ اب ان کے خلاف جہاد ان کا فرض بن چکا ہے۔ اس جنگجو سنی تنظیم کے بقول وہ ’پاکستان میں سچے اسلام کا علم بلند کر کے ہی آرام سے بیٹھیں گے‘۔

نئی دہلی میں واقع تنازعات کے حل کے لیے کام کرنے والے ایک انسٹی ٹیوٹ سے وابستہ محقق امبرین آغا پاکستان میں شیعہ کمیونٹی کی ہلاکتوں کو فرقہ ورانہ کارروائیوں کا نام دیتی ہیں۔ وہ 2010ء سے شیعہ ہزارہ کمیونٹی پر ریسرچ کر رہی ہیں۔ ان کا کہنا ہے کہ حکومت پاکستان نے اس مسئلے کے حل کے لیے کبھی بھی کوئی مؤثر مزاحمت نہیں دکھائی ہے۔ ان کے بقول نسلی بنیادوں پر تشدد کرنے والے جنگجوؤں کے نہ صرف مذہبی جماعتوں سے روابط ہیں بلکہ پاکستانی اسٹبلشمنٹ بھی ان کا ساتھ دیتی ہے۔

ab / aa (AFP, IPS)

درگیری در غرب کابل، ۵ کشته و زخمی در پی داشت/ تکمیلی


مقامات امنیتی کابل از کشته شدن یک پولیس و یک غیرنظامی و زخمی شدن ۳ پولیس دیگر در نتیجه درگیری ها در غرب کاب خبر دادند.

به گزارش جمهور، ایوب سالنگی، فرمانده امنیه کابل اظهار کرد: در نتیجه درگیری میان پولیس و مردم در غرب کابل، ۱ پولیس و یک فرد ملکی کشته و ۳ پولیس دیگر زخمی شدند.

به گفته وی، این حادثه پس از آن به وقوع پیوست که چند جوان از برادران هزاره و پنجشیری باهم درگیر شدند.

سالنگی افزود: گروهی از مردم خشمگین، پوسته حوزه ششم امنیتی را به آتش کشیدند.

این درگیری ها حوالی ساعت ۱۰:۳۰ صبح امروز، مصادف با یازدهمین سالگرد شهادت احمد شاه مسعود رخ داده است.

بر اساس گفته شاهدان عینی، در ابتدا درگیری میان چند عزادار و برادران هزاره بوده است.

برخی از مردمی که دست به تظاهرات زده بودند، شیشه موترها را نیز شکستند.

در همین حال، شاهدان عینی، مدعی اند که ۳ فرد ملکی در درگیری با پولیس کشته و ۳ نفر دیگر زخمی شده اند. مسئولین شفاخانه وطن در غرب کابل به خبرنگار جمهور می گویند که پنج نفر از مجروحین حادثه به این شفاخانه منتقل شده اند که یک تن از زخمی ها جان خود را از دست داده و حال یک نفر دیگر هم وخیم می باشد. تعدادی از زخمی ها نیز به شفاخانه ناصر خسرو در غرب کابل منتقل شده اند.

این در حالی است گفته می شود، برخی افراد غیر مسئول نیز برای دامن زدن به این درگیری، سلاح در اختیار مردم قرار داده اند.

در حال حاضر پولیس در صدد آرام ساختن مردم بوده و مسیر کوته سنگی- پل سوخته باز شده است.

طالبان یک ملکی را در دایکندی زنده آتش زدند


هژدهم سنبله 1391 خورشیدی


باشنده گان ولایت دایکندی می گویند که طالبان مسلح یک فرد ملکی را در ولسوالی کجران آتش زدند.

گل احمد اتمر، یکی از باشنده گان ولسوالی کجران ولایت دایکندی به خبرگزاری بست باستان گفت که گروه طالبان یکی از باشنده گان ولایت دایکندی را پس از بریدن دست ها و پاهایش آتش زدند.

به گفتۀ آقای اتمر، عصر روز پنج شنبه زمانی این فرد ملکی می خواست از مرکز ولایت ارزگان به خانه اش در ولسوالی کجران ولایت دایکندی برود، در مسیر راه کجران سوختاده شده است.

محمد علم باشندۀ دیگر ولسوالی کجران نیز به آتش کشیده شدن برادرش را تأیید نموده، گفت: «برادرم گاه گاهی در مسیر ارزگان و دایکندی موتروانی می کرد، این بار وقتی خانه می آمد توسط طالبان با موترش یک جا آتش زده شده است.»

محمد علم، از دولت خواست که قاتلین برادرش را دستگیر و محاکمه نماید.

او افزود که با افزایش فعالیت گروه طالبان در مناطق همجواری ارزگان و دایکندی، شمار موارد کشته شدن افراد ملکی نیز در این مسیر بیشتر شده است.

قربانعلی ارزگانی والی دایکندی با تأیید زنده سوختاندن یک فرد ملکی، توسط طالبان گفت که این اولین بار است که یک فرد ملکی زنده توسط طالبان آتش زده شده است.

والی دایکندی با اظهار نگرانی از افزایش فعالیت های گروه طالبان در شماری از مناطق این ولایت که در همجواری با سایر ولایات قرار دارد، افزود که شماری مسافرین ولایت دایکندی در تمام راه های ارتباطی این ولایت در مسیر ارزگان، کندهار، هلمند، غزنی و کابل توسط افراد مسلح، گروه طالبان سربریده، اختطاف و زخمی گردیدند.

آقای ارزگانی علاوه کرد که پس از خروج نیروهای خاص امریکایی از ولایت ارزگان راه های مواصلاتی ولسوالی کجران با ارزگان کاملأ به روی مردم ملکی مسدود شده است.

به گفتۀ وی، ناامن بودن راه های ارتباطی ولایت دایکندی با دیگر ولایت های کشور و کابل در مسیر دره میدان و غوربند سبب افزایش نرخ مواد غذایی نیز شده است، چنانچه این مسیر به روی مردم باز نشود و امنیت آن تأمین نگردد ممکن فاجعۀ انسانی رخ دهد. 

ولایت دایکندی یکی از ولایت های نو تأسیس است که در مرکز کشور موقعیت دارد، خراب بودن سرک های این ولایت و عدم امنیت راه های ارتباطی دایکندی با دیگر ولایت های کشور باعث افزایش تلفات انسانی در این ولایت شده است.

تیمور آهنگر – بامیان

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Hazaras in Pakistan Caught Between Persecution and the High Seas


By Zofeen Ebrahim


Funeral in the Hazara graveyard in Quetta for victims of gunmen. Credit: Altaf Safdari/IPS

KARACHI, Pakistan, Sep 6 2012 (IPS) - It will be no less than a miracle if Nadir Ali makes it to Australia, where he planned to seek asylum. But with each passing day, since his boat went missing over two months ago, hopes are dimming.

Ali, a 45-year-old Shia Hazara daily wage earner from Quetta in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, had reached Indonesia and boarded the boat from Jakarta on May 22, along with 24 others, most of them from the same community. But the boat lost contact soon after it hit the high seas, and has been missing for over two months.

“We were told that the sea was rough and the boat was too small,” said Qadir Nayel, Ali’s younger brother speaking to IPS over the phone from Quetta. “But because there is no news of them having drowned, we are hoping against hope.” Nayel said his brother paid over 10,000 dollars for the passage.

But why are Hazaras fleeing the country?

In what looks like a rerun of history, the Hazara Shias, with a population of around 956,000 (nearly 600,000 of whom live in Quetta alone), are being persecuted again in Pakistan because of their ethnicity and their history of conflict with Sunni Muslims.

Most of the world’s 3.4 million Hazara people, easily recognisable by their Mongol-like features, live in Afghanistan. But some 120 years ago, many fled that country, where they were being persecuted by the dominant Sunni Pashtun tribes. In Pakistan they were well received, and some rose to important positions in the government.

Another 350,000 Hazara live in Iran.

Shias of all ethnicities account for about 20 percent of Pakistan’s Sunni-majority population of 180 million.

Hussain (name changed on request) lost five members of his family, including a maternal uncle, a widowed sister-in-law and her three children, when the boat they were travelling in was shipwrecked in high waters in the Indian Ocean in 2009.

“The last time my uncle spoke to me was before boarding the ship from Jakarta,” Hussain said. “He sounded very disturbed with the arrangement. He said if he’d known, he would never have ventured out in the first place. By morning we got the news that their ship had gone under and all of them had perished.”

In recent years, scores of Hazara Shias have fled Balochistan in southwest Pakistan. There are significant communities of Hazara in Europe, Turkey and Australia.

While official statistics are hard to come by and people are afraid to give information, the exodus has been fuelled by the rise in target killings of members of this community.

According to Abdul Khaliq, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, over 25,000 Hazaras have left Pakistan in the last decade, the vast majority of them in the last three years. “I’d say over 1,000 people have perished while making the perilous journey,” he told IPS over the phone from Quetta.

He was referring to the most common route followed by the fleeing Hazara, who go to Indonesia legally and then try to sneak into Australia illegally.

Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS that the Hazara have been reduced to a “ghetto existence in Quetta.”

“They can only go about their daily business at the risk of their lives. It is hardly surprising that members of the Hazara community are seeking political asylum in large numbers, and it would be a very cruel host state indeed that would deny them the same,” he added.

For his part, Hussain said “Nobody wants to leave their country willingly; who would want to leave family and friends and take on a journey we all know is fraught with danger, but we have been pushed to the wall.”

Since the beginning of the year, 47 Shia Hazaras have been killed in 21 separate incidents of violence, according to the South Asia Terrorist Portal (SATP). In 2011, 203 Shias were killed, including 27 Hazaras.

Lately, they have been identified, forced out of buses and vans, and killed. Ambreen Agha, a researcher with the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, which manages the SATP, terms the killing of Hazaras a “sectarian issue.”

“Their Shia identity has posed a threat to their existence in a society that is marred by religious intolerance, the existence of extremist formations, and subsequent impunity that sectarian ‘murderers’ enjoy within the legal and political framework of Pakistan,” she told IPS by email. “Sectarianism adds to the chaotic spirit of Islamabad.”

This was corroborated by HRW’s Hasan. “Hazaras are being targeted as part of a broader exercise in targeting all Pakistani Shias, but it is equally true that the Hazara suffer from double jeopardy – being ethnically distinct in addition to being Shia.”

HRW’s research indicates that the banned Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) is behind the killings. “It claims responsibility for these attacks,” said Hasan.

In June 2011, LeJ warned the Hazaras: “…now jihad against the Shia Hazara has become our duty. We will rest only after hoisting the flag of true Islam on the land of the pure – Pakistan.”

To Agha it means a “total failure or collusion” of the state machinery with these militant organisations.

Hasan said “The state may or may not be complicit in the LeJ’s murderous actions, but independent observers believe that law enforcement and intelligence agencies are, at the very least, turning a blind eye.”

Agha, who has been researching Hazara issues since 2010, complained that the Pakistani state has never “mounted any effective resistance” or carried out a “sustained effort to dismantle the hard-core sectarian militant outfits” that have linkages with both the religious parties and the Pakistani establishment.

“Unless Islamabad abandons its policy of tolerance towards the sectarian religious parties and their militant counterparts, there is little hope that Hazara Shias will continue to live in peace within the poisoned territorial boundaries of Pakistan,” she maintained.

Meanwhile, thousands of asylum-seekers from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, many of whom belong to the Hazara community, have been trying to reach Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean – Australia’s closest point to Indonesia – in rickety, overcrowded vessels. Since late 2009, more than 600 people have died in the attempt to make it to the island.

In August, the Australian parliament tried to make changes in its immigration policy to deter asylum-seekers by deporting them to offshore detention centres. The move met with strong criticism from rights groups.

“It’s a big ocean; it’s a dangerous ocean,” said Prime Minister Julia Gillard. “We’ve seen too many people lose their lives trying to make the journey to Australia.” She had proposed sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia for processing, but the plan was rejected by Australia’s highest court.

Savages at large


From the Newspaper | I.A Rehman

THE state’s failure to evolve a strategy for protecting communities that are vulnerable because of their beliefs has resulted not only in an escalation of attacks on them but also in the emergence of new and more vicious forms of violence.

The killing of seven Hazara workers in Quetta the other day confirms the increased use of a standardised procedure for butchering members of the targeted community. The vehicle in which the victims were travelling was ordered to halt and the passengers made to dismount. The national identity cards of the Hazaras, which were supposed to offer the key to their right to life and security, again served as black warrants to what can only be described as their summary execution.

Similar cases had been reported earlier from other parts of Balochistan, such as Mastung, and from Gilgit-Baltistan. These incidents can no longer be attributed to localised sectarian tensions or conflicts between individual actors; they reveal an organised campaign to force Balochistan’s Hazara community to vacate their traditional settlements, if not to exterminate them altogether. If allowed to continue unchecked the anti-Hazara wave of violence could develop into some kind of sectarian cleansing.

These happenings will certainly have a highly adverse impact on the sectarian conflict raging in Gilgit-Baltistan at the other end of the country. The issue there in the beginning was the large Shia population’s aspiration to enjoy their due share in the democratised management of public affairs and the other community’s resolve to resist this legitimate demand to the extent of foregoing its own democratic rights.

Left to themselves the two communities might not have failed to work out a framework for peaceful coexistence and mutual accommodation. The chances of that happening began to be undermined by Gen Zia’s narrow-minded sectarian predilection. By blinking at an external lashkar’s bloody assault on the Gilgit Shias he helped the rise of an interventionist force that has apparently decided not to let the people of Gilgit-Baltistan settle their matters amongst themselves.

These outsiders have never relented in their efforts to keep the sectarian strife going. One is amazed to see that all those who always blame foreign hands for any outbreak of lawlessness have not cared to expose the mischief being done by non-local elements in Gilgit-Baltistan.

And in Balochistan too, for credible evidence is available to show that the campaign against the Hazaras is being carried out largely by militant groups based in other provinces. It has often been alleged that these groups finance their operations out of the ransom money collected from victims of abduction and make regular remittances to their head offices, most of them believed to be in Punjab.

That the government’s failure to apprehend and punish the culprits in most cases if not all is a major cause of increase in belief-related violence is widely understood. The need to probe the causes of this failure has not received due attention. The view that Pakistan as a whole has moved into a new cycle of violence against the weaker segments of society receives considerable support from the affair of the Christian girl rotting in prison on the charge of desecration of the Holy Quran. Nothing reveals Pakistani Muslims’ divorce from sanity as thoroughly as the slogan that the glory of Islam depends on the execution of this mentally challenged adolescent from an oppressed community.

Normally one avoids commenting on matters that are in the stage of investigation but those calling for justice to be done have as much right to have their say as those calling for the girl to be punished before her guilt, or even her ability to consciously commit the offence she has been charged with, is established. The case has acquired additional significance as it displays a new pattern of minority-bashing.

We are familiar with the abuse of blasphemy laws for settling scores with business rivals or to facilitate individual efforts at grabbing the property of members of the weaker communities. The sack of Shantinagar and attacks on Christian churches in Khanewal some years ago and the more recent pillage of Christian quarters in Gojra were attributed to vengeful mischief by the losers in the race for economic advancement.

There was no indication that the law was being abused to force a minority community to vacate the land under its possession or that communal interests of the majority were involved.

A design of this nature has been exposed by the case of the young Christian girl. Her persecutors wanted her community to move off the land occupied by it. Whether those behind the outrage wanted the land to build a colony or a plaza or whether the pious ones only wanted to be rid of some contemptible neighbours is yet to be established. The latter cause is surely much more shameful and distressing than the former. In it can be seen the germs of a segregationist trend the consequences of which will be too horrible to be viewed with equanimity.

Several factors could have contributed to Pakistan’s accession to new heights of holy terror. Only the purblind will fail to see a link between the killing of Hazaras in Quetta, the target killings in Karachi, the persecution of the blasphemy accused, the Peshawar explosion that took a dozen lives, and the beheading of 12 soldiers in the tribal belt. Instant justice by self-appointed judges and executioners is apparently an offshoot of extremist theories, such as the rule of takfir, that have been introduced into Pakistani people’s religious thought by the so-called revivalists of foreign origin.

The law-and-order paraphernalia possesses neither the mind nor the means to meet the threat from these elements; their challenge calls for a well-thought-out and consistent intellectual response. An example of this kind of exercise was furnished by an Islamabad-based NGO, the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, when it held a series of discussions among religious scholars on the phenomenon of Muslims killing fellow Muslims by branding them as renegades.

The proceedings are available in a publication Mas’ala Takfir-wa-Kharooj; and it is a useful introduction to a subject that is likely to have a considerable bearing on our lives. Much more needs to be done in this vein in addition to the promotion of pluralist values from various perspectives, if Pakistani people are to be saved from becoming a horde of savages.