Afghanistan's Hazara Minority Outraged By Science Academy Insults

A Hazara laborer in Kabul's old quarter. Hazaras are generally considered to comprise the third-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, about the same as ethnic Uzbeks.

By Abubakar Siddique

July 03, 2012

Documenting Afghanistan's diverse ethnic makeup would seem like an innocent enough endeavor, but a recent attempt has left a team of academics facing possible criminal charges. 

The source of the problem is the innocuously named "Ethnographic Atlas of Non-Pashtun Ethnic Groups of Afghanistan," published in June by the government-appointed Academy of Sciences Afghanistan.

Certain passages have Afghanistan's Hazara minority seeing red.

"The Hazaras are liars, dishonest, and unreliable people," reads one passage cited by the "Daily Outlook Afghanistan" newspaper. "[The] bodies of their women are hairless except on the head. The Hazaras are the sons of Mongol Khans living in the mountains of Afghanistan. These people [know] nothing except fighting."

The newspaper goes on to report that the book, which RFE/RL was unable to independently obtain, describes the Hazaras as "rafizi" -- worse than infidels.

The resulting outcry from Hazara politicians was enough to prompt President Hamid Karzai to step in. In mid-June, Karzai banned the atlas, dismissed four academics from the Academy of Sciences, and ordered an investigation into their reasons for publishing the comments.

The four now face possible criminal charges for stoking ethnic tensions, pending the findings of a lengthy questionnaire they have been asked to fill out.....Continue Reading.... 

سفاک فرقہ پرست دہشتگرد ہزارہ قوم کے افراد کو چُن چُن کر مار رہے ہیں، ہزارہ ڈیموکریٹک پارٹی

اسلام ٹائمز: ایک بیان میں کہا گیا ہے کہ فرقہ واریت کے نام پر خفیہ اداروں، سیکورٹی ایجنسیوں اور صوبائی حکومت کے بااثر وزراء کی سرپرستی میں ہزارہ قوم کی نسل کشی کی جارہی ہے۔

اسلام ٹائمز۔ ہزارہ ڈیموکریٹک پارٹی کی جانب سے جاری ایک بیان میں ھزار گنجی ٹرک اڈے پر بے گناہ مزدور غلام رسول کو ٹارگٹ کرکے شہید کرنے کے واقعہ کو فرقہ واریت کے نام پر خفیہ اداروں، سیکورٹی ایجنسیوں اور صوبائی حکومت کے با اثر وزراء کی سرپرستی میں شیعہ ہزارہ قوم کی نسل کشی کا تسلسل قرار دیتے ہوئے اسکی شدید الفاظ میں مذمت کی گئی ہے۔ بیان میں کہا گیا کہ جس تواتر اور انتہائی بے رحمی کا مظاہرہ کرتے ہوئے سفاک فرقہ پرست دہشت گرد کوئٹہ میں شیعہ ہزارہ قوم کے افراد کو چُن چُن کر مار رہے ہیں، اس سے قانون نافذ کرنیوالے اداروں کی ناکامی و نااہلی واضح طور پر ظاہر ہو رہی ہے۔ بیان میں کہا گیا کہ قانون نافذ کرنیوالے اداروں کی طرف سے فرقہ پرست دہشت گردوں کے خلاف کارروائی سے گریز کا عمل واضح کرتا ہے کہ ان دہشت گردوں کو بااثر قوتوں کی سرپرستی حاصل ہے۔ جو آزادی کے ساتھ پورے شہر میں بربریت کا مظاہرہ کرکے بے گناہ افراد کے قتل عام کے بعد اطمینان کے ساتھ فرار ہونے میں کامیاب ہوجاتے ہیں۔ 

بیان میں بے گناہ انسانوں کے قتل عام کو ناقابل قبول قرار دیتے ہوئے واضح کیا گیا کہ صوبے میں کسی کی اجارہ داری اور بدمعاشی کو قبول نہیں کریں گے۔ باہمی احترام و رواداری پر یقین رکھتے ہیں لیکن حکومت اور قانون نافذ کرنیوالے اداروں پر بے گناہ عوام کے قتل عام کرنیوالے قوتوں کے خلاف کارروائی کرنے کیلئے آخر دم تک جمہوری جدوجہد کے ذریعے دباو ڈٓلتے رہینگے۔ بیان میں غلام رسول کے قاتلوں کی فوری گرفتاری، عوام کے جان و مال کو مکمل تحفظ فراہم کرنے اور فرقہ 

پرست دہشت گردوں کی سرپرستی ختم کرکے ان کے خلاف ٹارگٹڈ آپریشن کے ذریعے انکے خاتمہ کا مطالبہ کیا گیا۔

Islam Times 

The year belonged to the Taliban

Murtaza Haider 

If it were a boxing bout, the year 2012 would belong to the Taliban and the militants. In the ongoing civil war in Pakistan that left almost 6,000 dead this year, 1,100 more civilians and members of the security forces have died in violence than the militants.

2012 is the second year in a row when the Taliban and militants of other stripes have inflicted more harm on civilians and security forces than they themselves have suffered. In 2011 alone, 1.3 civilians or members of the security forces died in violence for every militant killed. In the gory calculus of violence, the Taliban have emerged victorious by piling up the dead faster and higher than the State apparatus.

In the last few remaining days of this year many in Pakistan wonder if the new year will bring more of the same where, despite the sincere efforts of some institutions of the State, the militants would continue to strike with impunity. While the death toll continues to rise in Pakistan, claiming the lives of politicians, police, and the sectarian minorities, many wonder when will the Parliament, the Supreme Court, and the intelligence agencies start working in unison to stem the tide of extremism, which is likely to devour the society after it wrestles the State into submission.

The 6000-odd violent deaths in 2012 put Pakistan amongst the most violent and volatile places in the world. This distinction is not earned for a relatively high rate of violence. Even some advanced economies experience high frequency of violence. Consider that in 2011 alone, 13,913 murders took place in the US. Why then should one be alarmed about Pakistan?...... Continue Reading.... 

Asylum-seeker finally realises disrupted sporting dreams in peace

BY:NICOLAS PERPITCH 

From:The Australian 

December 27, 2012 12:00AM

FORMER Afghan asylum-seeker Hussain Sadiqi has won a gold medal in kung fu at an international martial arts competition, 13 years after his dream of competing on the world stage was dashed when his then Taliban-ruled homeland was banned from the Sydney Olympics.

A Hazara refugee living in Perth, he now plans to start a non-government organisation to promote education and sport in remote areas of Afghanistan, starting in Hazara-majority Bamyan province.

"When I left Afghanistan, my journey was one of freedom and I travelled to find my freedom, but my journey back to Afghanistan is one of hope, especially for young people," he said.

Sadiqi, 33, outperformed his younger competitors and impressed the judges with his kung fu technique at the 69-nation World Martial Arts Festival on the Iranian island of Kish in the Persian Gulf in October, and has just returned from touring Europe with a solo "standard form" demonstration of ability rather than combat against an opponent.

The former Afghan national champion represented his Perth-based Shaolin kung fu school, not the Australian national team.

Sadiqi left his village in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province and arrived by boat at Ashmore Reef in 1999 before being sent to the Port Hedland detention centre for six months, until he was released on a temporary protection visa.

Local Afghans put him in touch with the Northern Alliance-staffed Afghan embassy in Canberra and he was asked to compete in taekwondo for the Afghan team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Days before the games started, the International Olympic Committee banned Afghan athletes because the Taliban, which controlled most of Afghanistan, would not let women compete.

Sadiqi said the Australian team had been interested in recruiting him a year or two later but he could not compete because he was not a permanent resident.

He was then sidelined from trying out for the 2004 Athens Olympics because of injury.

He had planned to attend the World Martial Arts Festival in Iran as a spectator but a friend convinced him to come out of retirement to prove he could compete at an international level, despite his past disappointments.

"Every time I tried to do it, there were always problems because I came from Afghanistan. But now I live in Australia, a civilised country, and I have the opportunity to do that," he said.

Travelling in Europe, Sadiqi met with Hazaras from different countries, including unaccompanied minors in detention centres in Holland and Turkey, whom he told, "It doesn't matter if you're a refugee because you now live in a country of peace and can reach your dream".

The Australian 

No silver lining

From the Newspaper

THE celebrations that mark Christmas and the Quaid-i-Azam’s birthday this time of year are also a reminder of Pakistan’s failure to rein in the religious intolerance Mr Jinnah advocated against. In 2012 an extermination campaign targeting Hazaras and other Shias took hold from Karachi and Quetta to Kohistan, Mansehra and Gilgit-Baltistan. The peaceful Bohra community was targeted in attacks that were perhaps the first of their kind. Mobs egged on by irresponsible clerics demanded that victims of indefensible blasphemy allegations be handed over to be murdered without trials. While stories of the mass migration of Hindus to India may have been exaggerated, the community complained of discrimination and forced conversions. Churches and Christian homes continued to be attacked and the Rimsha Masih blasphemy case turned out to be linked to a broader campaign to rid her area of Christian families. This month alone saw the razing of a Hindu temple in Karachi, the desecration of Ahmadi graves in Lahore and the lynching of a man accused of blasphemy in Dadu. Decades after being founded as a country in which each individual was meant to have the right to follow his or her chosen beliefs, Pakistan has failed to treat religious minorities as equal citizens of the state.

Nor is the intolerance limited to minorities. A broader divide has also taken root in Pakistan — thatbetween peaceful religiosity and an extremism that violently opposes any practice it doesn’t believe in. Those behind the attacks on polio workers, Malala Yousafzai and Bashir Ahmed Bilour are out to annihilate anything and anyone standing in the way of their version of an ‘Islamic’ state. Muslims are more often than not the victims of violence related to blasphemy killings, carried out not by suicide bombers but by ordinary Pakistanis fed a steady diet of intolerance. Add to this the increasing brutalisation of Pakistani society, in which guns are plentiful, human rights unimportant and the legal system slow and ineffective, and intolerance translates even more easily into violence. More than six decades later the dawn we hoped for has not arrived, and any celebrations this time of year cannot escape that painful fact.

DAWN

CCTV Footage of Jinnah Hospital (Karachi) Murder of a Hazara

مقتول صدرزرداری کے جیل کاساتھی بھی تھا،ترجمان بلاول ہائوس نے تصدیق کردی۔ فوٹو: ایکسپریس/فائل

 Abur Rehman, an ehtinc Hazara was brutally murdered in broad daylight before the eyes of Rangers – Pakistani paramilitary force - in Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi. He is also know as “Muhammadi” amongst the Hazaras in Karachi.... Continue Reading...

Australian police accused of racially profiling Pakistan's Hazaras

Updated 20 December 2012, 14:19 AEST

Amnesty International says Australia's reported cooperation with Pakistan's intelligence agencies to stop Hazara asylum seekers leaving the country is "questionable and sordid".

Australian police accused of racially profiling Pakistan's Hazaras (Credit: ABC)

An investigation by journalist Aubrey Belford quotes Pakistani officials confirming that Australian Federal Police officers have been encouraging a policy of racially profiling people from the Hazara community who they suspect may be preparing to flee the country.

Hazaras are Shia Muslims and often face persecution Sunni death squads in Pakistan, their distinctive east Asia facial features making them an easy target.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane

Speaker: Mustafa Qadri, Pakistan researcher, Amnesty International

To listen click on the link; Radio Australia