The World Community’s Passive Liquidation of the Hazara People

Posted on 10/01/2013

by Claudia Reppen

Foto: http://www.hazarapeople.com

I usually write in Norwegian on this blog, but due to the international proportions of today’s hideous attacks targeting the Hazara people in Quetta, Pakistan, I’ve decided to write this post in English.

As most of my Hazara friends and acquaintances know, I am not Hazara myself. In fact, until just a few years ago, I had never heard the name and knew nothing of their plight.

Through personal contact with refugees who have come to Norway, where I currently reside, I have gotten to know many Hazaras personally, and even more so through internet activism and personal research. What I have discovered has been both marvelous and horrifying: the former for the overwhelming hospitality and friendship which I have encountered in the Hazara community, which has embraced me as one of their own; the latter for the appalling human rights atrocities being committed against them; actively by the Afghan and Pakistani governments, and passively by the Norwegian and other European nations.... Continue Reading... 

BBC; Pakistan blasts: Scores killed at Quetta snooker hall

Quetta blasts: Balochistan government announces three-day mourning

January 11, 2013 - Updated 225 PKT



QUETTA: Balochistan government has announced three-day mourning over the killing of 81 people in twin suicide attacks on Alamdar Road, Geo News reported.

Meanwhile, the provincial government has announced compensation for the heirs of blast victims.

Sources said Rs2 million each would be provided to the heirs of deceased police officers and personnel while Rs1 million each would be provided to the relatives of other victims of Alamdar Road blasts.

Rs1 million each has also been announced for reporter and cameraman, of private TV channel ‘Samaa’, who lost their lives in the attack.

Geo TV 

BBC; Pakistan blasts: Scores killed at Quetta snooker hall

Twin blasts at a snooker hall in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta have killed 81 people and injured more than 120, police say.

Many of the casualties were caused by the second blast as police and media rushed to the scene.

The bombed area is predominantly Shia Muslim, and the Sunni extremist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said it had carried out the attack.

Earlier, a bomb in a market area killed 11 people and injured 27 more.

A spokesman for another militant group, the United Baloch Army, said it had carried out that attack.

Balochistan is plagued by both a separatist rebellion and sectarian infighting between Sunnis and Shias.

The Taliban and armed groups that support them also carry out attacks in the province, particularly in areas near the Afghan border. Pakistan's military has been engaged in a long-running battle against those militant groups... Continue Reading... 

Pakistan bombings kill at least 100

Attacks in city of Quetta, including two bombs in ten minutes at snooker club, come at time of heightened political tension

Jon Boone in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 January 2013 15.40 EST

People search for the victims of two bomb attacks in a snooker hall in Quetta, south-west Pakistan. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

A vicious double bombing of a snooker club capped one of the bloodiest days in Pakistan for many months on Thursday, leaving more than 100 people dead and hundreds injured in three different attacks.

The death toll was shockingly high even by the bloody standards of Pakistan, which is beset by separatist insurgencies and Islamic militants at war with the state.

The surge in violence comes at a time of heightened political tension as the preparations of the coalition government to step down and fight elections have been threatened by a religious cleric who plans to bring a massive protest march to the capital on Monday.

Tahir-ul-Qadri's march, which the religious leader says will turn Islamabad into Tahrir Square, is billed as a protest against corruption and a demand for clean elections, but many politicians fear the real purpose is to find a pretext to delay the polls.

On Thursday Quetta, the south–east city that is home to the leadership of the Afghan Taliban and groups fighting for the province of Baluchistan to become an independent state, was rocked by two attacks.

A security check post was targeted in the first blast in the morning, killing 12 and injuring 25, according to the province's chief minister.

A little known group called the United Baluch Army claimed responsibility.

In the evening another 81 people lost their lives and 110 were wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up within ten minutes of each other in a packed building where young men go to play snooker.

The second blast appeared to be deliberately designed to kill the medical workers, anguished relatives and journalists who rushed to the scene.

Mohammed Murtaza, a police officer, said the second bomb caused the building to collapse, killing even more people.

Many of the dead and wounded, Murtaza said, were from the Shia sect of Islam, which extremist groups drawn from Pakistan's majority Sunni popular regard as heretics.

Shias, many of whom are members of the Hazara ethnic community in Quetta, have been particularly targeted by sectarian terror groups.

Human Rights Watch said the government's failure to protect Shias "amounts to complicity in the barbaric slaughter of Pakistani citizens".

"[Last year] was the bloodiest year for Pakistan's Shia community in living memory and if this latest attack is any indication, 2013 has started on an even more dismal note," said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch.

"As Shia community members continue to be slaughtered in cold blood, the callousness and indifference of authorities offers a damning indictment of the state, its military and security agencies."

The organisation said the police had "turned a blind eye" to the activities of nominally banned sectarian terror groups, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Also on Thursday a bomb ripped through a crowded Sunni mosque outside the north-west city of Mingora in Swat, an area the government had to wrest from Taliban control in 2009.

The building is owned by Tableeghi Jamaat, a preaching organisation that is not linked to any militant organisations.

The attack killed 22 people and wounded more than 70, said a senior police officer.

In 2012 a total of 2,050 people were killed and 3,822 injured in Pakistan in attacks by Islamic militants, nationalist insurgents and violent sectarian groups.

Guardian 

Irfan Ali Khudi; A young peace activist, among many other precious lives that became the victim of twin suicide bombings on Alamdar road, Quetta.  

Twin suicide blasts kill 81 in Quetta

January 11, 2013 - Updated 130 PKT
From Web Edition



QUETTA: Twin suicide attacks killed 81 people and wounded more than 120 others at a crowded snooker club in Quetta late Thursday, police said.

"The death toll has risen to 81 so far," CCPO Quetta Mir Zubair Mehmood told a news conference, putting the number of wounded at 121.

"Nine police personnel, including two officers, have lost their lives. Both (attacks) were (carried out by) suicide bombers and the death toll could rise further," he added. (AFP)

The News