At the conference, JUI-F national leader Fazl ur Rehman praised the lawyers who were defending the teenager accused of killing U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem, a self-proclaimed Ahmadi, in Peshawar and blamed Western nations for supporting Ahmadi Muslims. Prime Minister Imran Khan gave verbal approval to build the temple following a request from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Hindu and Christian members of the National Assembly. At years end, he was still being held at Camp Jail, Lahore, and had not been charged. The constitution states no person shall be required to take part in any religious ceremony or attend religious worship relating to a religion other than the persons own. Ahmadiyya Muslim community leaders continued to report they were affected by discriminatory and ambiguous legislation and court judgments that denied them basic rights, including a 2018 Islamabad High Court judgment that some government agencies continued to use to deny national identification cards to Ahmadi Muslims. A large portion of . In April 2021, Human Rights Watch spoke to one Pakistani Shia man who spent nearly a month in UAE detention and was released and deported in late December 2020. Courts issued two new death sentences for blasphemy and sentenced another individual to five years imprisonment. Other government officials, including Prime Minister Khan, advised Sarwar against signing the bill, according to a Lahore-based journalist. Processing and dissemination of data in the form of Census Reports. Last week, in Punjab, police beat up and arrested 22 Shia Muslims, including seven women, who were taking part in a ceremony to mark a Shia martyr. Shias in Pakistan reputedly account for about 20 percent of the population or 42 million out of the population of 210 million making it the second largest Shia population in the world . Some activists reported receiving death threats because of their work. A media report said four people, including two Shia Muslims, one Ahmadi sect member and a US citizen who renounced the Ahmadi sect, were gunned down in September 2020. The Sindh provincial cabinet adopted regulations to implement the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act in December 2019, which provided more specific rules for implementation. The Charge dAffaires, consuls general, other embassy officers, and visiting senior U.S. officials engaged government officials and senior advisors to the Prime Minister, including the Minister for Human Rights, and officials from the Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, and Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony to discuss blasphemy law reform; laws concerning Ahmadi Muslims; the need to better protect members of religious minority communities; sectarian relations; and religious respect. The Khan government, meanwhile, has been accused of both turning a blind eye to rising sectarianism from hardline Sunni groups, which reportedly enjoy patronage from state and military officials, and also using their support for political gain at a time when the government is weak and the economy is collapsing. According to some estimates, the Barelvi school of . The Sunnis, on the other hand, nurse the fear that they have decisively lost power and things . The law prohibits publishing any criticism of Islam or its prophets or insults to others religious beliefs. Some personal laws regulating marriage, divorce, and inheritance for minority communities date from prepartition British legislation. Shia Muslims mourning the death anniversary of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, in Karachi on 8 October. Two days later, the 21-year-old student found himself the subject of a police report, accused of violating Pakistans draconian laws on blasphemy. According to civil society and media, armed sectarian groups connected to organizations banned by the government, including the LeJ, TTP, and the once-banned anti-Shia group SSP, continued to be responsible for violence and other abuses against religious minorities. Sunnis are generally believed to be 80-85 percent of the Muslim population, and Shia Muslims, including Hazara, Ismaili, and Bohra (a branch of Ismaili), are generally believed to make up 15-20 percent. Ahead of Christmas in Lahore, police deployed some 6,000 officers and officials at 623 churches. Since voters who registered as Ahmadis were kept on a separate voter list, they said they were more exposed to threats and physical intimidation, and many Ahmadis continued their longstanding practice of boycotting elections. There continued to be reports of attacks on holy places, cemeteries, and religious symbols of Hindu, Christian, and Ahmadiyya minorities. 2. On July 21, the government returned a 200-year-old Sikh gurdwara to the Sikh community in Quetta. There were continued reports that some madrassahs taught violent extremist doctrine, which the government sought to curb through madrassah registration and curriculum reform. According to local sources, the high-profile case led to communal tensions in Jacobabad, the couples home district, and clerics from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal party publicly accused the girl of apostasy and called for her death. Most minority religious groups said they continued to face discrimination in government hiring. Ahmadiyya community leaders said he was targeted due to his religious beliefs. On October 13, according to local media reports, Reeta Kumari, a pregnant Dalit Hindu woman, told the Sindh High Court in Sukkur that she had been abducted by a Muslim man, Rafique Domki, in Islamkot. To seek office, Ahmadis would be forced to do so because by law they are considered non-Muslims, even though they self-identify as Muslim. Other blasphemy cases continued without resolution. On December 15, the Lahore High Court acquitted a second Christian man, Imran Ghafur Masih, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2010. Throughout the year, unidentified individuals assaulted and killed Shia and Ahmadis in attacks sources believed to be religiously motivated. Pakistan ranks number 5 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population. These terrorist outfits have committed horrendous crimes in this mountainous region . The government of Punjab, the countrys largest province, passed a series of measures against Ahmadi Muslim beliefs. According to government figures, the remaining 4 percent includes Ahmadi Muslims (whom national law does not recognize as Muslim); Hindus; Christians, including Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants, among others; Parsis/Zoroastrians; Bahais; Sikhs; Buddhists; Kalash; and Kihals and Jains. 3.72; Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019; US 18 Dec. 2019), or "some 17-26 million people" ( Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019). In February, a court in Jacobabad, Sindh, ruled that the marriage with Raza was illegal under the 2013 Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act. On December 2, the Secretary of State redesignated Pakistan as a CPC under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, as amended, for having engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom, and announced a waiver of the sanctions that accompany designation as required in the important national interests of the United States. . Because of some limitations in many countries Population of Shia is not clearly known. Twitter and WhatsApp users circulated graphic images and video footage from the courtroom, depicting Naseem slumped over a chair and crowds of men ignoring the body and seeming to congratulate the killer. Updated: September 04, 2020 06:14 AM GMT. Thousands of anti-Shia protesters recently gathered in the city of Karachi, with many openly showing ties to Sunni extremist groups like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which has documented links to the killing of hundreds of Shia Muslims over the past few years. 2020, in July, 2020, Pakistani police arrested three LeJ operatives who were allegedly planning to carry out an attack in . The temple had also been part of a government-run school. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), however, the number of sectarian attacks and killings by armed groups decreased compared with previous years, corresponding with a continued overall decline in terrorist attacks. The statement also called on the government to reform its blasphemy laws and court system and to ensure that the suspect in Naseems killing be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Several minority rights advocacy groups dispute the provisional results of the 2017 census and state the numbers underrepresent their true population and their political influence, because minority seats in the national and provincial parliaments are allocated based on census figures. The teacher survived the attack and told media the man had been following and harassing her for days. In a September editorial, the largest Urdu daily, Nawa-i-Waqt, described the 1974 legislation declaring Ahmadis officially non-Muslim as a historic day in the countrys history. The constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and requires all provisions of the law to be consistent with Islam. The Religious Affairs Ministry later issued a statement saying Ahmadis would not be included on the commission, given the religious and historical sensitivity of including Ahmadis in government institutions. 1. The constitution states, All existing laws shall be brought into conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah [Islams body of traditional social and legal custom and practice]. It further states no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to Islam. Despite their well-documented extremist positions, over the past two years TLP and ASWJ have been allowed to assemble, make public anti-Shia speeches, carry out rallies, run for political office and mobilise against the Shia community, ensuring their power and influence in Pakistan has gone from strength to strength. The court also barred her alleged husband and his family from meeting her and ordered police to arrest those who facilitated the marriage. Others said parliamentarians occupying reserved seats had little influence in their parties and in the National Assembly because they did not have a voting constituency. Shia Muslims 1.1 Demographics. The two major powers in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, an Arab population ruled by a Sunni majority, and Iran, a Persian population ruled by a Shia majority. The commission also included two Sunni Muslim clerics and senior civil servants from the Ministries of Interior, Law and Justice, Human Rights, Federal Education and Professional Training, Religious Affairs, and the Council of Islamic Ideology. Members of religious minorities, particularly lower-caste Hindus, complained of forceful evictions from their homes and villages by individuals desiring their land with assistance from government officials. The court may suspend or increase the sentence given by a criminal court in these cases. According to Shia community estimates, There are approximate 320 Million to 350 Millions Shia's lives in the world. The constitution provides for freedom to manage religious institutions. It states every religious denomination shall have the right to establish and maintain its own institutions. Population of Pakistan (2020) View live population, charts & trends: Population of Pakistan Pakistan Population 220,892,340 see live Yearly Change + 2.00 % Global Share 2.81 % Global Rank 5 Fertility in Pakistan They said Christians had difficulty finding jobs other than those involving menial labor, with some advertisements for menial jobs specifying they were open only to Christian applicants. The constitution reserves seats for non-Muslim members in both the national and provincial assemblies. Shia leaders, meanwhile, denounced the specific honors prescribed by the bill to Mohammeds companions, which they said risked stoking discord between Shia and Sunnis, given their fundamental disagreements over some of the companions status within Islam. Ahmadiyya leaders stated the ambiguous wording of the legal provision forbidding Ahmadis from directly or indirectly identifying themselves as Muslims enabled officials to bring charges against members of the community for using the standard Islamic greeting or for naming their children Mohammed. Planning and execution of decennial Population & Housing Census. The young man and two coconspirators were indicted, taken into government custody, and were awaiting trial at years end. By Rafiq A. Tschannen on October 11, 2020 ( 1 Comment) Shia-Sunni rift on rise in Pakistan, but Imran Khan govt's silence may be strategic . The embassy highlighted the principles of religious freedom and examples of interfaith dialogue in the United States on its social media platforms throughout the year. A constitutional amendment devolves responsibility for minorities affairs, including religious minorities, to the provinces. rate of urbanization: 2.1% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.) On October 5, also in Peshawar, Professor Naeemuddin Khattak, a member of the Ahmadiyya community, died after being shot while driving home from work. The Shia population is around 20 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. Vali Nasr claims the Shia . The event received positive coverage in local media. By years end, police had dropped the case due to lack of evidence and pressure from activists. On October 19, the PTA lifted the block after the government received reassurances from the company that it would more closely regulate content, but NGOs and activists expressed concern that the government could use this authority to target religious minorities. RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP via Getty Images January 7, 2020, 12:20. The CLAAS legal team filed a contempt of court application, but the Lahore High Court dismissed the plea. Religious freedom activists and civil society groups said the proposal was toothless and raised concerns regarding the ministrys lack of public consultation, the limited powers of the proposed body, and the fact that Ahmadi Muslims were excluded. At other times, advocacy groups reported that blasphemy trials were held inside jails for security reasons, in which case the hearings were not public, resulting in a gain in immediate security but a loss of transparency. Similar to the previous year, some Sikh and Hindu places of worship reopened during the year. We call upon authorities to ensure the safety of all Pakistanis.. Among the targets of these attacks were Shia Muslims, particularly the predominantly Shia Hazara community. Representatives of the Kalash, an indigenous group in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, continued to report their youth were under pressure from Muslim schoolteachers and others to convert from their traditional beliefs. NGOs and legal observers also stated police often did not file charges against individuals who made false blasphemy accusations. Minority lawmakers and civil society activists reacted strongly to the attack, stating the boys had been instigated by local Muslim clerics. Members of civil society reported that converts from Islam lived in varying degrees of secrecy for fear of violent retribution from family members or society at large. Major cities - population 16.459 million Karachi, 13.095 million Lahore, 3.542 million Faisalabad, 2.281 million Rawalpindi, 2.290 million Gujranwala, 1.164 million ISLAMABAD (capital) (2021) Updated April 2020 About the Authors. This was part of an increase in anti-Shia activity that month nationwide that included the shooting of a prominent Shia religious leader in Punjabs Mandi Bahauddin District and the shooting of a Shia employee of the National Bank of Pakistan in Islamabad. The information in the following paragraph was provided in a country report on Pakistan by the . The world's largest population of Shia Muslims outside Iran is found in neighbouring Pakistan where they account for an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the population. On September 7, the JUI-F party held a large Khatm-e-Nabuwat conference in Peshawar, with party leaders and national and provincial parliamentarians in attendance. They represent about 21 per cent of the total Muslim population, the highest number in a country after Iran. Blasphemy is a capital offence in Pakistan and even unsubstantiated allegations can lead to mob violence and lynchings against the accused. Sunni groups held three large rallies in Karachi in September, with speakers warning Shia Muslims of dire consequences, including beheadings, if they continued to blaspheme against the Prophet Mohammeds companions. In a recent study conducted by the Law and Society Alliance, a New Delhi-based think tank headed by N.C. Bipindra, the population of G-B is now approximately 1.5 million, with around 39 per cent Shia, 27 per cent Sunni, 18 per cent Ismaili and 16 per cent Nurbakhshi. The population of Pakistan in 2020 was 227,196,741, a 1.75% increase from 2019. Shias, who make up 15 percent of Pakistan's 220 million population, commemorate the seventh-century massacre of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Husayn and his family and friends at the Battle of Karbala in Iraq for refusing . Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology, Office of the U.S. Political parties elected by the general electorate choose the minority individuals who hold these seats; they are not elected directly by the minority constituencies they represent. The hashtag infidel, infidel, Shias are infidel began trending. The court acquitted a second Christian in December. Human rights activists reported numerous instances of societal violence related to allegations of blasphemy; of efforts by individuals to coerce religious minorities to convert to Islam; and of societal harassment, discrimination, and threats of violence directed at members of religious minority communities. Civil society groups continued to express concerns about the safety of religious minorities. The complainant said the three men hurt the belief of Muslims by engaging in Islamic rituals as non-Muslims. The constitution establishes a Federal Shariat Court (FSC) composed of Muslim judges to examine and decide whether any law or provision is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. The constitution gives the FSC the power to examine a law of its own accord or at the request of the government or a private citizen. Other NGOs also said that 2020 had seen an increase in blasphemy cases. The provincial and federal governments have legal responsibility for certain minority religious properties abandoned during the 1947 partition of British India. Since 1980s, Parachinar, with majority Shia population, has seen the emergence of radical Saudi-sponsored Salafist groups, and sectarian violence has become a disturbing phenomenon, fueled by local and global terrorist organizations like the Taliban and ISIS. At first, they used hashtags, then killed us and rallied against us. The Shia population is spread all over Pakistan. It threatens to plunge the country into anarchy.. Data on sectarian attacks varied because no standardized definition existed of what constituted a sectarian attack among reporting organizations. He is one of over 50 Shia Muslims in Sunni-majority Pakistan, who have been booked under blasphemy and antiterrorist charges over the last month. 4,465,000. Religious community representatives estimate religious groups not identifying as Sunni, Shia, or Ahmadi Muslim constitute 3 to 5 percent of the population. According to civil society reports, there were many individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges, at least 35 of whom had received death sentences, as compared with 82 individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges and 29 who received death sentences in 2019. CLAAS helped both file an antidiscrimination petition in the Lahore High Court. In July, religious and right-wing parties criticized the governments plan to permit construction of a new Hindu temple in Islamabad. Then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs government had granted the land to build the temple in 2016. The court ordered police to hand over the woman to her Hindu husband and no police or court action was taken against Domki. According to the CSJ, 2020 saw the highest number of blasphemy cases in a single year in the countrys history. Police stated they believed he was targeted because of his religious beliefs. The division between Sunni and Shi'a is nearly as old as Islam itself, having stemmed from a disagreement in AD 632 about who should succeed . Although the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act covers registration of Sikh marriages in that province, members of the Sikh community reportedly continued to seek a separate Sikh law so as not to be considered as Hindus for the purposes of the law. In July, residents in the Sheikpura District of Punjab damaged Ahmadi gravestones. On August 12, armed gunmen attacked the house of Ahmadi Muslim Syed Naeem Ahmad Bashir in the Sahiwal District of Punjab, firing into the courtyard at night, where they reportedly expected the family to be sleeping. The traffickers told pastors and parents they would arrange marriages to Chinese men who had supposedly converted to Christianity, after which the women were taken to China, abused, and in some cases, sexually trafficked. NGOs expressed concern that authorities often failed to intervene in instances of societal violence against religious minorities due to fear of retaliation, inadequate staff, or apathy. ASWJ had previously been banned in Pakistan under the Anti-Terrorism Act before it was lifted in 2018 but is still globally considered a terrorist organisation. The wafaqs operate through an umbrella group, Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris Pakistan, to represent their interests to the government. Throughout the year, unidentified individuals targeted and killed Shia Muslims, including ethnic Hazaras, and Ahmadi Muslims in attacks believed to be religiously motivated. In December 2019, the parliament passed and Modi signed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which allows for the fast-tracking of citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian. Khattaks brother, who witnessed the killing, named two suspects in his criminal complaint, including a friend of Khattak a lecturer from the University of Agriculture in Peshawar with whom Khattak had had a heated religious argument on October 4. The group also painted slogans insulting the Ahmadiyya community. Human rights and religious freedom activists and members of minority religious groups continued to report that they exercised caution and, occasionally, self-censorship when speaking in favor of religious tolerance because of a societal climate of intolerance and fear. Christian activists also stated young women from their communities were vulnerable to forced conversions. Citing a sanitation job advertisement issued by the Sindh provincial government, HRCP stated such advertisements infringed on human dignity and violated the constitutional guarantee of equality of all citizens. Following complaints by some Sunni groups, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority temporarily suspended 24 News from broadcasting, citing Jaffars comments as hate-inciting content.. 0.5% Shia, and 0.3% Ahmadi. Many have observed that outrage against Shia. 2022 population pyramid Dependency ratios total dependency ratio: 59.3 youth dependency ratio: 44 elderly dependency ratio: 15.3 potential support ratio: 6.5 (2021 est.) That same day, a Punjab Provincial Assembly lawmaker from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Mohammed Ilyas Chinyoti, participated in an international Khatm-e-Nabuwat conference in the Chanab Nagar area of Punjab near the Ahmadiyya Muslim communitys headquarters. Civil society members reported authorities took no action to prevent attacks on Ahmadi mosques or punish assailants who demolished, damaged, forcibly occupied, or set fire to Ahmadi mosques. Parliament, church leaders, and advocates continued to debate the text of a draft law to govern Christian marriages nationwide, because the existing regulation dated from 1872. Between 1998 and 2017, Pakistan's average population growth rate was 2.40%. The 16-year-old suspect was being tried as a juvenile; the two coconspirators were a prayer leader and a young lawyer involved in the blasphemy complaint against Naseem. In 2018 the Islamabad High Court issued a judgment requiring citizens to declare an affidavit of faith to join the armed forces, judiciary, and civil services and directed parliament to amend laws to ensure Ahmadis did not use Islamic terms or have names associated with Islam. The anti-Shia Muslim campaign first began gathering pace on social media in September, demanding that Shia Muslims were declared heretics. Government officials condemned the incident, suspended more than 100 police officials for failure to stop the mob, and ordered the temple rebuilt. The law bans the sale of Ahmadiyya religious literature. Shares of Sikhs and Buddhists in overall population increased marginally. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, Section II. In a letter written to the Interior Minister, the LHCBA quoted the section of the constitution stating that Ahmadis are non-Muslim. For example, in March, media reported that a woman from Meghwar committed suicide after being repeatedly raped by a man of an upper-caste Hindu clan in Deeplo, Sindh. According to the SATP and media reports, antiterrorism courts convicted and sentenced several individuals affiliated with terrorist organizations and involved in past sectarian attacks and targeted killings. Pakistan's blasphemy laws have come under hefty criticism, as. On October 20, HRCP reported that an Ismaili Muslim mosque in Ghizer was attacked by unknown assailants, who opened fire on the building. The FSCs review power applies whether the cases involve Muslims or non-Muslims. Persons accused of blasphemy were often simultaneously charged with terrorism offenses. In January, two Christians, Kamran Sandhu and Nauman Aslam, applied for seats reserved for minorities in the Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO) in Punjab. Bibi remained in custody at years end. As well as the 50 who have been charged in the blasphemy crackdown, five have been killed since September and many more Shia families and well-known figures have gone into hiding. Legal experts and NGOs continued to state that the full legal framework for minority rights remained unclear. . Sunni coalition to demand arrest of Shia clerics in Pakistan. The constitution defines Muslim as a person who believes in the unity and oneness of Almighty Allah, in the absolute and unqualified finality of the Prophethood of Mohammed the last of the prophets, and does not believe in, or recognize as a prophet or religious reformer, any person who claimed or claims to be a prophet after Mohammed. It also states that a person belonging to the Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or Parsi community, a person of the Qadiani group or the Lahori group (who call themselves Ahmadis), or a Bahai, and a person belonging to any of the scheduled castes is a non-Muslim.. The Washington-based United States Institute for Peace said 3,800 Shias were murdered between 2007 and 2013, with 325 of those killings occurring in 2012. Unofficial estimates vary widely with regard to the size of minority religious groups. The resolution stated, This House demands that if the chief of Qadianis [a derogatory term for Ahmadis] submits in writing declaring that they accept the Constitution of Pakistan and accept their status as non-Muslims, then we will have no objection to their inclusion into the Commission.. On July 27, an antiterrorism court sentenced a member of SSP to 13 years imprisonment for facilitating terrorist activities. According to 2017 census total house hold in Pakistan are 32205111. There were multiple reports of targeted killings of Shia Muslims in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, although because religion and ethnicity were often closely related, it was difficult to categorize some incidents as being solely based on religious identity. The Sunni majority is using blasphemy laws to target and murder those they call heretics. There were a series of additional violent incidents targeting Ahmadis following the Tahir Naseem killing in a Peshawar courtroom. The youngest was three years old. Ahmadiyya community representatives reported the word Ahmadi was written on their passports if they identified themselves as such. If represented by a Muslim lawyer, however, non-Muslims may consult the FSC in other matters, such as questions of sharia or Islamic practice that affect them or violate their rights.
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