shia population in pakistan 2020
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. In a statement, the Pakistan Hindu Council condemned the killing as well as two other July incidents of violence towards Hindu citizens in the district. This issue was discussed at a Webinar on Gilgit-Baltistan or G-B on November 10. 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 government may use the antiterrorism courts, established as a parallel legal structure under the 1997 Antiterrorism Act, to try cases involving violent crimes, terrorist activities, and acts or speech deemed by the government to foment religious hatred, including blasphemy. 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. Azerbaijan - 65-75% . Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom, Section IV. Representatives of religious minorities said a glass ceiling continued to prevent their promotion to senior government positions, but one NGO also stated that due to insufficient higher education opportunities compared to the majority religious community, few religious minorities met the qualifications to apply for these positions. Police stated they believed he was targeted because of his religious beliefs. 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Pakistan, An official website of the United States Government. On August 20, attackers attempted to kill Sheikh Nasir Ahmad, an Ahmadi man from the Lalamusa area of central Punjab. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission reported more than 200 terrorist attacks resulted in nearly 700 Shia deaths and over 1,000 Shia injuries in 2013. 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. At least 40 cases were registered against Shias in one month Pakistan has the third largest Shia population after India and Iran. 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. On April 14, police filed a blasphemy case against Shia singer Zamin Ali in Jamshoro, Sindh. 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. The incident was the first attack on a Hindu temple in Tharparkar in more than 30 years. Although sectarian data is difficult to pin down in Afghanistan, an estimated 15 to 29 percent of the population is Shia (mostly the Twelver sect that dominates the Islamic Republic, but also some Ismaili Shia). It threatens to plunge the country into anarchy.. The anti-Shia Muslim campaign first began gathering pace on social media in September, demanding that Shia Muslims were declared heretics. According to an unofficial and unverified estimate, between 700 and 5,000 Pakistan Shias from Karachi, Parachinar, and Gilgit-Baltistan, recruited by Iran, went to Syria to fight against the. Some personal laws regulating marriage, divorce, and inheritance for minority communities date from prepartition British legislation. It distributes the funds through a government-run charity as stipends for poor families and students, payment for medical treatment, and support to Sunni mosques and madrassahs registered with the government. Armed sectarian groups, including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the once-banned anti-Shia group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which is connected to other organizations banned by the government as extremist, and groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and other governments, continued to stage attacks targeting Shia Muslims, including the predominantly Shia Hazara community. The constant tension between Shia and Sunni has led to the creation of Shia-Specific organizations. 163,601,094. According to the provisional results of a national census conducted in 2017 (the most recent), 96 percent of the population is Sunni or Shia Muslim. The family was in another location, however, and survived. 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. Hindu Dalits remained vulnerable to human rights violations and pressure by perpetrators to withdraw police cases. In some schools, however, non-Muslim students may study ethics. The Sindh Hindu Marriage Act also applies to Sikh marriages. After Iran and India, Pakistan has the world's third-largest Shia community, accounting for ten percent of the total population. A constitutional amendment devolves responsibility for minorities affairs, including religious minorities, to the provinces. Sanjay Mathrani, a former participant in a U.S. government exchange program, was a featured speaker. . is smallest province by Population. Civil society representatives said the bill targets Ahmadis, who do not have representation on the ulema board and who are barred by the constitution and the penal code from identifying as Muslims. Planning and execution of decennial Population & Housing Census. * Name has been changed to protect identity, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Legal observers also reported judges and magistrates often delayed or continued trials indefinitely to avoid confrontation with, or violence from, groups provoking protests. 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. On July 22, Saeed Amanat, a Muslim man, abducted a 15-year-old Christian girl on her way to church in Faisalabad, Punjab. On October 9, the PTA blocked the video-sharing social media application TikTok, based on what it called immoral and indecent content. Ahmadiyya community members said they were surprised by this instance of a senior government official condemning anti-Ahmadi violence, but added that they do not expect it to become the new norm. Ahead of Christmas in Lahore, police deployed some 6,000 officers and officials at 623 churches. 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. In 2017, TLP was responsible for forcing a law minister to quit over a perceived softening in the blasphemy laws. . The requirement that Muslim elected officials swear an oath affirming their belief that Mohammed is the final prophet of Islam continued to discourage Ahmadi Muslims from seeking public office. Following the address, the Special Adviser convened an interfaith roundtable discussion at Karachi University, which included Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Parsis. In July, religious and right-wing parties criticized the governments plan to permit construction of a new Hindu temple in Islamabad. In July, police arrested four men for destroying a 1,700-year-old Gandharan civilization statue of Buddha in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a video showing one of the men hammering the statue went viral on social media. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba,. 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. For example, the Lahore Waste Management Company continued to employ mainly Christian street sweepers, which HRCP criticized as the result of employment advertisements continuing to specify that religious minorities should apply. The information in the following paragraph was provided in a country report on Pakistan by the . The attackers relationship to organized terrorist groups was often unclear. 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. She was taken to Dera Ghazi Khan, in Punjab, to avoid Sindh provincial law, which bans marriage of girls younger than 18. The province-level Sindh Hindu Marriage Act and the national-level Hindu Marriage Act (applying to federal territory and all other provinces) codify legal mechanisms to formally register and prove the legitimacy of Hindu marriages. Their refusal to sign the statement meant they were automatically disqualified from fulfilling the admissions requirements. In the absence of specific language in the law authorizing civil or common law marriage, marriage certificates are signed by religious authorities and registered with the local marriage registrar. . 2. The HRCP said forced conversions of young women of minority faiths, often lower-caste Hindu girls from rural Sindh province, continued to occur. The stronghold of Barelvism remains Punjab, the largest province of Pakistan. Population: 233,500,636 (July 2017 est.) The constitution states that no person attending any educational institution shall be required to attend religious instruction or take part in any religious ceremony relating to a religion other than the persons own. His was the first acquittal for blasphemy since October 2018, when Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death in 2010, was acquitted. Despite her filing a complaint, police did not open a case initially. On July 21, the government returned a 200-year-old Sikh gurdwara to the Sikh community in Quetta. The government continued its warnings against blasphemy and other illegal content on social media through periodic print advertisements and text messages sent by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA). 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. [6] As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. The main functions of Population Census Wing are as under: 1. According to the bill, all publishers would be required to submit to the Directorate General Public Relations, the provincial government authority with jurisdiction over printing presses and publishing houses, four copies of every edition of each title they print. There is no provision in the law for atheists. Hindu community representatives welcomed the decision to return the temple to the community after 70 years. On September 8, Mehwish Hidayat, a Christian woman, was reunited with her family after being abducted by a Muslim man and spending three months in captivity. Pakistan population is equivalent to 2.83% of the total world population. 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. Shiites are estimated to be 21-35 percent of the Muslim population in South East Asia. Shia Muslims constitute 10 to 12 percent of the citizen population and an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the Eastern Province's population. According to 2017 census total house hold in Pakistan are 32205111. (Goyal, 2020) There has been an even greater decline in major cities with historically large Hindu populations. Following the killing of U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem in July, JUI-F leader Mufti Kifayatullah celebrated the accused killer for his act of justice. Some political figures, including the ruling PTI Partys Sindh provincial president Haleem Adil Sheikh, who is also a member of the Sindh Provincial Assembly, changed their social media profile pictures to that of Naseems killer. Methodology for Sunni-Shia Estimates Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life / Mapping the Global Muslim Population 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. He fears if he is seen on the streets of Karachi, the Pakistan city he calls home, he will be a dead man walking. Although there continued to be no official restriction on the construction of Ahmadiyya places of worship, according to Ahmadiyya Muslim community leaders, local authorities regularly denied requisite construction permits, and Ahmadis remained forbidden to call them mosques. At the end of the year, CLAAS was planning to take the case to the Federal Ombudsman. 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. On July 9, the Sindh High Court ordered that the girl could return to her Hindu parents. You can add more than one country or area. Reports indicated parents and pastors were frequently paid by the traffickers for the women, and that some pastors were complicit in the trafficking. Several hundred protesters led by religious leaders took to the streets and chanted slogans against the alleged blasphemer. Minority religious leaders stated members of their communities continued to experience discrimination in admission to colleges and universities. 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 legal advocacy groups, some lower courts continued to conduct proceedings in an intimidating atmosphere, with members of antiblasphemy groups, such as the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), often threatening the defendants attorneys, family members, and supporters. In Sindh, police provided enhanced security at churches and Hindu temples, especially in Karachi, on eves of festivals such as Christmas and Diwali. However, the vehement sectarian resurgence began in 2017 when the Pakistani government began making concessions to the extremist Sunni Muslim groups. In January, two Christians, Kamran Sandhu and Nauman Aslam, applied for seats reserved for minorities in the Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO) in Punjab. While the Ministry of Law and Justice was officially responsible for ensuring the legal rights of all citizens, in practice, the Ministry for Human Rights continued to assume primary responsibility for the protection of the rights of religious minorities. The population share of Hindus dropped a little from 22.06 per cent in 1911 to 20.48. Shia Muslims also fear their religious freedom is being legislated away. The complainant said the three men hurt the belief of Muslims by engaging in Islamic rituals as non-Muslims. A large portion of . The constitution states no person shall be compelled to pay any special tax for the propagation or maintenance of a religion other than the persons own. 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. U.S. government cultural centers in Khairpur, Hyderabad, and Karachi held events to promote religious freedom. On August 22, another teenage Christian escaped from the home of Mohamad Nakash, a Muslim who had kidnapped her in April and had been holding her since. CLAAS helped both file an antidiscrimination petition in the Lahore High Court. Most minority religious groups said they continued to face discrimination in government hiring. Her family said she had been kidnapped and forcibly converted. I am being targeted because I am from a Shia religious minority. Non-Muslims may not appear before the FSC. Some religious minority leaders stated the system of selecting minority parliamentarians through the internal deliberations of mainstream parties resulted in the appointment of party stalwarts or those who could afford to buy the seats, rather than legislators who genuinely represented minority communities. The penal code does not explicitly criminalize apostasy, but renouncing Islam is widely considered by clerics to be a form of blasphemy, which can carry the death penalty. It directs the state to endeavor to secure the proper organization of Islamic tithes, religious foundations, and places of worship. Victims said their attackers singled them out as vulnerable due to their religious minority identity. In July, the Department of State issued a statement following the killing of Tahir Naseem expressing outrage over the killing and noting that Naseem had been lured from his home in the United States by individuals who used blasphemy laws to entrap him. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah Imran Ismail issued a statement condemning the attacks. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. Minority rights activists criticized these advertisements as discriminatory and insulting. She denied her abductors claim that she had willfully married him and converted to Islam, and instead asked the court to allow her to reunite with her Hindu husband and minor son. By one estimate, in Pakistan, the Shias are. The Kuwaiti population consists of 70% foreigners and 30% Kuwaiti. In addition to the large JUI-F conference and rallies, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami also held a large event in September in Peshawar; both parties criticized the PTI-led national government for failing to enforce Islamic law. The establishment of the UT of Ladakh was in concurrence with the age-old demand of Leh, a demand opposed by Kargil. The constitution prohibits discriminatory admission based on religious affiliation to any governmental educational institution. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a national NGO, expressed concern over a surge in blasphemy cases against religious minorities, particularly the Shia community, and the continued potential for sectarian violence. 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. 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 court ordered the chief executive officer of GEPCO to hire the two Christians, but he did not do so. Non-Muslims are required to have the head of their local religious communities verify their religious affiliation. International and local media, as well as Christian activists, reported that young Christian women, many of them minors, were specifically targeted by Chinese human traffickers because of their poverty and vulnerability. On January 26, a local court sentenced four young boys, who had confessed to vandalizing a Hindu temple in Sindhs Tharparkar district, to a juvenile center in Hyderabad. Download Historical Data Save as Image From: To: Zoom: Current Historical U.N. 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. As one senior security official speaking on condition of anonymity, alleged: We cant ignore the role of regional and international powers in sectarianism in Pakistan Iran supports the Shia militia here.. The government has never executed anyone specifically for blasphemy. The Punjab provincial government adopted three anti-Ahmadi measures: in May, a resolution that Ahmadis not be permitted to join the federal governments National Commission for Minorities unless they acknowledge they are not Muslims; in June, a new curriculum law that requires school textbooks to state the finality of the Prophet Mohammed; and in July, the Protection of the Foundations of Islam bill giving the provincial government authority to censor objectionable materials and inspect any publishing house or private home for banned Ahmadi literature. Coordinator for the Arctic Region, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Office of International Religious Freedom, Office of the Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Office of the Science and Technology Adviser, Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services, Bureau of Information Resource Management, Office of Management Strategy and Solutions, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S.
Alligator Attacks On Sanibel Island,
Australian Election Swing Calculator,
Do Lights Deter Armadillos,
75 Series Landcruiser Coil Conversion,
Htt Otis Osmanager4 Com Mcgriff,
Articles S