According to Ahmadi Muslim civil society organizations, the government failed to restrict advertisements or speeches inciting anti-Ahmadi violence, as provided for in the National Action Plan. 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. The family was in another location, however, and survived. * Name has been changed to protect identity, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Violence has not begun, but its likelihood looms large. The last census was conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in 2017. The incident was the first attack on a Hindu temple in Tharparkar in more than 30 years. The young man and two coconspirators were indicted, taken into government custody, and were awaiting trial at years end. Speakers at these rallies warned Shia of dire consequences, including beheadings, if they continued to blaspheme against the Prophet Mohammeds companions. 4. Religious minority community members also stated the government was inconsistent in safeguarding against societal discrimination and neglect, and that official discrimination against Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Ahmadi Muslims persisted to varying degrees, with Ahmadi Muslims experiencing the worst treatment. Civil society groups continued to express concerns about the safety of religious minorities. Even Fawad Chaudhry, currently serving as the minister for science and technology in Khans government, conceded that sectarianism was an issue that was getting out of hand. On December 24, the PTA issued a legal notice to two Ahmadi U.S. citizens requiring them to remove their website, trueislam.com, or face fines, sanctions, or potential prison sentences. Syed Kareem* has been in hiding for weeks. Persecution seems to be waiting for the Shia minority, said Hamza Baloch, a founding member of Secular Shia Voices, an advocacy group. Shias adhere to the teachings of Islamic prophet Muhammad, but differ from Sunni in following the religious guidance of his family (who are referred to as the Ahl al-Bayt) or his descendants known as Shi'a Imams, whom they consider to be infallible. In February, the National Assembly introduced a draft law requiring internet and technology companies to open offices in Islamabad, locate their servers within the country, and remove objectionable internet content within a specified timeframe. A June 2020 online survey by the Netherlands-based Gamaan Group found 37% of Iranians identifying as Muslims of which 32% are Shia Islam, 5% Sunni Islam and 3% Shia . Following the killing of Tahir Naseem, the Department of State issued a statement 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. The population share of Hindus dropped a little from 22.06 per cent in 1911 to 20.48. Pakistan ranks number 5 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population. I fear they will kill me, said Kareem, his voice shaking as he spoke from his place of hiding. The present Christian population in Pakistan is ranged between 2-3 million as per as recent (2020-21) year estimation by various institution and NGOs of Pakistan. The blasphemy charges against Jaffar were followed by anti-Shia rallies throughout the country and at least three rallies in Karachi by Sunni groups on September 11 and 13 attended by thousands of individuals. In February, a court in Jacobabad, Sindh, ruled that the marriage with Raza was illegal under the 2013 Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act. Police arrested more than 45 JUI-F followers and clerics involved in the destruction. At the same time, NGOs reported that sometimes lower-ranking police would file charges of blasphemy, rather than a senior police superintendent who had more authority to dismiss baseless claims, or that police would not carry out a thorough investigation. A full bench of the Supreme Court may grant a further appeal. This declaration is also required for private educational institutions, including universities. In October, the Lahore High Court acquitted a Christian of blasphemy, the first such ruling since 2018. Azerbaijan has the second highest Shia Muslim population in the world accounting for 83.6% of the total population while the sect accounts for 85% of the Muslim population in the country. The main functions of Population Census Wing are as under: 1. Bibi remained in custody at years end. On July 22, Saeed Amanat, a Muslim man, abducted a 15-year-old Christian girl on her way to church in Faisalabad, Punjab. The Shia population is spread all over Pakistan. The anti-Shia Muslim campaign first began gathering pace on social media in September, demanding that Shia Muslims were declared heretics. The constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and requires all provisions of the law to be consistent with Islam. On June 25, an antiterrorism court sentenced five al-Qaida militants to 16 years imprisonment each for terrorist financing and possession of explosives. In all these cases, judges repeatedly delayed hearings, adjourned hearings without hearing arguments, or sent appeals to other judicial benches. In August, a case was opened against three Ahmadi men after an official of a religious seminary approached police complaining that the men sacrificed an animal on Eid al-Adha. Ahmadiyya community representatives reported the word Ahmadi was written on their passports if they identified themselves as such. 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. 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. Sitting by his grave, she tells the story of the day she lost her brother in the attack, a sequence of bomb blasts which killed at least 45 . In July, a teenager killed U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem in a Peshawar courtroom, where Naseem was on trial for blasphemy. On June 10, police arrested Sajid Soomro, a professor at Shah Abdul Latif University, in Khairpur, Sindh, on blasphemy charges. Total. 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. In September, unidentified gunmen killed two prominent members of the local Shia community in the Kohat District of that province. Dr Nauman Naqvi, an associate professor at Habib University in Karachi, said: Since Pakistans economic and political outlook appears increasingly troubled, the ruling power see Sunni majoritarian populism as the only option to secure stability, undercut democratic forces and distract from the grave political and economic crises that hover over Pakistan. In January, two Christians, Kamran Sandhu and Nauman Aslam, applied for seats reserved for minorities in the Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO) in Punjab. There were a series of additional violent incidents targeting Ahmadis following the Tahir Naseem killing in a Peshawar courtroom. Shia Muslims 1.1 Demographics. In January, after going missing, a 15-year-old Hindu girl appeared in a video with Ali Raza, a Muslim man, in which the two claimed they had willingly married and she had converted to Islam. Shias in Pakistan are geographically spread across the. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba,. In a letter written to the Interior Minister, the LHCBA quoted the section of the constitution stating that Ahmadis are non-Muslim. Civil society activists and media reported young Christian and Hindu women being abducted and raped by Muslim men. The gurdwara had been used as a government-run girls school since 1947. 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. Sources vary on the precise breakdown of the Muslim population between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Now theyre coming up with legislation to eliminate the Shia minority.. On January 22, the Hyderabad center hosted an event on educational institutions roles in promoting tolerance and creating peaceful communities. There is a small myth that Christianity has been existent in Pakistan ever since a few decades after the crucifixion of Jesus . According to 1961 Census -- the first in the state after Partition, Muslims constituted 68.3 per cent of Jammu and Kashmir's 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. At the forefront of anti-Shia campaign in Pakistan are two hardline Sunni Muslim groups, Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ) and Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). The constitution states this requirement shall not affect the personal laws of non-Muslim citizens or their status as citizens. Qataris are all Muslims and followers of the Sunni Salafi version of Islam. It also states that no religious denomination shall be prevented from providing religious instruction for pupils of its denomination in an educational institution maintained by the denomination. A local jihadist group and a violent protest movement are driving renewed sectarian strife in Pakistan. The law requires elected Muslim officials to swear an oath affirming their belief that Mohammed is the final prophet of Islam. These attacks targeted gatherings of Shia individuals. 55-64 years: 9.62% (male 250,653/female 275,670) 65 years and over: 7.96% (male 187,001/female 248,479) (2020 est.) 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. The government continued to implement the National Action Plan against terrorism, including countering sectarian hate speech and extremism as well as conducting military and law enforcement operations against violent groups. They complained that Dalits, who are considered to be the lowest in the traditional Hindu caste structure, were being targeted and subjected to violence and torture in Thar and other areas. In April, police arrested Ramzan Bibi, an Ahmadi Muslim woman, after a neighbor accused her of blasphemy against Mohammed a crime that carries the death penalty in an argument over Bibis charitable donation to a non-Ahmadi mosque. While they do not constitute a majority in any of Pakistan's four provinces, Shia do form a majority in the Pakistani-controlled autonomous region of Gilgit Baltistan. Christian advocates also called on the government to allow them to travel to Israel. 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. Unofficial estimates vary widely with regard to the size of minority religious groups. Minority religious leaders stated members of their communities continued to experience discrimination in admission to colleges and universities. Video footage from a National Assembly session in July showed opposition lawmakers immediately criticizing Prime Minister Khan when he failed to use the phrase after speaking the name of the Prophet Mohammed in an address to parliament. NEW DELHI: Successive Pakistan governments under the garb of development have undertaken an exercise to change demographic composition of Gilgit Baltistan and local Shia population has been reduced to less than 50 per cent compared to 1948. Persons accused of blasphemy were often simultaneously charged with terrorism offenses. 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. The HRCP reported that more than 40 such cases were registered under the blasphemy laws in August alone. 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. Users are advised to report such content on content-complaint@pta.gov.pk for action under PECA 16 (the 2016 PECA act)., In a January press release, PTA stated it was proactively playing its role in blocking/removal of unlawful content, with social media platforms being approached in this regard, and it encouraged the public to report such content directly to PTA and avoid sharing it on social media platforms and other websites.. 163,601,094. 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. An additional six Sikh gurdwaras and seven Hindu temples were also reopened after renovation in Punjab. Pakistan's population is expected to surpass that of Indonesia in 2048 when it will reach 331.29 million. The '2019 International Religious Freedom Report,' of the US Department of State, released on June 10, 2020, has voiced concern over the targeted killing in Pakistan of Shia Muslims, including ethnic Hazaras, who are largely Shia, and Ahmadi Muslims in attacks believed to be driven by faith. Civil society and legal sources said judges were generally hesitant to decide blasphemy cases due to fear of violent retribution. Hundreds of Shia Pakistanis gathered on Saturday to bury 11 coal miners from the Hazara community killed by the armed group ISIL (ISIS), ending a week of protests that sought to highlight the. According to Pew Research Center, adherents of Shiite Islam in Pakistan make up between 15-20% of the country's total population. 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. 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. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, Section II. The constitution reserves seats for non-Muslim members in both the national and provincial assemblies. The constitution requires the President and Prime Minister to be 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. Authorities provided enhanced security for Shia Muslim, Christian, and Hindu places of worship at various times throughout the year, including around particular religious holidays or in response to specific threats. According to data provided by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), authorities accused at least 199 individuals of new blasphemy offenses during the year. 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. Projections 0 100,000,000 200,000,000 300,000,000 400,000,000 Population 235,824,862 Version 3.0 . It forbids discrimination against any religious community in the taxation of religious institutions. Shiite Muslims protest in Karachi, Pakistan, against a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Shikarpur, Pakistan, on Jan. 30, 2015. 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. 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. 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. Visiting U.S. government officials met with religious minority community representatives, parliamentarians, human rights activists, and members of the federal cabinet to highlight concerns regarding the treatment of religious minority communities, the application of blasphemy laws, and other forms of discrimination on the basis of religion. The Sindh provincial government has legislation allowing couples to seek divorce and granting Hindu women the right to remarry six months after a divorce or a spouses death. According to civil society reports, there were many individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges and at least 35 under sentences of death, compared with 82 individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges and 29 under sentences of death in 2019. 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. Zaidi. The Shia population is around 20 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. Doha. According to the nonprofit Middle East Media Research Institute, the December edition of the Urdu language TTP magazine Journal of The Tehreek-E-Taliban Pakistan blamed the Jews and their puppets for the COVID-19 pandemic and for harassing Muslims during the pandemic. The FSCs review power applies whether the cases involve Muslims or non-Muslims. (July 2020 est.) In July, residents in the Sheikpura District of Punjab damaged Ahmadi gravestones. According to AsiaNews, once Khan learned the family was Christian, he ordered them to leave immediately, because Christians are enemies of Islam. After harassing the family for a few days, Khan gave them a 24-hour ultimatum to leave. On November 20 in a rural area of Punjab, a teenage boy killed Ahmadi doctor Tahir Ahmad and seriously wounded three of his family members. Also in September, a Karachi court issued an arrest warrant for Abdul Jabbar, a Muslim man who allegedly abducted, forcibly married, and converted a teenage Christian girl in Karachi in 2019. The government continued to permit limited non-Muslim foreign missionary activity and to allow missionaries to proselytize as long as they did not preach against Islam and they acknowledged they were not Muslim. 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 . The special assistant to the Prime Minister for religious harmony, Tahir Ashrafi, said it was the responsibility of the government and court to punish the perpetrator in a televised interview. 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.. Several statues were destroyed. Throughout the year, unidentified individuals assaulted and killed Shia and Ahmadis in attacks sources believed to be religiously motivated. 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. The killings took place during protests sparked by twin suicide bombings outside two churches there. Her family said she had been kidnapped and forcibly converted. Community leaders continued to report that the government hindered Ahmadis from obtaining legal documents and pressured community members to deny their beliefs by requiring individuals wishing to be listed as Muslim on identity cards and passports to swear Mohammed was the final prophet of Islam and the Ahmadiyya movements founder was a false prophet. 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. Many social media users celebrated Naseems killing. There were some cases in which police received custody of the accused from a court for 14 days for a senior officer to carry out an investigation. The Sunnis, on the other hand, nurse the fear that they have decisively lost power and things . The NCHR was also mandated to conduct investigations of allegations of human rights abuses, but legal sources said the commission had little power to enforce its requests. 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 name also comes from one of the names of Allah, Al-Wahab, which means the all-giver.. According to technology companies and religious minority activists, the definition of objectionable content in the draft law was vague and subject to government interpretation. It has an estimated 23 million people who adhere to Islam. Authorities also consult the ministry on matters such as blasphemy and Islamic education. The directorate would be empowered to inspect printing presses, bookstores, and publishing houses and confiscate books before or after they are printed if they are judged to contain objectionable content. 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. In the same election, ASWJ also threw its influential backing behind 70 candidates from Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which won and formed the government. . 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. Pakistan: Shia Muslims . The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) designates religious affiliation on passports and requires religious information in national identity card and passport applications. Following the killing of Ahmadi physician Tahir Ahmad in November, the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom posted an official tweet calling upon authorities to ensure the safety of all Pakistanis. The court also barred her alleged husband and his family from meeting her and ordered police to arrest those who facilitated the marriage. The text messages stated, Sharing of blasphemy, pornography, terrorism, and other unlawful content on social media and the internet is illegal. Groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and other governments, such as ISIS, also committed violent acts. Editorial note: This project covers the period through 2019. . Christian religious freedom activists continued to report widespread discrimination against Christians in private employment. Targeted killings of Shia and Ahmadi Muslims and violence and discrimination against Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadi Muslims continued to occur. The attackers relationship to organized terrorist groups was often unclear. 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 October 10, 1993, the then Central government had announced elected . 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. However, the vehement sectarian resurgence began in 2017 when the Pakistani government began making concessions to the extremist Sunni Muslim groups. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. Police also deployed snipers and used closed-circuit television cameras and metal detectors to ensure the security of churches and Christmas markets. In December, using expanded authorities granted by the government in November, the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority publicly demanded the removal of sacrilegious content from the Google Play Store and Wikipedia. Other government officials, including Prime Minister Khan, advised Sarwar against signing the bill, according to a Lahore-based journalist. Sunnis represent approximately 75 percent of this population and Shias 20 . According to representatives of some minority religious groups, the government continued to allow most organized religious groups to establish places of worship and train members of the clergy. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. 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. NGOs and legal observers also stated police often did not file charges against individuals who made false blasphemy accusations. The Punjab Provincial Assembly also unanimously passed a resolution in May insisting that the federal National Commission on Minorities not include a representative from the Ahmadi community until community leaders submitted in writing that they accepted their status as non-Muslims under the constitution. In May 2000, the Shia Muslims based in the Gilgit district of the then Northern Areas began to agitate against the recently changed curriculum of government schools in the region. Shia Muslims 1.1 Demographics According to sources, the Shia population of Pakistan is estimated to be between 10 and 15 percent (Australia 20 Feb. 2019, para. Data on sectarian attacks varied because no standardized definition existed of what constituted a sectarian attack among reporting organizations. Senior Department of State officials, including the Office of International Religious Freedoms Special Advisor for Religious Minorities, the Charge dAffaires, consuls general, and other embassy officers met with 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.