Hindu community representatives welcomed the decision to return the temple to the community after 70 years. 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. The country is home to the second largest Shia population after Iran. In modern times, the split has fostered battles for power and resources. On July 13, hundreds of members of the Bheel community, including women and children, marched and demonstrated against the demolition of their homes by revenue officials whom they said were in collusion with an influential landlord of the area in Mithi, Sindh. The text messages stated, Sharing of blasphemy, pornography, terrorism, and other unlawful content on social media and the internet is illegal. I fear they will kill me, said Kareem, his voice shaking as he spoke from his place of hiding. 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 . The law also would make desecration (including physical destruction of books or symbols, along with verbal, written, or online actions perceived to be insults) of any prophet, any of the four divine books (the Quran, Torah, Psalms of David, and Gospel of Jesus), any family and companions of the Prophet Mohammed, as well as abetting or glorifying terrorists, or promoting sectarianism in any book, punishable with a maximum of a five-year jail term and a substantial fine of up to 500,000 Pakistani rupees ($3,100). Then, in mid-September, a march of more than 30,000 people, organised by extremist Sunni Muslim groups, gathered in Karachi over two days to call Shia Muslims unbelievers and blasphemers and called for their beheading. 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. He fears if he is seen on the streets of Karachi, the Pakistan city he calls home, he will be a dead man walking. These observers said the general refusal of lower courts to hold timely hearings or acquit those accused persisted due to fear of reprisal and vigilantism. It has quasi-judicial powers and may refer cases for prosecution but does not have arrest authority. Government officials and politicians attended and spoke at multiple Khatm-e-Nabuwat (Finality of Prophethood) conferences held in major cities and at religious sites around the country. Population of males is 106018220 and females is 101344632. PDF Estimated Percentage Range of Shia by Country - Pew Research Center 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.. The population of Shia: How many Shia are there in the world? - Islamic Web The man was later arrested by police after the Sindh education secretary intervened in the case. 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. A local jihadist group and a violent protest movement are driving renewed sectarian strife in Pakistan. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. The killings took place during protests sparked by twin suicide bombings outside two churches there. Sunni Muslims made up 5 percent of all accused blasphemers, followed by Christians at 3.5 percent, and Hindus at 1 percent. In Peshawar, security was increased around churches ahead of Christmas after security forces arrested four militants on December 17 who were allegedly planning an attack on Christmas Day, which is also celebrated as Quaid-i-Azam Day, the birthday of Pakistans founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Following the July killing of U.S. citizen and self-identified Ahmadi Muslim Tahir Naseem, who was standing trial for blasphemy charges, some political party leaders celebrated the killers actions. 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 constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and requires all provisions of the law to be consistent with 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. 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. By law, madrassahs are prohibited from teaching or encouraging sectarian or religious hatred or violence. Phillip Smyth was a Soref Fellow at The Washington Institute from 2018-2021. World Shia Muslims Population - Home 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.. Pakistan's blasphemy laws have come under hefty criticism, as. Pakistan - United States Department of State The Shias live in a state of relief and caution: relief at Article 370 being lifted, and caution that things won't get any better for them. In May, the Cabinet approved a proposal creating a National Commission for Minorities within the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Pakistan Pakistani Shias live in terror as sectarian violence increases The Sunni majority is using blasphemy laws to target and murder those they call 'heretics' Shah Meer Baloch in Islamabad. With Article 370 gone, Shias in Kashmir are in a state of - ThePrint Following Naseems death, there were a series of additional violent incidents targeting Ahmadis, and Ahmadiyya community members said they felt in more danger than ever before. In May, after the government announced that Ahmadis would be excluded from the National Commission for Minorities, Religious Affairs Minister Qadri said on a popular television show, Anyone supporting Ahmadis is not a Muslim. Ahmadiyya Muslim community representatives stated that the Urdu-language press frequently printed hate speech in news stories and editorials, some of which could be considered as inciting anti-Ahmadi violence. And up to 18 million of Pakistan's 74 million jobs may be lost. Islam is the state religion in Qatar. Authorities also consult the ministry on matters such as blasphemy and Islamic education. 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. These terrorist outfits have committed horrendous crimes in this mountainous region . Provinces of Pakistan Population Detail Information About Provinces Wise Population It has an estimated 23 million people who adhere to Islam. The FSCs review power applies whether the cases involve Muslims or non-Muslims. The hashtag infidel, infidel, Shias are infidel began trending. The attackers relationship to organized terrorist groups was often unclear. Sunnis represent approximately 75 percent of this population and Shias 20 . According to current population projections, Pakistan will reach its peak population in 2092 of 404.68 million people. Police intervened on multiple occasions to quell mob violence directed at individuals accused of blasphemy. On November 21, Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari posted a tweet calling for the government to protect all its citizens. In Sindh, police provided enhanced security at churches and Hindu temples, especially in Karachi, on eves of festivals such as Christmas and Diwali. 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. Leaders in other NGOs agreed the actual number of blasphemy cases was likely higher, but uneven reporting and lack of media coverage in many areas made it difficult to identify an exact number. Shia Hazaras in Quetta, Balochistan, continued to express concern about targeted killings taking place for the last several years. In all these cases, judges repeatedly delayed hearings, adjourned hearings without hearing arguments, or sent appeals to other judicial benches. Non-Muslims are required to have the head of their local religious communities verify their religious affiliation. The bill would also require the words last of the prophets to be written after the name of Mohammed and specific honors for his companions revered in the Shia community (may Allah be pleased with them, rather than peace be upon them). On November 23, the Sindh High Court dissolved the marriage of an underage Christian girl to a 44-year-old Muslim man. 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. 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. Estimates of the Zikri Muslim community, located in Balochistan, range between 500,000 and 800,000 individuals. 1.. She said Domki had taken her to Balochistan two months earlier and held her there until police rescued her. At least three top Twitter trends praised the killer and called him the savior and pride of Pakistan. Although the government continued to implement elevated security measures around Hazara neighborhoods in Quetta, some Hazara community members continued to state that these measures had turned their neighborhoods into isolated ghettos. Version 3.0 . On October 25, a Hindu temple was vandalized in Nagarparkar, Sindh, during the nine-day Navratri celebrations. Islamic and minority religious leaders endorsed the code. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba,. Several hundred protesters led by religious leaders took to the streets and chanted slogans against the alleged blasphemer. According to 2017 census total house hold in Pakistan are 32205111. The protesters said that when they opposed the illegal evictions of villagers, they were charged in fake cases by revenue officials. In February, a crowd occupied and vandalized a 100-year-old Ahmadi mosque in Punjab. Both passed the recruitment test and had successful interviews but were denied appointment by the assistant manager. 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.. 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 penal code bans them from posing as Muslims, using Islamic terms, carrying out Islamic customs, preaching or propagating their religious beliefs, proselytizing, or insulting the religious feelings of Muslims. The punishment for violating these provisions is imprisonment for up to three years and a fine, the amount of which is at the discretion of the sentencing judge. On August 24, the Karachi center hosted a talk entitled, How to Develop Religious Tolerance and Empathy, with Syed Ali Hameed from the Shaoor Foundation and a consulate general officer. by Senge Sering in Baltimore Post Examiner, Feb 27, 2023 The writer is the President of Gilgit Baltistan Institute in Washington D.C. After Iran and India, Pakistan has the world's third-largest Shia community, accounting for ten percent of the total population. Members of parliament and officials of the Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Law and Justice held consultations with church leaders from prominent Christian denominations and with NGO representatives, but the denominations, church leaders, and NGO representatives had not agreed on elements of the draft law pertaining to divorce and interfaith marriage by years end. Hindus formed 28.45 per cent. 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. The Shia Militia Mapping Project | The Washington Institute In July, the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) demanded that the federal interior ministry prevent the Ahmadi community from sacrificing animals on Eid al-Adha. Local authorities did not allow the repair or unsealing of Ahmadi mosques damaged or demolished by rioters in previous years. Representatives of the Bahai community said this policy particularly affected them because the Bahai World Center the spiritual and administrative center of the community was in Haifa, Israel. 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. note: provisional results of Pakistan's 2017 national census estimate the country's total population to be 207,774,000. country comparison to the world (CIA rank, may be based on non-current data): 5. Police arrested several members of a neighboring Muslim family in connection with the incident. Some politicians acknowledged privately the bill was intended to ensure textbooks identify Mohammed as the final prophet, thereby excluding Ahmadis from the definition of Islam taught in public schools. 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 population: 17 - 26 million Pakistan participates with a similar percentage of Shia Muslim to its neighbor India, with Shia Muslims making 10 - 15% of all Muslims in Pakistan. Opponents filed a petition to stop construction with the Islamabad High Court on June 29, and vandals destroyed the lands boundary wall on July 5. The economy will contract by 1.3 percent in the 2020 fiscal year because of the pandemic, the World Bank predicts. The womans family said she was pregnant at the time of her suicide and that police initially refused to file charges against the man because of his caste. How many Shia are in India? 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. 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. 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Pakistan, An official website of the United States Government. 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. 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. The constitution requires the President and Prime Minister to be Muslims. Between 1998 and 2017, Pakistan's average population growth rate was 2.40%. IRB - Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada - ecoi.net On January 29, an antiterrorism court in Lahore acquitted and ordered the release of 42 individuals accused of participating in the 2015 lynching of two Muslim men in Lahore. "No one knew where I was for 21 . Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom, Section IV. 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 . In Islamabad, the deputy inspector general of police said as many as 15,000 police, Rangers, and Frontier Corps personnel were involved. Pakistan Population (2023) - Worldometer Which is largest Shia Muslim country? - Quora According to the SATP, the number of sectarian attacks by armed groups continued to decrease, corresponding with an overall decline in terrorist attacks. 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. According to Shia community estimates, There are approximate . 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. 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. Following the address, the Special Adviser convened an interfaith roundtable discussion at Karachi University, which included Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Parsis. 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. The Shia population is spread all over Pakistan. I am being targeted because I am from a Shia religious minority. Several statues were destroyed. Data on sectarian attacks varied because no standardized definition existed of what constituted a sectarian attack among reporting organizations. Unfortunately, due to the history that Pakistan has had, especially with regards to security, this remains a huge problem, said Chaudhry. She was taken to Dera Ghazi Khan, in Punjab, to avoid Sindh provincial law, which bans marriage of girls younger than 18. Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By According to 1961 Census -- the first in the state after Partition, Muslims constituted 68.3 per cent of Jammu and Kashmir's population. At years end, he was still being held at Camp Jail, Lahore, and had not been charged. T he most intriguing aspect of Kashmir is the dynamic between the Shia and Sunni communities in the Valley. According to religious minority activists, provincial governments also often failed to meet quotas for hiring religious minorities into the civil service. The group also painted slogans insulting the Ahmadiyya community. According to the 2017 Census, Muslims make up 96.2 percent of Pakistan's population, Hindus 1.6 percent, Christians 1.59 percent, Scheduled Castes 0.25 percent, Ahmadis 0.22 percent, and other minorities 0.07 percent. Pakistan's president gives Shias an exemption, but the sectarian confrontation becomes an important political issue in the country. NGOs, legal observers and religious minority representatives continued to raise concerns regarding the failure of lower courts to adhere to basic evidentiary standards in blasphemy cases, and the slow pace of adjudicating these cases, which led to some suspects remaining in detention for years as they waited their initial trial or appeals, and to some convicted persons spending years in prison before higher courts overturned their convictions and freed them for lack of evidence. In July, a teenager killed U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem in a Peshawar courtroom, where Naseem was on trial for blasphemy. Although there were no official obstacles to the advancement of minority religious group members in the military, they said that in practice, non-Muslims rarely rose above the rank of colonel and were not assigned to senior positions. 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. 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. Some court judgments have considered the marriage of a non-Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man dissolved if she converts to Islam, although the marriage of a non-Muslim man who converts remains recognized. Shia Muslims constitute 10 to 12 percent of the citizen population and an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the Eastern Province's population. 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. Pakistan Demographics 2020 (Population, Age, Sex, Trends - Worldometer Department of State programs, including outreach activities such as speakers and workshops, helped to promote peacebuilding among religious and community leaders. 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. shia surnames in pakistan Analysis of census data and demographic research. 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. Pakistan has the third largest Shia population after India and Iran. victims of Takfiri terrorism and govt apathy - Tehran Times Christian religious freedom activists continued to report widespread discrimination against Christians in private employment. 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. Other government officials, including Prime Minister Khan, advised Sarwar against signing the bill, according to a Lahore-based journalist. In addition to addressing a legal gap by providing documentation needed for identity registration, divorce, and inheritance, the Hindu Marriage Acts allow marriages to be voided when consent was obtained by force, coercion, or by fraud. The acts allow for the termination of the marriage upon the conversion of one party to a religion other than Hinduism. It threatens to plunge the country into anarchy.. Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan, has witnessed at least four big anti-Shia rallies since September 11, held by different Sunni groups. Some personal laws regulating marriage, divorce, and inheritance for minority communities date from prepartition British legislation. Jaffar made his remarks in Arabic, which were then aired on a popular Karachi news station, 24 News HD.