shia population in pakistan 2020 shia population in pakistan 2020

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. The situation worsened further last week when an influential Sunni religious scholar, Maulana Dr Adil Khan, was killed in an attack. An additional six Sikh gurdwaras and seven Hindu temples were also reopened after renovation in Punjab. 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 outside Iran. 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. 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). The Sindh provincial cabinet adopted regulations to implement the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act in December 2019, which provided more specific rules for implementation. Shia Muslims mourning the death anniversary of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, in Karachi on 8 October. 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. Throughout the year, unidentified individuals assaulted and killed Shia and Ahmadis in attacks sources believed to be religiously motivated. Islamist political parties and Punjab Provincial Assembly speaker Chaudhry Elahi (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf PTI party) criticized the decision before written approval was issued, however, declaring new temples should never be built in an Islamic country. 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. 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. Civil society groups continued to state that the blasphemy laws disproportionately affected members of religious minority communities. 2. Total. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. Ahmadi representatives said the wording of the declaration students were required to sign on their applications for admission to universities continued to prevent Ahmadis from declaring themselves as Muslims. 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. Hindu community representatives welcomed the decision to return the temple to the community after 70 years. 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. According to the penal code, the punishments for persons convicted of blasphemy include the death penalty for defiling the Prophet Mohammed, life imprisonment for defiling, damaging, or desecrating the Quran, and up to 10 years imprisonment for insulting anothers religious feelings. Speech or action intended to incite religious hatred is punishable by up to seven years imprisonment. On January 21, the center in Khairpur hosted a Religious Freedom Day event at which 25 students discussed the importance of being able to practice religion freely in Pakistan. When he and his sons returned to the house, they shot and wounded two of the Christian family members. The youngest was three years old. The Shia population in Pakistan is estimated as being 11.8% of the country's population. According to the Center for Social Justice, a national nongovernmental organization (NGO), at least 199 individuals were accused of blasphemy offenses, a significant increase over 2019 and the highest number of blasphemy cases in a single year in the countrys history. Observers reported that English-language media continued to cover issues facing religious minorities in an objective manner, but Urdu-language media continued to show bias in reporting on minority religious groups, including multiple instances in which media censored references to Ahmadis on talk shows, used inflammatory language, or made inappropriate references to minorities. To prevent a slide back into violence, Islamabad should ensure those inciting or perpetrating violent acts are prosecuted while denying hardliners the civic space to propagate their hatred. 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. According to regulations, the only factors affecting admission to government schools are students grades and home provinces, although students must declare their religious affiliation on application forms. Sunnis are not only dominant but also the majority sect in Pakistan. 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. 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. Police arrested more than 45 JUI-F followers and clerics involved in the destruction. Version 3.0 . The country is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and maintains two reservations: first, that ICCPR Article 3 regarding equal rights of men and women would be applied as to be in conformity with Personal Law of the citizens and Qanoon-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 (Law of Evidence), under which the in-court testimony of men in certain civil matters pertaining to contracts and financial obligations is given greater weight than that of women; and second, that ICCPR Article 25, on the equal right for citizens to take part in public service, would be subject to articles of the constitution mandating that the President and Prime Minister be Muslims. The government has never executed anyone specifically for blasphemy. 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. 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. The law requires elected Muslim officials to swear an oath affirming their belief that Mohammed is the final prophet of Islam. Several statues were destroyed. In February, a crowd occupied and vandalized a 100-year-old Ahmadi mosque in Punjab. These attacks targeted gatherings of Shia individuals. Since 2019, the NCHR has been without a mandate for a second four-year term and lacked newly appointed commissioners, making it effectively nonfunctional throughout the year. Smaller minorities are collectively labelled as 'other'. The official state religion of Iran is Shia branch of Islam. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom, Section IV. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba,. According to 1961 Census -- the first in the state after Partition, Muslims constituted 68.3 per cent of Jammu and Kashmir's population. 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. Police stated they believed he was targeted because of his religious beliefs. We call upon authorities to ensure the safety of all Pakistanis.. The rallies occurred days after a unanimous resolution by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly condemning anti-Islam statements and the republication in France of the Charlie Hebdo cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed. Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan, has witnessed at least four big anti-Shia rallies since September 11, held by different Sunni groups. Median age total: 33.7 years male: 33.1 years The court acquitted a second Christian in December. The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) designates religious affiliation on passports and requires religious information in national identity card and passport applications. 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. Over the past month, Pakistan has seen an unprecedented rise in attacks and arrests of its Shia population, who make up between 15% and 20% of the Sunni-majority country, the largest Shia community outside Iran. On October 5, also in Peshawar, Ahmadi professor Naeemuddin Khattak was shot and killed while driving home from work. 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 Ministry of Interior maintained multitier schedules of religiously oriented groups it judged to be extremist or terrorist that were either banned or had their activities monitored and curtailed (Schedule 1) and individuals whose activities in the public sphere could also be curtailed, including during religious holidays such as Ashura (Schedule 4). Most minority religious groups said they continued to face discrimination in government hiring. 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. Authorities also consult the ministry on matters such as blasphemy and Islamic education. On December 30, a mob estimated at 1,000 people incited by a cleric attacked an historic Hindu temple site in Karak District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, destroying the shrine of Hindu saint Shri Paramhans Jee Maharaj and an adjacent building under construction. 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. According to some estimates, the Barelvi school of . July 2021 . Police took him into protective custody and transferred him to a senior police officers office as the mob blocked the Indus Highway and demanded police hand over the alleged blasphemer. On October 7, Dr. Qibla Ayaz, then chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, inaugurated a national code of conduct to promote interreligious harmony in the face of increased sectarian violence and mistreatment of religious minorities. The law bans the sale of Ahmadiyya religious literature. Ahmadi community leaders said they saw the requirement to designate Mohammed as last of the prophets as directly targeting them. Their families believe they were taken into custody by the intelligence. Victims said their attackers singled them out as vulnerable due to their religious minority identity. 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. U.S. government cultural centers in Khairpur, Hyderabad, and Karachi held events to promote religious freedom. Ahmadiyya Muslim community representatives continued to state that Ahmadi families were unable to register their marriages with local administrative bodies, known as union councils, since those councils considered Ahmadis to be outside the authority of the Muslim Family Law of 1961. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement. 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. Now theyre coming up with legislation to eliminate the Shia minority.. 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. According to Ahmadiyya leaders, the government effectively disenfranchised their community by requiring voters to swear an oath affirming the finality of the Prophethood of Mohammed, something that they stated was against Ahmadi belief, in order to register as Muslims. Reports indicated parents and pastors were frequently paid by the traffickers for the women, and that some pastors were complicit in the trafficking. / shia surnames in pakistan. rate of urbanization: 2.1% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.) Sanjay Mathrani, a former participant in a U.S. government exchange program, was a featured speaker. On December 2, the Secretary of State redesignated Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, as amended, for having engaged in or tolerated particularly 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. An Ahmadi trader in Peshawar was shot near his business on August 12. It has an estimated 23 million people who adhere to Islam. It is important to remember that Shia have a high birth rate since their religion allows adultery (Mut'a). In November, the government finalized its Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content Rules 2020, which sought to codify the PTAs authority to regulate content the government deemed unlawful. The rules not only enhanced the PTAs ability to compel online content platforms such as Facebook, Googles YouTube, Twitter, and Wikipedia to remove content but also extended the regulators purview to include local internet service providers that could also be held liable for such content. The Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training held consultations with minority faith representatives during the year in a review of textbooks for derogatory material. Identification cards are used for voting, pension disbursement, social and financial inclusion programs, and other services. On August 23, the Sindh provincial government barred 142 firebrand speakers and religious scholars from leaving their home districts for 60 days to avoid violent disturbances during Shia Muharram commemorations. 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. 1.. On February 7, the district administration returned a century-old Hindu temple to the Hindu community in Zhob, Balochistan. Approximately 80 percent of Shia are "Twelvers" (Shia who recognize 12 imams) and are primarily located in the Eastern Province. 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 January 26, for example, a local court sentenced four boys for vandalizing a Hindu temple in Sindhs Tharparkar District, the first attack on a Hindu temple in that area in more than 30 years; minority lawmakers and civil society activists reacted strongly to the attack. Police also deployed snipers and used closed-circuit television cameras and metal detectors to ensure the security of churches and Christmas markets. Unofficial estimates vary widely with regard to the size of minority religious groups. 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Pakistan, An official website of the United States Government. 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. Phillip Smyth. According to a 2019 report by Pakistan's National Commission for Human Rights, an independent watchdog, at least 509 Hazara have been murdered for their faith since 2013. According to the governments immigration website, the Ministry of Interior could grant visas to foreign missionaries invited by organizations registered in the country. The six, all from Karachi, were returning from a pilgrimage in Iran; they remained missing at years end. 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 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. Shares of Sikhs and Buddhists in overall population increased marginally. Other blasphemy cases continued without resolution. 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 constitution states this requirement shall not affect the personal laws of non-Muslim citizens or their status as citizens. 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. Similar to the previous year, some Sikh and Hindu places of worship reopened during the year. Global AIDS Coordinator and Global Health Diplomacy, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Special Representative for Syria Engagement, U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Office of the U.S. 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 Ahmadiyya community leaders, authorities continued to target and harass Ahmadi Muslims for blasphemy, violations of anti-Ahmadi laws, and other crimes. Targeted killings of Shia and Ahmadi Muslims and violence and discrimination against Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadi Muslims continued to occur. Zaidi. The constitution requires the government to amend the law as directed by the court. Government officials condemned the incident, suspended more than 100 police officials for failure to stop the mob, and ordered the temple rebuilt. Islam in Pakistan. 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. 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. Civil society activists and media reported young Christian and Hindu women being abducted and raped by Muslim men. Pakistan's president gives Shias an exemption, but the sectarian confrontation becomes an important political issue in the country. Download Historical Data Save as Image From: To: Zoom: Current Historical U.N. Sources vary on the precise breakdown of the Muslim population between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Leh's demand for UT status started in 1947 as the old statements of the former parliamentarian and religious leader, Kushok Bakula Rinpoche, indicate. Instances of torture and mistreatment by some police personnel were part of broader human rights concerns about police abuses against citizens of all faiths reported by local and international human rights organizations; some police agencies took steps to curb abuses by incorporating human rights curricula in training programs. According to religious minority activists, provincial governments also often failed to meet quotas for hiring religious minorities into the civil service. 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.