The government did not permit Ahmadis to teach Islamic studies in public schools. Processing and dissemination of data in the form of Census Reports. Ahmadi Muslim leaders said they had never been approached about participating in the commission and would never join a body that required them to identify as non-Muslims. Then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs government had granted the land to build the temple in 2016. 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. The government took some measures to protect religious minorities. The stronghold of Barelvism remains Punjab, the largest province of Pakistan. 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. . Sectarian persecution of Shia Muslims has been a long-running fracture in Pakistan, exacerbated by the proxy wars fought on Pakistan soil by Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shia-majority Iran, as well as the US war on terror. Several statues were destroyed. Despite her filing a complaint, police did not open a case initially. Median age total: 33.7 years male: 33.1 years 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. By law, madrassahs are prohibited from teaching or encouraging sectarian or religious hatred or violence. 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. 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. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom, Section IV. On October 5, also in Peshawar, Professor Naeemuddin Khattak, a member of the Ahmadiyya community, died after being shot while driving home from work. 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. Speakers at these rallies warned Shia of dire consequences, including beheadings, if they continued to blaspheme against the Prophet Mohammeds companions. 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. Their families believe they were taken into custody by the intelligence. 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. 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. The last census was conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in 2017. 1. Any country in which Muslims make up 50% or more of the population is considered a Muslim majority country. Minority religious leaders stated members of their communities continued to experience discrimination in admission to colleges and universities. Islamic and minority religious leaders endorsed the code. is smallest province by Population. 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 four men were charged with defacing antiquities. In October, the Lahore High Court acquitted a Christian of blasphemy, the first such ruling since 2018. 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. Although a sizeable. 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. Khattaks brother, who witnessed the killing, named two suspects in his criminal complaint, including a friend of Khattak a lecturer from the University of Agriculture in Peshawar with whom Khattak had had a heated religious argument on October 4. On July 27, an antiterrorism court sentenced a member of SSP to 13 years imprisonment for facilitating terrorist activities. On October 19, the PTA lifted the block after the government received reassurances from the company that it would more closely regulate content, but NGOs and activists expressed concern that the government could use this authority to target religious minorities. The Special Adviser went on to meet with federal and provincial government officials and civil society leaders in Islamabad and Lahore. Taking into account the Ahmadi boycott of the official census, however, community sources put the number of Ahmadi Muslims at approximately 500,000 to 600,000. 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. The group also painted slogans insulting the Ahmadiyya community. 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. 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. Civil society and legal sources said judges were generally hesitant to decide blasphemy cases due to fear of violent retribution. 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. Members of religious minority communities said there continued to be an inconsistent application of laws safeguarding minority rights and enforcement of protections of religious minorities at both the federal and provincial levels by the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Human Rights. The Kuwaiti population consists of 70% foreigners and 30% Kuwaiti. 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. The incident was the first attack on a Hindu temple in Tharparkar in more than 30 years. Updated: September 04, 2020 06:14 AM GMT. 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. Police and security forces throughout the country enhanced security measures during religious holidays in consultation with religious leaders. Minority rights activists said most government employment advertisements for janitorial staff continued to list being non-Muslim as a requirement. The young man and two coconspirators were indicted, taken into government custody, and were awaiting trial at years end. 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. 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. AsiaNews, the official press agency of the Roman Catholic Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, reported that two members of a Christian family were shot and wounded after buying a house in a neighborhood inhabited primarily by Muslims on June 4 in the Sawati Phatak Colony of Peshawar. On November 9, also in Peshawar, an 82-year-old retired Ahmadi government worker was killed by unknown gunmen while waiting for a bus. There is no option to state no religion. National identity cards are required for all citizens upon reaching the age of 18. We call upon authorities to ensure the safety of all Pakistanis.. In 2020, the provincial government began to implement the act, and NADRA began registering Hindu marriages in Sindh, according to Hindu community activists. At the end of the year, CLAAS was planning to take the case to the Federal Ombudsman. (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics) However, according to data from the 2017 Census that was made unofficially available to a lawmaker, the Hindu population may have decreased by 0.19% from 1998. There are large numbers of Shia's lives in India,Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arab. Civil society groups continued to state that the blasphemy laws disproportionately affected members of religious minority communities. In February, a court in Jacobabad, Sindh, ruled that the marriage with Raza was illegal under the 2013 Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act. The 342-member National Assembly has 10 reserved seats for non-Muslims. extremist, and militant groups have come together to harass the Shia population right in the eyesight of the country's security apparatus. According to Pew Research Center, adherents of Shiite Islam in Pakistan make up between 15-20% of the country's total population. On October 9, a Hindu teacher was attacked by a Muslim man with an axe on her way to her school in Mithi, Sindh. 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. According to data provided by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), authorities accused at least 199 individuals of new blasphemy offenses during the year. According to media reports and law enforcement sources, in the weeks leading up to and during the Islamic month of Muharram religiously significant for Shia Muslims authorities at the federal and provincial levels again restricted the movement and activities of dozens of clerics on the Ministry of Interiors Schedule 4 listing. The Shia population is spread all over Pakistan. On February 22, a Christian woman from Lahore fled to a shelter after a Muslim factory worker forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. The law requires elected Muslim officials to swear an oath affirming their belief that Mohammed is the final prophet of Islam. Bangladesh with a 153 million Muslim population is in 4th place followed by Nigeria (10 million) in the fifth spot. Pakistan ranks number 5 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population. 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. 3.72; Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019; US 18 Dec. 2019), or "some 17-26 million people" (Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019). 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 world's largest population of Shia Muslims outside Iran is found in neighbouring Pakistan where they account for an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the population. According to current population projections, Pakistan will reach its peak population in 2092 of 404.68 million people. 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. Thousands of anti-Shia protesters recently gathered in the city of Karachi, with many openly showing ties to Sunni extremist groups like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which has documented links to the killing of hundreds of Shia Muslims over the past few years. NGOs lobbying for amendments to permit divorce in a wider range of circumstances praised the Ministry of Human Rights efforts to consult with stakeholders and the ministrys overall efforts to accelerate progress on the bill. 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. 3.72; Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019; US 18 Dec. 2019), or "some 17-26 million people" ( Encyclopaedia Britannica 4 Oct. 2019). Methodology for Sunni-Shia Estimates Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life / Mapping the Global Muslim Population Groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and other governments, such as ISIS, also committed violent acts. The government has never executed anyone specifically for blasphemy. The Sunnis, on the other hand, nurse the fear that they have decisively lost power and things . 11.0%. Pakistan's current population is estimated at approximately 185 million, of whom approximately 95 percent are Muslim. An additional six Sikh gurdwaras and seven Hindu temples were also reopened after renovation in Punjab. 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 August and September, increased security was provided throughout the country for the Shia communitys Muharram processions. Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of the Islamic Faith, after Sunni Islam, having about 15% of Muslims worldwide. According to the NGOs Center for Legal Aid, Assistance, and Settlement (CLAAS) and the Pakistan Center for Law and Justice, there were also reports of religious minority women being physically attacked by men. Hindu Dalits remained vulnerable to human rights violations and pressure by perpetrators to withdraw police cases. 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. Azerbaijan - 65-75% . On October 28, the Council on Islamic Ideology gave its approval for construction, ruling that Islamic law allows Hindus a place of worship, but noting there is no tradition for the government to provide funds for places of worships owned by private parties. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, Section II. On August 30, police charged Shia cleric Taqqi Jaffar with blasphemy for criticizing Mohammeds companions during a Karachi Muharram procession. Multiple civil society groups and faith community leaders stated the government had increased efforts to provide enhanced security at religious minority places of worship, which had been frequent targets of attack in past years. Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology, Office of the U.S. rate of urbanization: 2.1% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.) 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.. In a September editorial, the largest Urdu daily, Nawa-i-Waqt, described the 1974 legislation declaring Ahmadis officially non-Muslim as a historic day in the countrys history. Hindu activists in Sindh reported discrimination against the Hindu community during COVID-19 food-relief efforts by private charities.
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