Under the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony is responsible for reviewing internet traffic and reporting blasphemous or offensive content to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority for possible removal or to the Federal Investigative Agency for possible criminal prosecution. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement. The 342-member National Assembly has 10 reserved seats for non-Muslims. 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 constitution requires the President and Prime Minister to be Muslims. Bakhtawar Jaffri, a Shia rights activist in Punjab, said she had recently filed a police report for anti-Shia hate speech but it had been ignored. 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. The non-Pakhtun population of Pakistan is predominantly Barelvi. The constitution prohibits discriminatory admission based on religious affiliation to any governmental educational institution. The PTA cited public complaints against an unauthentic version of the Quran uploaded by the Ahmadiyya community on the Google Play Store and information that portrayed Mirza Masroor Ahmad as a Muslim on Wikipedia, which the PTA characterized as misleading, wrong, deceptive, and deceitful. The PTA successfully removed the same Quran application from the Apple Store in July. 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. In September, several religious groups from the Deobandi and Barelvi schools of Sunni Islam organized a series of rallies in Karachi to denounce Shia defamation of revered Sunni religious figures. There are large numbers of Shia's lives in India,Pakistan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arab. At least 40 cases were registered against Shias in one month Reactions to the PTAs measure was mixed, with many social media users praising the decision to ban TikTok, but others concerned that the government could use this to target religious minorities. 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.. Editorial note: This project covers the period through 2019. . 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. 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. 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. The constitution mandates that the government take steps to enable Muslims, individually and collectively, to order their lives in accordance with the fundamental principles and basic concepts of Islam and to promote the observance of Islamic moral standards. According to the governments immigration website, the Ministry of Interior could grant visas to foreign missionaries invited by organizations registered in the country. By law, madrassahs are prohibited from teaching or encouraging sectarian or religious hatred or violence. Methodology for Sunni-Shia Estimates Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life / Mapping the Global Muslim Population It is more accurate than the previous one. 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. Minority religious leaders stated members of their communities continued to experience discrimination in admission to colleges and universities. 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. Shias living in Pakistani cities increasingly became victim of target killings and the worst ever anti-Shia pogrom took place in Gilgit Baltistan in early 1980s in which radical tribal elements. As a result, the maps are designed to give a general overview of where significant Shia population centers, zones of influence, and points of interest . 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. 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. In August and September, increased security was provided throughout the country for the Shia communitys Muharram processions. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. The complainant said the three men hurt the belief of Muslims by engaging in Islamic rituals as non-Muslims. 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. On April 14, police filed a blasphemy case against Shia singer Zamin Ali in Jamshoro, Sindh. 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. The government did not permit Ahmadis to teach Islamic studies in public schools. (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. However, violence is inevitable because the anger and anxiety on both sides seem to be mounting. In April, some members of the Hindu community in Karachis Lyari area were denied food packages provided by a local charity, according to local sources. Print and broadcast media outlets continued to publish and broadcast anti-Ahmadi rhetoric. I fear they will kill me, said Kareem, his voice shaking as he spoke from his place of hiding. 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. In February, a crowd occupied and vandalized a 100-year-old Ahmadi mosque in Punjab. 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. No arrests were made, and no one was charged. In 2020, the provincial government began to implement the act, and NADRA began registering Hindu marriages in Sindh, according to Hindu community activists. 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 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. In October, members of a State Youth Parliament team in Gujranwala defaced a public portrait of the countrys first Nobel laureate, physicist Dr. Abdus Salam, an Ahmadi. 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. In July, religious and right-wing parties criticized the governments plan to permit construction of a new Hindu temple in Islamabad. The two major powers in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, an Arab population ruled by a Sunni majority, and Iran, a Persian population ruled by a Shia majority. Several hundred protesters led by religious leaders took to the streets and chanted slogans against the alleged blasphemer. 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. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions. Hindu activists in Sindh reported discrimination against the Hindu community during COVID-19 food-relief efforts by private charities. 2,724,000. The Sunni majority is using blasphemy laws to target and murder those they call heretics. The constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and requires all provisions of the law to be consistent with Islam. The five wafaqs each represent major streams of Islamic thought in the country: Barelvi, Deobandi, Shia, Ahle Hadith, and the Jamaat-i-Islami, which is considered ultraconservative. 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. 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. Several historians argue that the Indian Shia elite played a. 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. Download Historical Data Save as Image From: To: Zoom: Current Historical U.N. Islam is the state religion in Qatar. On December 15, the Lahore High Court acquitted a second Christian man, Imran Ghafur Masih, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2010. During the year, courts overturned some blasphemy convictions upon appeal and acquitted others after the accused had spent years in prison. Ahmadiyya community representatives reported the word Ahmadi was written on their passports if they identified themselves as such. Embassy officers continued to engage civil society leaders, local religious leaders, religious minority representatives, and legal experts in discussing ways to combat intolerance and promote interfaith cooperation to increase religious freedom. 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. Ahmadi community leaders said they saw the requirement to designate Mohammed as last of the prophets as directly targeting them. 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. The court ordered police to hand over the woman to her Hindu husband and no police or court action was taken against Domki. 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). Sunnis represent approximately 75 percent of this population and Shias 20 . Persecution seems to be waiting for the Shia minority, said Hamza Baloch, a founding member of Secular Shia Voices, an advocacy group. Vali Nasr claims the Shia . . Christian advocates also called on the government to allow them to travel to Israel. The high circulation daily Jang also published a lengthy editorial on the struggle to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims in a special magazine edition. Shias in Pakistan are geographically spread across the. In May, the Federal Investigative Agency raided the Lahore home of Ahmadi missionary and youth worker Rohan Ahmad, arresting him on charges of cybercrime, blasphemy against the Quran, and propagating the Ahmadi faith through a WhatsApp group in September 2019. According to 2017 census total house hold in Pakistan are 32205111. By one estimate, in Pakistan, the Shias are. This issue was discussed at a Webinar on Gilgit-Baltistan or G-B on November 10. Many have observed that outrage against Shia. The gurdwara had been used as a government-run girls school since 1947. 3. The constitution states the government shall make Islamic studies compulsory for all Muslim students in state-run schools. 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. 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. Kuwait (City) The majority of Kuwaiti citizens are Muslim, with an estimated 60-70% Sunni and 30-40% Shia. NGOs expressed concern about what they stated was the increasing frequency of attempts to kidnap, forcibly convert, and forcibly marry young women from religious minority communities, especially young Hindu and Christian women. The Punjab Sikh Anand Karaj Marriage Act allows local government officials in that province to register marriages between a Sikh man and Sikh woman solemnized by a Sikh Anand Karaj marriage registrar. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah Imran Ismail issued a statement condemning the attacks. According to NGOs and media reports, individuals convicted and sentenced to death in well-publicized blasphemy cases dating as far back as 2014 including Nadeem James; Taimoor Raza; Junaid Hafeez; Mubasher, Ghulam, and Ehsan Ahmed; Shafqat Emmanuel; and Shagufta Kausar remained in prison and continued to await action on their appeals. 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. U.S. government cultural centers in Khairpur, Hyderabad, and Karachi held events to promote religious freedom. The law requires clearance from the Muttahida Ulema Board, a Punjab-based advisory council of religious scholars from multiple Muslim schools of thought, to publish content on Islam in school textbooks, which Assembly Speaker Elahi said was necessary to stop the publishing of blasphemous material against Mohammed and his companions. Pakistan's population is expected to surpass that of Indonesia in 2048 when it will reach 331.29 million. 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. 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. 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. 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. . Similar to the previous year, some Sikh and Hindu places of worship reopened during the year. Information Minister Shibli Farazs announcement that the Cabinet had decided against including an Ahmadi Muslim representative on the new commission contributed to a wave of hate speech against Ahmadis, according to community representatives. Courts issued two new death sentences for blasphemy and sentenced another individual to five years imprisonment. In January, two Christians, Kamran Sandhu and Nauman Aslam, applied for seats reserved for minorities in the Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO) in Punjab. The name also comes from one of the names of Allah, Al-Wahab, which means the all-giver.. On January 30, police arrested two Shia men in Tando Mohammed Khan, southern Sindh, and charged them with blasphemy. 4,465,000. Local authorities did not allow the repair or unsealing of Ahmadi mosques damaged or demolished by rioters in previous years. In court proceedings, the girl retracted her video statement and said she wanted to return to her parents. 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. 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.
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Helena, Alabama Zoning Map, Articles S