Sunnis are not only dominant but also the majority sect in Pakistan. On November 9, also in Peshawar, unknown gunmen killed an 82-year-old retired government worker who was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community while he was waiting for a bus. According to the bill, all publishers would be required to submit to the Directorate General Public Relations, the provincial government authority with jurisdiction over printing presses and publishing houses, four copies of every edition of each title they print. As well as the 50 who have been charged in the blasphemy crackdown, five have been killed since September and many more Shia families and well-known figures have gone into hiding. 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. 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. 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. Download Historical Data Save as Image From: To: Zoom: Current Historical U.N. The court ordered the chief executive officer of GEPCO to hire the two Christians, but he did not do so. Ahead of Christmas in Lahore, police deployed some 6,000 officers and officials at 623 churches. The accused were mostly Shia (70 percent of cases) and Ahmadi Muslims (20 percent of cases). The U.S. government estimates the total population at 234.4 million (midyear 2020 estimate). 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. On November 21, Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari posted a tweet calling for the government to protect all its citizens. Edit: August and September of 2020 has seen a renewed attack on Shia Muslims within Pakistan. Projections 0 100,000,000 200,000,000 300,000,000 400,000,000 Population 235,824,862 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. The population of Pakistan in 2020 was 227,196,741, a 1.75% increase from 2019. In modern times, the split has fostered battles for power and resources. 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. [see also: Population country ranks ] Nationality: In May, the Cabinet approved a Religious Affairs Ministry proposal establishing a National Commission for Minorities housed within the ministry. Bibi remained in custody at years end. Any country in which Muslims make up 50% or more of the population is considered a Muslim majority country. As of years end, the case was awaiting prosecution. 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. 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 its 2020 World Watch List report, the international NGO Open Doors listed Pakistan, noting that Christians face extreme persecution in every area of their lives, with converts from Islam facing the highest levels. According to Open Doors, all Christians in the country are considered second-class citizens, inferior to Muslims. The NGO stated Christians are often given jobs perceived as low, dirty and dishonorable, and can even be victims of bonded labor. The NGO also said that Christian girls in the country were increasingly at risk of abduction and rape, often forced to marry their attackers and coerced into converting to Islam.. Though Kareem had meant it as a post of religious devotion, it caught the attention of an extremist Sunni Muslim group, who called him a traitor to Muslims. Students who identify themselves as Muslims must declare in writing they believe Mohammed is the final prophet. In July, the Department of State issued a statement following the killing of Tahir Naseem 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. In Sindh, police provided enhanced security at churches and Hindu temples, especially in Karachi, on eves of festivals such as Christmas and Diwali. On October 9, a Hindu teacher was attacked by a Muslim man with an axe on her way to her school in Mithi, Sindh. 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. Major cities - population 16.459 million Karachi, 13.095 million Lahore, 3.542 million Faisalabad, 2.281 million Rawalpindi, 2.290 million Gujranwala, 1.164 million ISLAMABAD (capital) (2021) 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. On October 9, the PTA blocked the video-sharing social media application TikTok, based on what it called immoral and indecent content. Human rights groups reported an increase in blasphemy cases and allegations against members of the Shia Muslim community. (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. The traffickers told pastors and parents they would arrange marriages to Chinese men who had supposedly converted to Christianity, after which the women were taken to China, abused, and in some cases, sexually trafficked. 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. Ahmadiyya community leaders said he was targeted due to his religious beliefs. The situation worsened further last week when an influential Sunni religious scholar, Maulana Dr Adil Khan, was killed in an attack. Unfortunately, due to the history that Pakistan has had, especially with regards to security, this remains a huge problem, said Chaudhry. Shia and Ahmadi Muslims were the most often accused, accounting respectively for 70 and 20 percent of all cases. Shias in Pakistan are geographically spread across the. According to data provided by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), authorities accused at least 199 individuals of new blasphemy offenses during the year. 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. is smallest province by Population. (July 2020 est.) Sunnis represent approximately 75 percent of this population and Shias 20 . 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. The year 2020 saw a rise in blasphemy charges - at least 199 people were charged, of which 70% were Shia Muslims. Unofficial estimates vary widely with regard to the size of minority religious groups. The 16-year-old suspect was being tried as a juvenile; the two coconspirators were a prayer leader and a young lawyer involved in the blasphemy complaint against Naseem. The court ordered police to hand over the woman to her Hindu husband and no police or court action was taken against Domki. The 104-member Senate has four reserved seats for non-Muslims, one from each province. Subsequently, Arfana Mallah, a professor at Sindh University Jamshoro who criticized Soomros arrest and the blasphemy laws, was herself accused of committing blasphemy and had to apologize publicly. In Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provinces, private schools are also required to teach Islamic studies and the Quran to Muslim students. 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. Throughout the year, some government officials and politicians engaged in anti-Ahmadi rhetoric and attended events that Ahmadi Muslims said incited violence against members of their community. Leh's demand for UT status started in 1947 as the old statements of the former parliamentarian and religious leader, Kushok Bakula Rinpoche, indicate. 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. On June 25, an antiterrorism court sentenced five al-Qaida militants to 16 years imprisonment each for terrorist financing and possession of explosives. 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. Three U.S. government cultural centers in Sindh Province and Islamabad held events to promote religious freedom. 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. Minority lawmakers and civil society activists reacted strongly to the attack, stating the boys had been instigated by local Muslim clerics. After Iran and India, Pakistan has the world's third-largest Shia community, accounting for ten percent of the total population. The NCHR is also mandated to monitor the governments implementation of human rights and review and propose legislation. In July 2020, Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam (protection of foundation of Islam bill) was passed by the Punjab assembly, which supported only the Sunni interpretation of Islam, provoking a huge . On July 22, Saeed Amanat, a Muslim man, abducted a 15-year-old Christian girl on her way to church in Faisalabad, Punjab. 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. The country is home to the second largest Shia population after Iran. When he and his sons returned to the house, they shot and wounded two of the Christian family members. On September 30, media reported that a 17-year-old girl from a Hindu Dalit community committed suicide after having been gang-raped a year earlier by Muslim men and subsequently blackmailed by them in Tharparkar, Sindh. 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. In Pakistan, Shia Muslims make up around 20% of the population, and while the country is tragically home to some of the worst sectarian violence in the world, in 2017 alone 95% of sectarian killings and violence worldwide was focused solely on Shia Muslims. In August and September, increased security was provided throughout the country for the Shia communitys Muharram processions. . Police intervened on multiple occasions to quell mob violence directed at individuals accused of blasphemy. According to the SATP and media reports, antiterrorism courts convicted and sentenced several individuals affiliated with terrorist organizations and involved in past sectarian attacks and targeted killings. For 40-year-old Tehseen, Kashif was her whole world. This declaration is also required for private educational institutions, including universities. 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 government of Punjab, the countrys largest province, passed a series of measures against Ahmadi Muslim beliefs. Identification cards are used for voting, pension disbursement, social and financial inclusion programs, and other services. 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. 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. The incident was the first attack on a Hindu temple in Tharparkar in more than 30 years. 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. Shia Muslims 1.1 Demographics. According to technology companies and religious minority activists, the definition of objectionable content in the draft law was vague and subject to government interpretation. Hardcore Sunni groups publicly accused Shia Muslims of orchestrating the attack. During his February visit to Karachi, the Department of State Special Adviser for Religious Minorities told students and faculty at Karachi Universitys Department of Islamic Studies, An inclusive society creates more space for trade and prosperity. The audience applauded his comments about the protection of religious freedom for Muslims in the United States. 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. Several historians argue that the Indian Shia elite played a. Methodology for Sunni-Shia Estimates Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life / Mapping the Global Muslim Population 163,601,094. 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. 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. Analysis of census data and demographic research. Ahmadi community leaders said they saw the requirement to designate Mohammed as last of the prophets as directly targeting them. 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. While the Ministry of Law and Justice was officially responsible for ensuring the legal rights of all citizens, in practice, the Ministry for Human Rights continued to assume primary responsibility for the protection of the rights of religious minorities. 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. 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. The charges carry up to three years imprisonment and a fine. Sunni groups held three large rallies in Karachi in September, with speakers warning Shia Muslims of dire consequences, including beheadings, if they continued to blaspheme against the Prophet Mohammeds companions. I fear they will kill me, said Kareem, his voice shaking as he spoke from his place of hiding. In April 2021, Human Rights Watch spoke to one Pakistani Shia man who spent nearly a month in UAE detention and was released and deported in late December 2020. 0.5% Shia, and 0.3% Ahmadi. The population density in Pakistan is 287 per Km 2 (742 people per mi 2 ). Following the killing of U.S. citizen Tahir Naseem in July, JUI-F leader Mufti Kifayatullah celebrated the accused killer for his act of justice. Some political figures, including the ruling PTI Partys Sindh provincial president Haleem Adil Sheikh, who is also a member of the Sindh Provincial Assembly, changed their social media profile pictures to that of Naseems killer. They represent about 21 per cent of the total Muslim population, the highest number in a country after Iran. Some community representatives said Christians continued to face difficulties in registering marriages with Islamabad union councils because the councils claimed they had no authority to deal with unions recorded by Christian marriage registrars (usually church authorities). In late December, the PTA publicly used this new authority for the first time to demand the removal of sacrilegious content. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, Section II. In a statement, the Pakistan Hindu Council condemned the killing as well as two other July incidents of violence towards Hindu citizens in the district. 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. Persecution seems to be waiting for the Shia minority, said Hamza Baloch, a founding member of Secular Shia Voices, an advocacy group. The wafaqs operate through an umbrella group, Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris Pakistan, to represent their interests to the government. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions. Political parties elected by the general electorate choose the minority individuals who hold these seats; they are not elected directly by the minority constituencies they represent. Pakistan's population is expected to surpass that of Indonesia in 2048 when it will reach 331.29 million. According to civil society and media, armed sectarian groups connected to organizations banned by the government, including the LeJ, TTP, and the once-banned anti-Shia group SSP, continued to be responsible for violence and other abuses against religious minorities. 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. During the year, courts overturned some blasphemy convictions upon appeal and acquitted others after the accused had spent years in prison. Zaidi. 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. The complainant said the three men hurt the belief of Muslims by engaging in Islamic rituals as non-Muslims. According to the constitution and the penal code, Ahmadis may not call themselves Muslims or assert they are adherents of Islam. There were reported cases of government intervention and assistance from courts and law enforcement in situations of attempted kidnapping and forced conversion, although enforcement action against alleged perpetrators was rare. The temple had also been part of a government-run school. Throughout the year, Islamic organizations with varying degrees of political affiliation held conferences and rallies to support the doctrine of Khatm-e-Nabuwat. Civil society activists and media reported young Christian and Hindu women being abducted and raped by Muslim men. 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. Police and security forces throughout the country enhanced security measures during religious holidays in consultation with religious leaders. All senior officials, including members of parliament, must swear an oath to protect the countrys Islamic identity. Indonesia is the country with the Largest Muslim population in the world. A constitutional amendment devolves responsibility for minorities affairs, including religious minorities, to the provinces. 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. 1 These two groups have been at odds for centuries. Minority rights activists said most government employment advertisements for janitorial staff continued to list being non-Muslim as a requirement. 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. Sunni Muslims made up 5 percent of all accused blasphemers, followed by Christians at 3.5 percent, and Hindus at 1 percent. 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. CLAAS helped both file an antidiscrimination petition in the Lahore High Court. I am being targeted because I am from a Shia religious minority. The Shia Muslim population in Pakistan is estimated to be between five and 20 per cent which is not considerable given that over 95 per cent of Pakistan's population are Muslims . In Islamabad, the deputy inspector general of police said as many as 15,000 police, Rangers, and Frontier Corps personnel were involved. Doha. 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 . U.S. Government Policy and Engagement. The government collects a mandatory, automatic 2.5 percent zakat (tax) from Sunni Muslims who hold savings accounts in banks. Other blasphemy cases continued without resolution. 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. 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. Targeted killings of Shia and Ahmadi Muslims and violence and discrimination against Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadi Muslims continued to occur. Three suspects were arrested for the rape but were released on bail, and the girls family said they harassed and pressured the girl to withdraw the case. The womans mother filed a police report against the abductor, who was subsequently arrested. An additional six Sikh gurdwaras and seven Hindu temples were also reopened after renovation in Punjab. 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. The government has never executed anyone specifically for blasphemy. 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.