According to eyewitnesses, police officials in at least four police vans cordoned off the area and arrested Soomro, who initially resisted. The militants were also convicted for running an al-Qaida media cell in Gujranwala. Sitting by his grave, she tells the story of the day she lost her brother in the attack, a sequence of bomb blasts which killed at least 45 . 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 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. 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 event received positive coverage in local media. The Special Adviser went on to meet with federal and provincial government officials and civil society leaders in Islamabad and Lahore. Police arrested more than 45 JUI-F followers and clerics involved in the destruction. 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. He fears if he is seen on the streets of Karachi, the Pakistan city he calls home, he will be a dead man walking. 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 . 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. Sunnis are not only dominant but also the majority sect in Pakistan. Many social media users celebrated Naseems killing. Qataris are all Muslims and followers of the Sunni Salafi version of Islam. Also in September, according to law enforcement reports, Peshawar police rescued an Ahmadi family after a large mob gathered outside their home, accusing the family of preaching Ahmadi beliefs. On February 7, the district administration returned a century-old Hindu temple to the Hindu community in Zhob, Balochistan. 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. 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 . On October 9, the PTA blocked the video-sharing social media application TikTok, based on what it called immoral and indecent content. 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. 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 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. 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 . 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. 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. Phillip Smyth. Population of Pakistan (2020) View live population, charts & trends: Population of Pakistan Pakistan Population 220,892,340 see live Yearly Change + 2.00 % Global Share 2.81 % Global Rank 5 Fertility in Pakistan Courts issued two new death sentences for blasphemy and sentenced another individual to five years imprisonment. At least one individual was accused of spreading blasphemous content through social media under PECA. It was the largest anti-Shia march seen in decades in Pakistan, and was copied in other cities including the capital Islamabad. The stronghold of Barelvism remains Punjab, the largest province of Pakistan. She was taken to Dera Ghazi Khan, in Punjab, to avoid Sindh provincial law, which bans marriage of girls younger than 18. . Pakistan 10 - 15 10 - 15 Palau -- --Palestinian territories <1 <1 Panama <1 <1 Papua New Guinea <1 <1 Paraguay -- --Peru <1 <1 . 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. The teacher survived the attack and told media the man had been following and harassing her for days. Courts also penalized antiblasphemy groups. / shia surnames in pakistan. 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. Pakistan's current population is estimated at approximately 185 million, of whom approximately 95 percent are Muslim. 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. The events were often covered by English and local-language media and featured anti-Ahmadiyya rhetoric which Ahmadiyya community representatives said could incite violence against Ahmadis. Although students of other religious groups are not legally required to study Islam, schools do not always offer parallel studies in their own religious beliefs. 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). Non-Muslims are required to have the head of their local religious communities verify their religious affiliation. On July 9, the Sindh High Court ordered that the girl could return to her Hindu parents. 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. 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. The plan followed a 2014 Supreme Court decision that ordered the government to take steps to ensure the rights of minorities and promote a culture of religious and social tolerance, but religious freedom activists and civil society groups said the proposal was toothless and raised concerns regarding the Religious Affairs Ministrys lack of public consultation, the limited powers of the proposed body, and the ultimate decision to exclude Ahmadis. Unofficial estimates vary widely with regard to the size of minority religious groups. 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 . On October 5, also in Peshawar, Ahmadi professor Naeemuddin Khattak was shot and killed while driving home from work. The constitution prohibits discriminatory admission based on religious affiliation to any governmental educational institution. 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 constant tension between Shia and Sunni has led to the creation of Shia-Specific organizations. In all these cases, judges repeatedly delayed hearings, adjourned hearings without hearing arguments, or sent appeals to other judicial benches. 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. On July 19, members of the Hindu community staged a sit-in in Khuzdar, Balochistan, to protest the July 18 killing of local Hindu trader Nanak Ram by unidentified assailants in the Wadh area of Khuzdar District. 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. According to Shia community estimates, There are approximate . According to local sources, the high-profile case led to communal tensions in Jacobabad, the couples home district, and clerics from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal party publicly accused the girl of apostasy and called for her death. The population of Pakistan in 2020 was 227,196,741, a 1.75% increase from 2019. Members of this religious group have suffered persecution specifically from Mughal Emperors. 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. Hindu Dalits remained vulnerable to human rights violations and pressure by perpetrators to withdraw police cases. Members of religious minority communities stated public schools gave Muslim students bonus grade points for memorizing the Quran, but there were no analogous opportunities for extra academic credit available for religious minority students. On June 10, police arrested Sajid Soomro, a professor at Shah Abdul Latif University, in Khairpur, Sindh, on blasphemy charges. During the year, courts overturned some blasphemy convictions upon appeal and acquitted others after the accused had spent years in prison. Pakistan: Shia Muslims . 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 family was in another location, however, and survived. 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. Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Despite these problems some international organizations have researched and reported some statistics. 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. Shia Muslims 1.1 Demographics According to sources, the Shia population of Pakistan is estimated to be between 10 and 15 percent (Australia 20 Feb. 2019, para. The constitution establishes a Council of Islamic Ideology to make recommendations, at the request of the parliament and provincial assemblies, as to the ways and means of enabling and encouraging Muslims to order their lives in accordance with the principles of Islam. The constitution further empowers the council to advise the legislative and executive branches when they choose to refer a question to the council as to whether a proposed law is or is not repugnant to the injunctions of Islam.. 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. Non-Muslims may not appear before the FSC. On July 22, the Punjab Provincial Assembly passed the Protection of Foundation of Islam Bill, which prohibits the printing and publication of objectionable material in the province. 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. 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. [6] As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. 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. CLAAS helped both file an antidiscrimination petition in the Lahore High Court. 11.0%. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom, Section IV. Most minority religious groups said they continued to face discrimination in government hiring. The government did not permit Ahmadis to teach Islamic studies in public schools. 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. Other blasphemy cases continued without resolution. Vali Nasr claims the Shia . Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom, Actions of Foreign Forces and Nonstate Actors, Section III. On October 22, a private business school, the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, cancelled an online seminar that was to feature U.S.-based Ahmadi economist Dr Atif Mian, citing pressure by extremists.. Shia leaders, meanwhile, denounced the specific honors prescribed by the bill to Mohammeds companions, which they said risked stoking discord between Shia and Sunnis, given their fundamental disagreements over some of the companions status within Islam. 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. 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).