Fiyaz Mughal
SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, over 700 Shia were killed in 2013 alone. More than 1,000 were injured in over 200 sectarian terrorist attacks in Pakistan. The scale of the targeting of this minority community is just breath-taking with attacks taking place in Quetta, Karachi, Parachinar, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Which begs the question as to who is resourcing these attacks which are meant to create fear within Shia communities and to displace them away from their villages, towns and cities. In effect, a murderous displacement strategy is being played out in Pakistan with little or no hue and cry from Western nations.
The latest massacre against the Shia in Pakistan took place on 13 February. The Pakistani Taleban targeted a Shia mosque in Peshawar leading to the death of 20 people. The attackers used guns and grenades and a gunfight broke out outside the mosque. One of the attackers set off his explosive vest when cornered demonstrating that the killers were on a suicide mission.
The global silence on the targeting of the Shia in Pakistan is sickening. No hashtags have been circulated, no graphics calling for peace, nor have any faith leaders come together and carried out an interfaith walk which seems to be the ‘thing to do’ when a major atrocity occurs. Young people have not railed against the injustice and all that has happened is that more innocent worshippers have been murdered on the spot where they sat contemplating God. Furthermore, not a single mosque or church has spoken out about the targeting of the Shia and only a handful of courageous civil society groups in Pakistan and Sufi groups have done so. The impression that this will give to the Shia communities in Pakistan and globally is that their lives do not matter, that they are just forgotten as numbers on the pages of newspapers.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
