Pakistan must protect the religious minority group better

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is appealing to Pakistan to protect the religious and ethnic minority of Shia Hazara from terrorist attacks at the hands of Sunni extremists better. “2013 threatens to be an even bloodier year for the Hazara minority than 2012, in which about 400 members of the minority group became the victims of political unrest,” according to the latest report from Ulrich Delius, the STP’s expert on Asia, on Monday in Göttingen. Ever since January 2013, 261 Shia Hazara have been killed by extremists, and 457 members of the minority group have been injured, some of them seriously. 30 Hazara Muslims were killed and 60 people injured when another bomb exploded in the city of Quetta on Sunday. The number of casualties would have been even higher if the suicide bomber had succeeded in gaining entry to the Shia mosque, which was full of worshippers at the time.

“For the sake of the Hazara, it is imperative that the security forces in Quetta are reinforced without delay”, Delius insists. The city has already been the scene of four bloody suicide attacks since January 2013. With a Hazara community of 600,000, Quetta is regarded as the settlement centre for the ethnic and religious minority of immigrants from Afghanistan. It is true that, following the devastating car bomb attacks that killed 92 Shia in Quetta on 12 January 2013 and the ongoing protests staged by the Hazara, the government of Pakistan removed the provincial leaders concerned from office, but this was not followed up by any tangible security initiatives. 79 people died in an attack on a market in Quetta on 16 February 2013. Five Shia Muslims were killed and 45 people injured on 23 April when a car bomb and three other devices exploded in highly frequented areas of the city.

Since January 2013, eleven terror attacks have been carried out on Shia Hazara. Apart from the latest suicide attacks in Quetta on 30 June and the motorway bombs that exploded on 12 January, 16 February and 23 April, a suicide attack on a mosque in the city of Hangu on 1 February was among the worst assaults committed against the minority group, killing 22 Shia Muslims.

“Christians, Hindi and Ahmadiyyah Muslims alike suffer not only from the massive attacks carried out by Pakistan’s Sunni extremists but also from the discrimination practised by the authorities,” says Delius. “We are therefore appealing to Pakistan’s new government under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to take the protection of the religious minority seriously at last.”