Pakistan: Ten members of a minority murdered

Following the murder of ten Shiite Hazara in Pakistan, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands better protection of the minority. Meanwhile, the terrorist group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the miners, which took place in the province of Balochistan yesterday. Initially, the authorities had assumed that there were eleven victims, but the figures were corrected today. Islamist terrorists are carrying out attacks on the Shiite minority in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan in order to stir up tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. "The Shiite Hazara must be better protected from attacks by Sunni extremists," stated Ulrich Delius, the STP's Director, in Göttingen on Monday.

On Sunday, IS fighters had kidnapped the miners at a coal mine near the city of Machh – and then executed them one by one. On Monday, around 2,500 people protested with a road blockade in Machh against the increasing number of attacks on the Shiite minority. Many demonstrators were from the provincial capital of Quetta, home to more than 500,000 members of the minority. There are about 950,000 Hazara living in Pakistan. Most members of this minority originate from Afghanistan, from where they fled due to the increasing attacks by Sunni extremists. "The Hazara can't live in peace – neither in Pakistan, nor in Afghanistan – for fear of attacks by Sunni extremists. It is cynical and inhumane to instrumentalize a minority in order to stir up religious tensions," Delius criticized.