Azaranica is a non-biased news aggregator on Hazaras. The main aim is to promote understanding and respect for cultural identities by highlighting the realities they face on daily basis...Hazaras have been the victim of active persecution and discrimination and one of the reasons among many has been the lack of information, awareness, and disinformation.

Monday, December 31, 2012

’پاکستان میں بڑھتی ہوئی دہشتگردی نفرت انگیز‘


آخری وقت اشاعت: پير 31 دسمبر 2012 



’یہ اندوہناک دہشت گردی کے واقعات کسی کسی مقصد یا محرومی کی توجیہہ نہیں بن سکتے‘

اقوام متحدہ کے سیکرٹری جنرل بان کی مون نے پاکستان میں دہشت گردی کے بڑھتے ہوئے واقعات ’نفرت انگیز‘ قرار دیا ہے۔

اقوام متحدہ کے سربراہ نے بیان میں اتوار کے روز پشاور کے نزدیک ایک چیک پوائنٹ سے اغوا کیے گئے اکیس نیم فوجی اہلکاروں اور صوبہ بلوچستان کے علاقے میں مستونگ میں انیس شیعہ زائرین کی ہلاکت کی مذمت کی۔

بان کی مون کے ترجمان مارٹن نیسرکی کا کہنا ہے کہ سیکرٹری جنرل نے خاص طور پر پاکستان میں کلِکاقلیتوں کے خلاف دہشت گردی کی کارروائیوں کی مذمت کی ہے۔

ترجمان کے مطابق انہوں نے پشاور کے نزدیک سے اغوا کیے گئےکلِکاکیس نیم فوجی اہلکاروں کی شدت پسندوں کے ہاتھوں ہلاکت کی بھی سخت الفاظ میں مذمت کی ہے۔

بیان میں کہا گیا ہے ’یہ اندوہناک دہشت گردی کے واقعات کسی کسی مقصد یا محرومی کی توجیح نہیں بن سکتے۔ ایسی کارروائیوں میں ملوث افراد کو انصاف کے کٹہرے میں لایا جائے۔‘

اقوام متحدہ کے سیکرٹری جنرل نے حکومتِ پاکستان اور عوام کو یقین دلایا کہ عالمی تنظیم ان کے ساتھ ہے اور ’اداروں اور آزادی کو دہشت گردی کے نرغے سے بچانے کی تمام کاوشوں کی حمایت کرتی ہے‘۔

واضح رہے کہ جمعرات کو پشاور کے نزدیک ماشو خیل میں ایک چیک پوائنٹ سے اغوا کیے جانے والے اکیس نیم فوجی اہلکاروں کو شدت پسندوں نے اتوار کے روز گولیاں مار کر ہلاک کر دیا تھا۔

پاکستانی حکام کے مطابق پشاور سے تقریباً چالیس کلومیٹر دور جنوب کی جانب نیم قبائلی علاقے حسن خیل سے اکیس لیویز اہلکاروں کی لاشیں ملی تھیں۔

تحریک طالبان پاکستان درہ آدم خیل کے ترجمان محمد نےایک نامعلوم مقام سے فون کر کے ان اہلکاروں کی ہلاکت کی ذمہ داری قبول کی اور بتایا کہ یہ مولانا گل نصیب، عبدالحمید، فیصل اور پیر صاحب کی مبینہ طور پر زیر حراست ہلاکت کا بدلہ تھا۔

اتوار ہی کے روز صوبہ بلوچستان کے علاقے مستونگ میں شیعہ زائرین کی بسوں پر کار بم حملے کے نتیجے میں انیس افراد ہلاک اور پچیس زخمی ہوگئے تھے۔

صوبہ بلوچستان میں شیعہ مسلک سے تعلق رکھنے والے افراد کی ٹارگٹ کلنگ میں کافی اضافہ ہوا ہے۔

بی بی سی ; حمله انتحاری به یک اتوبوس زائران در پاکستان


Sunday, December 30, 2012




A story of the ‘others’: Hazara Shias lose all hope in Pakistan

By Farahnaz Zahidi
Published: December 31, 2012


Muslim groups demonstrate against the Taliban killings of Shias in Pakistan December 7, 2012 during the "10,000 Souls March" in New York. PHOTO: AFP
KARACHI:

Shabana Khan* speaks from behind a screen put up to protect her identity at a recent women’s assembly. I cannot see her. I do not know what her age is. I have no way of observing her non-verbal communication. But what I do know is that this is a person in pain. Intense pain has resulted in eloquence as well as a defiant, almost rebellious fearlessness. She is a young woman from the Shia Hazara community and lives in Quetta. This is an excerpt of the story she tells of herself and her community:

Death is waiting around the corner. Before that, I must share what it means to be a Shia Hazara. Today, I am going to share a bit of my story – the story of me and my people. When one of us comes in front of you, you mostly label us Chinese or Korean. Our complexions are not like yours, neither is our race or genetic composition. We are the ‘others’. And our pain is that of the others. We are Pakistanis but not considered a part of you. Very few will raise their voice for us, even when 27 of us are taken off a bus and are shot and killed just because we are Shias. Just because we have Mongol-like features. Just because we migrated here from Afghanistan.

What is our crime, I still don’t understand. We pay taxes. We make useful things out of spare parts. We want to be peaceful contributors towards the progress of our country, Pakistan. We dream of a beautiful Pakistan where all sects and ethnicities work together towards a common goal.

But what is the reality? How many of you can relate to 5 dead bodies being taken out of a house – father, brothers, sons. What do the women of that house go through? What is the future of these women? Of the Shia Hazara women? When they step outside the four walls of their homes once the men have been slaughtered, to earn a living because they have no other choice, vultures start circling. These are men who have been directly or indirectly responsible for lifting the roof off their heads. Responsible for killing the men in their lives. They offer help to these women in exchange for not cash but kind. I am one of those women.

As a girl from the Shia Hazara community, I know my life is forever at risk which is why I am hidden behind a screen for my safety as I speak to you. But trust me when I say that if tomorrow I am killed, my death will not make newspaper news unless a mass massacre happens. Most killings of my community don’t make it to national news.

Why do you take each other’s pictures? Mementos? We, the Hazaras, now photograph each other knowing that probably these photographs, especially of our men, will be placed on their dead bodies during their funeral. The area of the Ganj-e-Shuhada graveyard for the Hazara community is being extended. More dead than alive. And the rest a community of the living dead…constantly living in a state of fear.... Continue Reading....

BBC; Blast in southwest Pakistan kills Shia pilgrims

Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shiites

BY JIBRAN AHMAD, DECEMBER 30 2012


Emergency personnel remove burnt human remains from the scene on a stretcher, after a car bomb targeting buses carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims, exploded in Quetta on Sunday. Picture: REUTERS

PESHWAR — Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.

The US has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.

Twenty Shiite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was "indifferent" to the killings.

Pakistan, seen as critical to US efforts to stabilise the region before Nato forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.

Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.

At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.

Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60km west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.

"The bus next to us caught on fire immediately," said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. "We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat." Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.

Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.

In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.

"They were tied up and blindfolded," Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.

"They were lined up and shot in the head," said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.

One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.

Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.

"We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting," he said.

The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.

This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on Dec 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on Dec 22.

Reuters