PressTV? Seriously, bldysabba, if you want to post anti-Pakistan stuff, then there is plenty of stuff on actual reputable website like BBC and CNN rather than Irans propaganda machine.
Between Shia’s constitute about 20-25% of the Pakistan population (the number varies since many people who are products of mixed marriages , might not express a preference).
According to latest figures, in the last 5 years, about 10,000 civilians have been killed in the insurgency. So, the ratio is about the same, accepting 1900 dead. And thats after factoring in targets which were specificly sectarian.
(I have not counted the Security Forces dead, but as Shia’s tend to be over-represented in the Security Forces, the ratio would probably be higher).
I have no idea where presstv is based, but they use an Islamabad based think tank’s (Jinnah Institute) research. Is that not credible enough?
As for Pakistan’s Shia population, you claim 20-25%, but the majorityof sources that I can find puts it between 10-15%. No estimate I’ve seen puts it at above 20%, and only one source extended the range to 10-20%.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan puts the number of Shia killed in Pakistan in 2013 at 700. Your source gives total dead at 3000. That’s 23%. The Jinnah Institute’s number of dead 2012-2015 also gives a similar ratio. That’s a significant over-representation if we go by the most common estimates of Shia population in Pakistan.
I don’t want to post anti-Pakistan stuff, but I find you tend to white-wash too much in your posts about Pakistan, so I provide a balance
The Pakistan government does not as a matter of policy ask the question in census, but, according to Vali Nasr; the number is approximatley 40 million out of 170 million total. The differing numbers are dependent on what is counted as Shia, Ismailis for instance are sometimes counted and sometimes not.
You really need to read the whole source, identify it and its bias and what exactly it is reporting. The Jinnah Institute is a well known NGO. Nothing on their websiteand publication reproducers the above at all. The Salman Zaidi quoted seems to no longer be associated with them at all. Nor does they note their terminology, how they came up with the numbers, what they count as “Shia” what they count as targeted killings, rather then where the sect was an incidental issue. In other words, its not something which can be relied upon, without further clarification
I don’t think so. This is the second time in two days that you have excitedly posted something based solely upon the headline without first taking a deeper appreciation of the contents and your source. You don’t provide a “balance” by any definition you provide links to bolster you argument. We can do that all day.
Yeah, maybe the Opinion piece would like to show where it gets its numbers from? While every death is a tragedy and the state has been derelict in clamping down on these organisations until recently, even if the numbers are accepted, 20,000 over 70 years in a population of 40 million is not genocide.
The only cite I can find for Vali Nasr put the population of Shias in Pakistan at 30 million in 2006. Cite
On the contrary, they have the number on their website as well. So if you’re ok with their credibility, then the number is fine. If you’re only ok with the credibility of sources that show Shias are not being disproportionately targeted in Pakistan, then <shrug>.
Ah. I get it now. Two bombings nine years ago(the perpetrators of which were caught) and vandalism against churches in India is suddenly equivalent to the thousands of killings every year in Pakistan. It strikes me as a particularly rich irony that Muslims are safer by a large margin in India than they are in Pakistan, a country created explicitly to safeguard them.
From the 6th paragraph: “The total number of Shia killed in militant attacks since Pakistan’s inception is believed to be around 20,000 with over 10,000 of them in direct attacks on the Shia community according to Global Human Rights Defense on Pakistan’s report in 2012.”
I agree that the word genocide gets bandied about too much, but it’s pretty clear that there exist at least some Sunni extremist organisations in Pakistan that effectively and consistently target Shias and Shia places of worship, while there’s no real counterpart on anywhere close to the same scale on the Shia side that has come to my notice. This also fits together with my interpretation of the multiple data sources and supports the conclusion that Shia are disproportionately killed in extremist violence in Pakistan.
ETA: BTW, the opinion piece does list the source of its numbers.
Aside from there is more than that so you are not one to be criticizing AK…, no it is not an equivalence, it was the reference to a similar type of action by extremists in the sense of violence to force social divides, to split mixed communities etc. The presence of violence by the extremists of some stripe did not refute (as you seemed to try to do in your reply to AK above “A lot of the time you won’t even known the persons sect.”).
do not play hypocritical what games or distort please.
I’m not the one playing tu quoque games in a thread about the safety of Shia in Sunni countries, but if you must accuse me of hypocrisy, at least come up with something better.
I was not trying to refute that “A lot of times you won’t even known the persons sect.”. I was pointing out that it doesn’t necessarily make you any safer.
And if anonymity is what makes you safe, well, that’s not saying a lot either.
