#ShiaGenocide in Pakistan: Another Beginning?

The situation in Pakistan today has an eerie resemblance to the situation 40 years ago. Then also, a coordinated hate campaign was launched against Shia Muslims in Pakistan while the State watched by.

Actually, during the dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq, the State was complicit in creating and supporting organizations like Sipah e Sahaba aka ASWJ-LeJ.

Today Pakistan is saddled with a government that has done nothing substantive to stop a virulent and national campaign of anti-Shia hatred. In fact, it has given a free hand to the same ISIS-affiliated groups that destroyed Pakistan over the last 40 years and whose affiliates and subsidiaries murdered over 70,000 civilians, police, and soldiers across the faith and sectarian spectrum.

Just a month ago, the Punjab assembly nearly allowed a highly problematic piece of legislation to pass through that would not only cede maximum powers to censorship officers (NDA)

It would also create a distorted faith situation where only the most intolerant and supremacist faction would be allowed any religious freedom.

This Bill was not only against Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution. It would eventually lead to a situation where the Hadiths, Tafseer, and the Quran itself would have to be censored and changed in order to accommodate the beliefs of the most supremacist and intolerant groups that are publicly affiliated with ISIS and share their ideology.

Already, scores of cases have been registered against Shia Muslims. There are multiple videos of Shia Muslims being forced to not only denounce their beliefs but to echo Sipah e Sahaba’s abusive and threatening discourse against Shia Muslims.

Cases have even been registered against a 3-year-old child because his family hosts a traditional majlis.

2 Shia youths have been attacked and one has succumbed after being shot in the last two days.

Sipah e Sahaba’s beliefs are at odds with traditional Sunni and Salafi beliefs. They are even at odds with the beliefs of mainstream Deobandi scholars like Maulana Tariq Jameel. The latter has been leading a successful interfaith campaign for the last 5 years but Sipah e Sahaba are not listening to his narrative.