Members of Pakistan‘s Shi’ite Hazara ethnic minority held protests in London and Hamburg over the past days, charging “genocide” against their people with the complicity of the Islamabad regime—and the silence of the international community. Under the slogan “Stop Hazara Genocide,” leaders said that a network financed from Saudi Arabia and operating with the protection of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency has terrorized Hazaras with killings and suicide bombings on a near-daily basis for the past 10 years, especially naming the groups Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi—which has publicly threatened to turn Quetta (capital of Baluchistan province, where most of the country’s 600,000 Hazaras live) into a graveyard of Shi’ites. “There is a heavy presence of the law-enforcement agencies in Quetta city but it is matter of great concern that Hazaras get killed on daily basis,” said Ali Raza Mogul of London’s Hazara Progressive Alliance. “The government has failed to catch terrorists.” (AFP, The News, Pakistan, May 1)
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Blast at madrassa kills 15 in Quetta
A bomb hidden in a bicycle basket outside a Sunni madrassa in Quetta left 15 dead and scores injured June 7. (The News, Pakistan, June 8) Was this Shi’ite retaliation for Sunni militant attacks, or Sunni extremists who believed the madrassa was collaborating with the authorities?