Related post: Has LUBP alienated genunine sympathisers of Pakistani Sunni Sufis and Shias? https://lubpak.com/archives/332674

Let Us Build Pakistan (LUBP – www.lubpak.com) is a citizen-journalism based website to act as an alternative media to contribute to building a democratic, multicultural and progressive Pakistan. Since it was founded by Mr. Abdul Nishapuri on 21 May 2008, LUBP and its diverse team of editors, authors and contributors has highlighted a number of issues which remain either obfuscated or ignored in the mainstream media, e.g., Ahmadi persecution, Baloch killings, Shia genocide, creeping Talibanization etc. However, given the enormous and growing intensity of Shia genocide in the last five years, this topic has taken a lot of LUBP space in the last few years. With more than 21,000 dead, Shia Muslims remain the most target killed faith group in Pakistan who are being target killed specifically due to their faith by Saudi-funded Takfiri Deobandi militants who are also alleged to have at least some support by certain sections of Pakistan army.

Questions are:

What exactly has LUBP done to highlight Shia genocide in Pakistan?

How has LUBP affected the discourse in mainstream and social media in Pakistan and abroad?

What’s the extent of LUBP’s outreach and impact?

Since it was launched in May 2008, LUBP has developed into a significant alternative media website that has worked tirelessly to highlight the cause of Shia Genocide.

Until the last few months, the very usage of the term Shia Genocide was resisted by both the right-wing Islamists’ dominated Urdu media and the pro-establishment fake-liberals’ dominated English media. However, in spite of intense pressure, harassment and blackmail, LUBP’s editorial staff did not relent and with the support of a few fellow commentators in the mainstream media (e.g., Saroop Ijaz, Dr. Taqi), LUBP has finally made headway in the media on this crucial count.

Background: Until fairly recently, Pakistan’s media, intelligentsia and human rights organizations gave a step-motherly treatment to the “slow motion ongoing Shia Genocide in Pakistan. This phenomenon was deliberately misrepresented and the intensity of this issue was dishonestly diluted by those whose job was to inform and not mislead.

The issue was misrepresented by the usage of vague terminology. The issue was obfuscated by the usage of vague terminology “Sunni-Shia sectarian violence” or misrepresented by limiting it in ethnic terms (e.g., Hazara genocide, removing the Shia identity and motive of the slaughter). Furthermore, the outrage on the atrocity on Shia Genocide was often diluted by presenting it as “Iran-Saudi” proxy war, thus rationalizing and justifying Shia genocide while giving clean chit to Pakistan army’s pro-Jihadist activities and tendencies.  This dishonesty had reached such levels where some Shias themselves accepted these “blame-the-victim” tactics.  Such tactics divided and dispirited Pakistan’s diverse Shia Muslim communities.

Before the emergence of certain Shia activist websites in 2011, (e.g., Shia Killing and Karbala-e-Quetta), LUBP provided a theoretical framework to this issue and clearly described the phenomenon as Shia genocide at the hands of Taikfiri Deobandi militants of LeJ-ASWJ-TTP who are also killing Sunnis, Ahmadis, Christians etc. It undertook studies and analysis to highlight various aspects and most importantly, it countered the media obfuscations at every possible opportunity.

Today, aside from a few notable exceptions, other upcoming media analysts and bloggers have finally accepted LUBP’s analysis and its terminology. LUBP’s description of Shia Genocide is gaining increasing validation and with the help of diverse groups like the Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) on one hand and Shia Killing website on the other, Pakistan’s embattled Shia communities finally have the intellectual tools to battle for their survival.

By highlighting that those who are targeting Shias are also targeting other faith groups, LUBP provides a cohesive framework. By identifying the perpetrators of this genocide, the militant interlinked Takfiri Deobandi groups (LeJ-ASWJ-TTP), LUBP has provided a specific framework for solutions to this pressing issue. Previously, Sunni Muslims were blamed en masse by a dishonest and lazy media which was more interested in presenting Shia genocide as routine Sunni-Shia sectarian violence.

While groups like Shaheed Foundation and Shia Killing have done basic groundwork in compiling a data base of casualties, LUBP is the first website that has complied and published a detailed and comprehensive database of Shia killings in Pakistan since 1963 to date. Through this database, the entire world and Shia activists were able to reach the estimated 21,000 deaths at the hands of Takfiri terrorist in the last few decades.

Link to Shia genocide database: https://lubpak.com/archives/132675

Important tags on Shia genocide:

Shia Genocide & Persecution https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/shia-genocide-persecution

Shia Hazaras https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/shia-hazaras

Discourse of Shia Genocide https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/discourse-of-shia-genocide

Misrepresentation of Shia Genocide https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/misrepresentation-of-shia-genocide

BBC Urdu obfuscates Shia genocide https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/bbc-urdu-obfuscates-shia-genocide

Shia Doctors https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/shia-doctors

Shia Sunni Unity https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/shia-sunni-unity

Sunni Muslims Condemn Shia Genocide https://lubpak.com/archives/tag/sunni-muslims-condemn-shia-genocide

 

Today, LUBP is one of the most visited political blogs / websites in Pakistan which ranks at number one in terms of frequency and quality of original posts on diverse issues related to democracy, tolerance and human rights.

Our traffic and circulation continues to break new records. In these four years, we have changed our domain twice and since the last time, we have gone from 0 to nearly 10,000 facebook likes in less than 2 years. Given our non-mainstream, hard to digest discourse, this is no less an achievement. The Alexa statistics suggest we are now ahead of pkpolitics.com, a popular pro-right wing, TV Talkshow hosting website.

In the last two months alone (Jan-Feb 2013), we have received about 206,000 absolute unique visitors to our website. The total number of visits is much higher than this figure.

Top ten countries in terms of traffic: Pakistan, US, UK, India, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Germany.

We have received numerous comments and private messages from renowned intellectuals, columnists, critics and politicians, who have in the main appreciated our work in terms of its aims and the quality and diversity of content.

Comments

comments