No solidarity in Pakistan
As the Quetta attacks show, a culture of violence against those deemed ‘bad Muslims’
Kamila Shamsie
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 January 2013

Last Thursday the 33-year-old Pakistani activist Irfan Ali told his Twitter followers he had narrowly escaped a bomb blast in the provincial capital, Quetta, which killed 12 people and injured 25. In the next hour he tweeted three more times about the terrorism wreaking havoc on Pakistan and the “genocidal pressure” faced by the Hazaras – an ethnic group which is primarily Shia.

A few hours later there was another bomb blast, this time in a snooker hall frequented by Hazaras. While helping the injured, Irfan Ali was killed by a suicide bomber who waited until the hall was filled with rescue workers before detonating his explosives. In all, 81 people died in the snooker hall and 110 were wounded. The extremist Sunni Deobandi group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) was quick to claim responsibility.

There are certain actions which even the most wretched nation should be able to rely on following an act of such monstrosity: a televised address by the head of state, condolence visits to the families of the dead by national and provincial leaders, substantial media coverage, and swift reprisals against the LeJ, who may be “underground” but are hardly invisible.

None of this happened. Instead, the day after the carnage mourners and activists gathered outdoors in Quetta, in the mid-winter chill, to stage a sit-in beside dozens of coffins bearing shrouded bodies, and insisted they would not move their dead until the provincial government (under whose watch attacks on Hazaras have accelerated) had been removed from office and the army had launched an operation against the LeJ.

Human Rights Watch released a statement making it plain where culpability lies: “By their inaction in the face of massacre after massacre and killing after killing, Pakistan’s political leaders, law enforcement agencies, judiciary and military are presiding over a collective failure to address the growing perception that they are either in sympathy with Sunni Deobanid extremists or utterly incompetent, and unable to provide basic security.” It doesn’t take a deep knowledge of Pakistan to know that the “utterly incompetent” part of the equation attaches itself to the civilian branch of government and the “sympathy with Sunni Deobandi extremists” part to sections of the security services, who are widely believed to have allied themselves with extremist groups including the LeJ for their own strategic ends.

Will the recent carnage change any of this? In an unprecedented show of solidarity with the mourners in Quetta, protests sprang up in a great many parts of the country, finally forcing the government to respond – which it did by imposing the executive authority of the governor over the province and directing the police and paramilitary to act against the groups involved. On Monday, in the wake of the government’s response, the mourners said they would bury their dead, after nearly 70 hours of sitting with them.

While there is no discounting the significance of the nationwide protests, it’s important to acknowledge that most of the protesters were Shia: we are still far from a full-throated chorus of “No more” from a nation of 180 million.

Instead it remains true that “common cause” is a rare beast in Pakistan (though Irfan Ali understood it well – his Twitter profile says “I was born to fight for human rights and peace.”). In a country where extremists target everyone who doesn’t fit into their narrow definition of a “good Muslim”, be they Shia, Ahmadiyya, Hindu, Christian, accused-blasphemer, those asking for changes to the blasphemy laws, or girls who want to go to school, it too often feels as though people can’t bring themselves to do more than guard their own turf, or try to stay under the radar. And, most worryingly of all, there are those who simply don’t disagree sufficiently with the extremists to do very much about it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/15/pakistan-erased-history-quetta-intolerance

On Thursday, Jan. 10, a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a snooker hall near Irfan’s home in Quetta. After reassuring family and friends through his Twitter feed that he had survived the blast, Irfan ran to help victims of the explosion, according to his friend and roommate, Fazian Hassan. A second suicide bomber then exploded a vehicle outside the hall. Members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group with ties to the Pakistani Taliban, have claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to the New York Times. At least 81 people died in the two attacks.
“Irfan Ali rushed to the bomb blast site to help those people who were wounded. He was saving the lives of others, and his own life was sacrificed,” said the Rev. James Channan, URI’s Coordinator for Pakistan. “We have lost a great, visionary man… who wanted to bring positive change to the young people of Pakistan.”

http://www.uri.org/the_latest/2013/01/compassion_commitment_courage_uri_mourns_irfan_ali

A suicide blast at a snooker club on Alamdar Road, a Hazara dominated area of Quetta, left eight people dead on Thursday, January 10, 2013. As ambulances arrived at the scene along with media persons and volunteers, another blast took place claiming 106 innocent lives including tv reporters, policemen, volunteers and peace activist Irfan Ali plus injuring 200 more.

Thousands of mourners including women gathered on Alamdar Road alongside the dead bodies of their loved ones and refused to bury the corpses for four days unless their demands were met.

The dead were finally buried after the government sacked the provincial government – but that measure was far from meeting the demands of the protestors.

What were the demands?

“It’s very simple: we want security. No more dead bodies,” said Ejaz Ali—Irfan Ali’s uncle who stayed with Irfan Ali’s coffin for three days.

“We already expected him (Irfan Ali) to be there at the site of the blast and giving a helping hand, so I called him and he said he was busy giving first-aid. After a few minutes we heard another explosion…this time he didn’t pick up his phone.”

“His left hand was missing and his face was unrecognizable. We recognized him from his hair and jacket,” Ejaz added.

“He worked day and night for peace. Lately he was a bit hopeless but he was determined to continue fighting for peace…and he died for it. But we will not give up. We are proud of him and we will accomplish his mission, god-wiling,” he said.

“Everybody knows about the killers and their whereabouts. They have been proudly claiming responsibility for such attacks and vowed to continue their attacks. Their statements are being published in the media all the time,” Ejaz stated.

Not unlike previous attacks on the members of Hazara community, a banned militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, called the local media and claimed responsibility for the attack and even vowed to launch more attacks “we had warned them to leave Pakistan last year but it seems as if they love their properties more than their lives. So now we are not going to even let them escape,” read the LeJ statement published in a local paper on January 11, 2013.

While gruesome attacks against the Shias dramatically escalated in recent years, the Hazara community has suffered the most due to unwillingness of the government and security forces to rein in the terrorists. Some have even pointed fingers at the security establishment for giving a free hand to the sectarian terrorist outfits such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and its affiliates.

“They want to paralyze our community educationally, economically and psychologically through a planned and very systematic terror campaign. It’s not just killing people. Our officers are being forced to leave their jobs. Our businesses are being closed. We are being compelled to sell our properties on throwaway prices and leave,” Ejaz said.