They expressed these views during a meeting held under the banner of the Shirkat Gah on Local Government Election and Baluchistan’s Budget for fiscal year 2022-2023.
In the third and final blog sharing findings from a survey of attitudes towards the Hazara Shia in Quetta, Pakistan (following government broadcast messages referring to ‘the Shia virus’), Mohammad Aman and Sadiqa Sultan compare and contrast the responses of men and women and postulate what factors may lie behind them.
Local girls on Tony Abad Mountain, Mariabad Quetta, Pakistan. Credit: Habib Qasimii
While the Covid-19 pandemic has affected all communities around the world, minority communities have evidently been hit hard. Described by UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres as “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering”. Examples include Asian and Asian-origin communities around the world, especially the Chinese, experiencing racist violence and discrimination, Muslims in India being made scapegoats for the spread of coronavirus, while in Pakistan, the gravity and extent of discrimination against the Hazara Shia community in the wake of the Covid-
Published on 12 March 2021
The spread of Covid-19 in Pakistan was largely blamed on Shia pilgrims returning from Iran, including Hazara Shias, after Iran announced its first Covid-19 deaths in February 2020. Last year, the IDS-led CREID programme published perspectives from the frontline on experiences of the Hazara community and also supported six local researchers to delve a little deeper into the impact of this on the attitudes of non-Shias of Quetta, Pakistan. Their findings are shared below and in a forthcoming blog mini-series.
Vegetable market in Hazara Town, Quetta, Pakistan. Credit: Asef Ali Mohammad
A year ago, after Iran was one of the first countries to announce suspected Covid-19 deaths in its Shia Islam pilgrimage city of Qom, Pakistan temporarily closed its border with Iran. Thousands of Pakistanis returning from Iran, including pilgrims and traders, were at first stranded in Iran then quarantined at Taftan in Balochistan, southw