Sectarian violence threats the security of the religious groups in Pakistan. Lahore, being the capital of Pakistan’s largest province faces such problems every now and then. Around 6 months of research has been conducted on the believers of two distinct sections of Islam. Although Pakistan is an Islamic state but it now engulfs number of sections or sub-religious groups.

We must look into this matter since the spark between the religious groups is creating turbulence in Lahore for quite some time now. The religious segregation has turned out to be very violent in Lahore other than many parts of Pakistan. Pakistan is dealing with the resurgence in sectarian violence, every now and then; violence is experienced between two prominent sections of Islam namely — Sunni and Shia. Lately, Lahore is also experiencing violent incidents between the Barelvi and Deobandi sub-sects of Sunni Islam, which are also on the rise.

Pakistan is the second largest in Shia population after Iran. Sunni are in the majority while Shia are regarded as the minority section of Islam. Sunni- Shia clashes are very brutal in Lahore.

Sectarian violence began to wide spread in Pakistan when the dictator Zia-ul-Haq when policies and legislation aimed at ‘Islamising’. He tried to transform Pakistani into a Sunni state and imposed certain laws that mobilized Shia Muslims such as in 1980 Zia imposed a zakat (wealth tax) and ushr (farming tax) ordinance that contradicted Shia ideologies. This incited mobs as for the first time in the history of Pakistan 100,000 Shia Muslims marched on the federal secretariat in Islamabad, forcing the general to alter the ordinance which are hurting Shia Muslims sentiments.

When Shia were not obliged they refused to pay taxes in the same manner, this prompted Deobandi Sunni groups to target certain Shia persons on the basis of religion. Since then, Pakistan has become a hub of violence between various religious groups. Religion is also being used as a tool to satisfy personal vendetta. Religious sections are growing every single day and creating problems for peace and security of the nation. The rate of fights is increasing among Muslims, and foreign forces are taking greater advantages of it. Pakistan is now being divided which is benefiting the enemies of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s inclusion in US war against terrorist has left it with a series of sectarian problems. Taliban are on the rise since the mid-2000s and their close links with militant sectarian organizations such as Lashkar-eJhangvi is helping the sectarian violence to grow. Sectarian violence has spread across the country, and major areas targeted by it are Baluchistan’s Hazaras (an ethnic minority) and worshippers at Sufi shrines.

Today, sectarian violence has wide spread its tentacles by challenging its internal security. The country has been divided into many religious groups who can’t stand each other; level of tolerance is going down. Taliban are also a greater threat to the sovereignty of Pakistan which are now inclining towards the sectarian problems, the spark is gaining more attention since the government has failed once again to overcome the issues.

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Police have arrested three people in connection with an investigation into a religiously motivated incident, which happened in Thurnby Lodge on Boxing Day, Wednesday December 26.

Officers were called at approximately 7.30am on Boxing Day, after a pig's head was found outside a door leading into the Community Centre, in Thurncourt Road.

The centre was being used by a local Muslim group the day the head was left.

Three people, a woman age 40-years-old and two men aged 37 and 46, were arrested in connection with the incident today, Friday December 28, and are currently in police custody.

Leicester Police news report, 28 December 2012

See also Daily Mirror, 28 December 2012

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The placement of Pamela Geller's anti-Muslim "savages" ads in the District of Columbia have spurred a wide range of religious groups to counter the ads' message. A coalition of 157 religious groups from across the DC Metro-area signed onto a letter to the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority, pressing them to take stronger steps to work against hate speech.

In the letter, the coalition requested that WMATA pursue greater outreach to communities before publishing possibly inflammatory advertisements in and on the area's public transit, add disclaimers to such ads that they do not represent WMATA's views, and allow free ad space to counter hate speech.

Think Progress, 11 October 2012

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A Muslim man is suing a security company, claiming his religious rights were violated when its guards demanded he remove his cap before entering Nashville's Juvenile Justice Center.

Rashid al-Qadir claims security guards violated his First Amendment right to the free exercise of his religion by telling him he could not wear the small, brimless cap called a kufi. Al-Qadir says he offered to remove the kufi for inspection but then wanted to put it back on. The guards refused and demanded he leave the building.

In a motion filed Tuesday, attorneys for G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc. do not dispute al-Qadir’s account of the April 11, 2011, events. Instead, they argue the suit should be dismissed because al-Qadir cannot prove his claim that the guards were acting on behalf of the government.

Al-Qadir initially asked the federal court for an emergency order that would allow him to enter the Juvenile Justice Center, where he was fighting a child custody dispute. Two weeks later, the juvenile courthouse adopted a policy allowing religious headwear to be worn in the building once it had been inspected.

"I'm an American. I was born in America, and I’m going to be treated like an American," al-Qadir said in an interview. "I have a right to practice my religion freely as long as I'm not hurting anyone, and a kufi is not going to hurt anybody."

Associated Press, 30 August 2012

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Paul Ross of Durham EDL – claimed 'sickening' religious chant was just a 'bit of banter'Six men with links to a controversial right-wing pressure group have been convicted of chanting a sickening torrent of religious abuse.

The men, who are associated with the English Defence League (EDL), shouted a highly inflammatory religious chant at Middlesbrough railway station. They were convicted of religiously aggravated disorder yesterday after a two-day trial at Teesside Magistrates' Court.

The men – who represented themselves during the trial – shouted the abuse at the station on Saturday, December 10, 2011. The group was in Middlesbrough to watch Boro play Brighton, but when they decided it was too cold they visited several pubs in the town instead. They then went on to the railway station, the court heard.

PC Andrew Ward, of British Transport Police, told how he approached the "drunk", "noisy" group three times telling them to calm down. He said the group was singing EDL chants and when the men started singing a highly inflammatory religious chant he decided to eject them from the station.

He added that as the group left, one of the men, Christopher Caswell, 32, became aggressive and raised his fist. The officer responded by spraying him with CS spray and called for police back-up.

As PC Ward walked from the court after giving evidence there was hissing from the public gallery.

When asked to describe an Islamic person in police interview, 22-year-old Jak Beasley said: "Scum".

All men denied two charges of religiously aggravated harassment and using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment alarm or distress.

They said they were associated to the EDL in some way and said some EDL chants as well as the national anthem had been sung. But they all strongly denied singing the highly inflammatory chant in question. Paul Ross, 47, who told the court he runs the South-west Durham Division of the EDL, said the group was just having a "bit of banter".

Throughout the court proceedings, the defendants were repeatedly told by the chairman of the bench, Elizabeth Hutchinson, to remain quiet and to stop treating the proceedings as a "big joke".

EDL supporters gathered in and around the court yesterday along with a strong police presence.

Following the verdict, onlookers in the public gallery shouted the conviction was a "stitch up", while the defendants shook their heads and continued to express their innocence.

Beasley, of Teal Street, Bishop Auckland, Caswell, of West Auckland Road, Darlington, and Ross, of Auckland Wind, Shildon, along with Shaun Bunting, 33, of Fenhall Green, Newton Aycliffe, Ross Williams, 23, of Ebberston Court, Spennymoor, and Dean Spence, 22, of Yew Close, Spennymoor, will be sentenced on September 14.

Evening Gazette, 25 August 2012

The EDL's response ("The NE EDL refuse to be silenced, we WILL speak out against Islam no matter what the police and authorities do to us, no matter how much they hound us we will never be silenced and will protest whenever and wherever we want") can be consulted here. They are calling for a national demonstration in the North East to protest against the convictions.

One EDL supporter produces a familiar argument in defence of his right to abuse Muslims: "Religion is a choice, to what race you're born is not – that's why to criticise someone because of their race is wrong but to criticise someone's choice and religion is my right to freedom of speech."

Perhaps he should try and explain that distinction to Paul Ross.

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"Can religion really lead a mother and father to kill their own child? It is clear that in the Ahmeds' case, this was so: Alesha, the victim's surviving sister, testified in court that her parents openly acknowledged that they must do away with the rebellious teenager. She had adopted 'western ways', and brought shame on their family."

Cristina Odone exploits the tragic death of Shafilea Ahmed in order to demonstrate that she's an ignorant bigot.

Daily Telegraph, 3 August 2012

Of course, Odone doesn't provide any evidence to back up her assertion that it was their religious beliefs that caused Shafilea's parents to murder her. The quote from Alesha Ahmed that she produces indicates that their motive was a warped conception of "honour", which is not specific to any faith community.

As a 2007 report prepared for the European Parliament, Honour Killing, its Causes and Consequences, states:

"Honour killing is often mistakenly believed to be an Islamic practice or a practice condoned by Islam since it often occurs in Muslim-majority societies. In actual fact honour killing is forbidden in Islam and there is no mention of this practice in the Qur'an or in the Hadiths. There is little evidence of the practice in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia or Malaysia. Honour killing occurs in strongly patriarchal societies often referred to as 'honour-based' and which are found primarily in the Middle East, the Balkans, the southern Mediterranean, and South Asia."

In the UK, ACPO's Honour Based Violence Strategy emphasises that honour-based violence is "a cultural, not a religious phenomenon" which "cuts across all cultures, nationalities, faith groups and communities". Last year a Sikh from Telford, Gurmeet Singh Ubhi, was convicted of killing his daughter, in a case that had obvious parallels with that of Shafilea Ahmed. Because the perpetrator wasn't a Muslim, however, this murder received far less attention from the national media, and we were spared stupid articles from the likes of Cristina Odone claiming that it was his religion that made him do it.

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Fired Norton police officer Nicholas Matheny has filed a federal lawsuit, contending city officials discriminated against him and violated his civil rights by terminating him because of his Muslim faith.

The suit, seeking job reinstatement, a court injunction to end the alleged discrimination and damages for lost pay, was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland.

Matheny, 30, adopted the Muslim faith in early 2010 and initially kept the conversion quiet, according to the suit, because of anti-Islamic sentiment in the police department, including emails he said he received from his direct supervising officer.

But in September 2010, when Matheny handed out wedding invitations to two colleagues, with the heading "May Allah Bless This Marriage," the alleged discrimination came to a head, the suit said. Just as Matheny was ending his final shift before his wedding, the suit said, Chief Thad Hete told him he would be fired.

When Matheny returned from his honeymoon, Hete and the city's chief administrator, Richard A. Ryland, attempted to convince him to quit his job by allegedly threatening to place backdated warnings in his police file if he did not leave quietly, the suit said. Matheny refused to quit and was fired in November 2010.

The city and Hete were named as principal defendants.

Matheny's attorney, Subodh Chandra, a former federal prosecutor and Cleveland law director, said Monday that Hete is the "main issue."

"He terminated Officer Matheny because Officer Matheny became a Muslim as part of his sincere religious conversion. And when Chief Hete became aware of that, all of the sudden Officer Matheny went from being described as an excellent patrolman for the city to supposedly being somebody who was so bad he had to be terminated," Chandra said.

There is only one conceivable explanation for the alleged shift in attitude, "which is discrimination," Chandra said.

Akron Beacon Journal, 2 July 2012

See also WKYC-TV, 2 July 2012

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"Her latest book, The New Religious Intolerance, is a vigorous defence of the religious freedom of minorities in the face of post-9/11 Islamophobia. And by minorities she mostly means Muslims. 'We see unreasoning fear driving a certain amount of public policy, perhaps more in Europe than in the US,' she explains. And Europe has historical form on all this. 'The laws that made it illegal to speak Latin in a church but left it legal to speak Latin in universities were covert forms of persecution – and not very covert at all. And you get that all over Europe. You get that in the Swiss minaret case, where a building that expresses the wish of a religious minority is suddenly illegal; you get it in Germany in those cases where nuns can teach in full habit but a teacher can't wear a headscarf'."

Giles Fraser talks to Martha Nussbaum.

Guardian, 30 June 2012

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Now a question that Islamic culture is inherently intolerable is a topic of intense polemics in the western world, it needs still further inquiry and deeper deliberation into the Islamic history, prevailing Islamic culture of the past and the first Islamic society. In fact, Islamic history, since the death of the Holy Prophet [PBUH], received heavy blows when hypocrites who wanted to have their tribe dominant came into power through political maneuvering devoid of morality and Islamic values.

The values laid down by the holy Prophet [PBUH] demands that head must be an elected one but superior to others not only in courage, bravery, tolerance but also in knowledge and intellect. This went wrong shortly after the death of the Messenger of God. A dark night of dictatorial regime set on the Arabic world that spread beyond its borders up to present day Spain and even crept into India after that. Though Islamic culture thrived, but Islamic morality suffered. It is also necessary to see that Arabic culture must be separated from the Islamic culture which have several commonalities between them. For example Arabs were naturally brave, eloquent and hospitable. Islam also laid emphasis on the same qualities. Arabic culture was enshrined in tolerance as the Jews and Christians used to visit Mecca and Medina, though now they are forbidden.

The Holy Prophet [PBUH] first came into direct social contact with the Jews when the Muslims won the status of a dominant force in Medina after winning their first war. However, when Muhammad [PBUH] signed the Charter of Medina with the Jews, specifying that both communities would have full freedom to exercise their religious ritual, but would help each other in danger, it got clear that the Islamic culture being brought by the Holy Prophet [PBUH] was not only tolerant in nature, but also ensured full religious freedom. Every individual of both the communities have full religious freedom to act likewise.

There is also an instance that once Christians came to meet the holy Prophet [PBUH] and thy stayed in the mosque, the major center of the Muslim activities in Medina. They were treated with honor and respect. As far as the present day persecution of the other minorities in Islamic countries is concerned, it is neither compatible with the Islamic values nor with the Islamic culture. Just take the example of India 200 years ago, where a minatory of Muslims ruled India for four hundred years and that too very successfully. There were sometime communal rites but they were almost insignificant.

Moreover, Islam itself has stressed upon the Islamic government to respect and ensure rights of the other communities similarly as it is done for the Muslim citizens. To bar the members of other communities from taking part in their religious rituals or to stop them from taking part in the social activities or to ostracize them altogether has never been an Islamic practice, nor has it been propagated by any leading Muslim scholar. We can simply say that it could be the work of some local clerics having no knowledge of Islamic values nor teachings; otherwise, Islam has nothing to do with it. Even the holy Koran specifies the killing of an individual as the killing of entire humanity and this “individual” has not been associated with any religion. Hence this senseless killing of any minority community member in any Muslim state could be the handiwork of some outfits, not of the Islamic culture or teaching and Islam deserves better appreciate than condemnation that is often unleashed by some western scholars and writers alike.

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Muslim and Sikh transit workers will be allowed to wear religious head coverings while on the job under a settlement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced on Wednesday. The agreement ended a winding legal case propelled by the Sept. 11 attacks.

The authority faced a series of lawsuits, including one from the United States Justice Department, in the years that followed the attack; the suits claimed that the authority was selectively enforcing policies on head coverings worn by Muslim and Sikh employees and that it had transferred workers to nonpublic positions if they refused to remove the coverings or attach the authority's logos to them.

Under the new policy, any religious headgear will be permitted as long as it is blue, the color of the authority's logo, said Adam Lisberg, the authority's chief spokesman.

In a statement, the Justice Department said the authority would pay a total of $184,500 to eight current or former employees who had been "denied religious accommodations" under the old policy.

Amardeep Singh, the programs director of the Sikh Coalition, which filed two of the lawsuits in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the resolution closed a "disturbing chapter" in the Sikh community's history in the city. "There was a feeling in the community that Sikhs and Muslims have been collectively punished in some way for the events of 9/11," Mr. Singh said.

New York Times, 30 May 2012

See also AFP, 30 May 2012

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A bill that would protect the rights of workers who wear religious-oriented clothing at work was overwhelmingly passed by the California Assembly on Tuesday, May 28. AB 1964 now goes to the State Senate, where its proponents hope it will pass before the Legislature adjourns at the end of August. Then it would go to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.

The bill, dubbed the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2012, essentially would not break new ground but would clarify the federal Fair Employment and Housing Act, said Rachel Linn, spokeswoman for Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, author of the measure.

The bill, which moved through several assembly committees with little opposition, was supported by a broad collation of religious affiliations, including Muslim, Sikh, Catholic and Jewish organizations as well as the American Civil Liberties Union.

Only three members of the Assembly voted against the measure Tuesday, including Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks. Donnelly said in an email that he opposed AB 1964 because it places another burden on employers and could lead to unneeded lawsuits.

Adel Syed, the government relations coordinator for the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he regularly reviews cases in which women who keep their heads covered in observance of Muslim law are treated differently in the workplace and may not have the same opportunities as their coworkers.

The same thing happens to Sikh men and orthodox Jewish men who wear yarmulkes, Syed said. Some employers are skittish about having these workers front and center, where they would interact with customers and the public.

"Some employers might say they are making a reasonable accommodation," by permitting the traditional garb, Syed said. "But then they decide to put that person in the back, in the stockroom."

Press-Enterprise, 29 May 2012

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The government is facing renewed calls to curb the slaughtering of animals that have not first been rendered unconscious – a debate that pits religious sensitivities against the convictions of animal welfare campaigners.

Senior Conservative backbencher Greg Knight has told MPs that the practice of slaughtering cattle, lambs and chickens in this way is "rife".

The law demands that animals be stunned before they are killed – by electrocution, gassing, or shooting retractable rods into their brains – but there are exemptions for animals to be killed according to Jewish and Muslim traditions, without stunning them first. In the Commons on Thursday, Mr Knight described these exemptions as "unacceptable".

This is the culmination of a series of interventions from the Conservative backbenches in recent weeks, adopting progressively more hardline stances on the subject.

The previous week, Conservative MP for Ealing Central and Acton Angie Bray claimed that "more than 25% of meat sold in our shops comes from animals that have not been stunned before slaughter". As this amount "exceeds easily the needs of our communities with special religious requirements", she suggested that some abattoirs were using the exemptions for kosher and halal meat as an excuse to cut costs. "New measures" might be needed to enforce the law properly, she said.

And last month, Tory MP for Shipley Philip Davies launched a bid to change the law to ensure that halal and kosher meat on sale in shops and eateries was labelled as such. "My sole reason for introducing the bill is to give consumers more information, so that they can exercise their freedom of choice," the former Asda employee told MPs. Mr Davies said his objective was to ensure that consumers knew "how the meat has been killed".

Kosher meat is not processed in the UK from animals stunned prior to slaughter. But EU research from 2006 indicated that 75% of cattle, 93% of sheep and 100% of chickens slaughtered in the UK for halal meat were stunned prior to their deaths. Figures produced by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in 2011 give a similar picture: 84%, 81% and 88%, respectively. Meanwhile, Denmark and New Zealand have both legislated to ensure that all animals killed for halal meat are stunned first.

So labelling meat as halal will not fully achieve Mr Davies' objective, since consumers will be unaware whether the animal had been stunned or not.

MPs were quick to point out flaws in Mr Davies's bill, before voting to consign it to the legislative scrap heap by a majority of just three. "If it said that all chickens had to be labelled in a certain way if the birds had been battery hens, or if he had proposed that meat had to be labelled in a certain way if the animals had been kept in dreadful conditions before being killed... I would at least regard him as consistent," Sir Gerald Kaufman said.

The veteran Labour MP accepted that Mr Davies had not the "tiniest anti-Semitic feeling in him", yet he had come forward with a bill that "picked on two small minorities".

BBC News, 28 May 2012

It's no doubt true that Davies harbours little hostility towards the Jewish community. However, the same could be said of Geert Wilders, yet that didn't prevent the PVV supporting anti-halal legislation in the Dutch parliament, which like Davies' bill affected shechita too. In both cases the legislation was aimed at Muslims, but the Jewish community suffered collateral damage. If anyone is prepared to argue that Philip Davies doesn't have the "tiniest Islamophobic feeling in him" I wish them luck.

As for Angie Bray, she raised the question of her constituents "unknowingly eating meat from animals that might not have been pre-stunned during slaughter" in the House of Commons last year, only to be told by James Paice, minister of state at Defra, that "the vast majority of meat slaughtered under halal conditions is pre-stunned, so the issue is not quite as straightforward as some people believe". This didn't prevent Bray returning to the issue this month with her claim that over 25% of meat sold in Britain "comes from animals that have not been stunned before slaughter", citing as her source "a new report by a former president of the British Veterinary Association".

In fact the 25% figure was from an opinion piece by Professor Bill Reilly in the Veterinary Record. It was based on an estimate by the Halal Food Authority and referred to all halal meat sold in the UK, pre-stunned and unstunned. Rather than check out the original article, Bray (or her researcher) evidently preferred to rely on a garbled account in the Daily Telegraph, which wrongly reported that "a quarter of all meat on the British market is now killed according to the non-stun Halal principle".

Only a few days before Bray made her intervention, the Food Standards Agency published the results of its 2011 survey of animal welfare in British slaughterhouses which contained the figures quoted in the BBC report above, namely that 84% of cattle, 81% of sheep and goats and 88% of poultry killed in halal abattoirs were stunned before slaughter. By contrast, none of the animals killed by the shechita method were stunned before their throats were cut. Yet Greg Knight MP's press release calling for "humane animal slaughter" refers only to halal and makes no mention of shechita.

The FSA found that overall 97% of cattle, 90% of sheep and goats and 96% of poultry were stunned before slaughter. In other words, far from being "rife", as Greg Knight asserts, slaughter without pre-stunning affects only a small minority of all animals killed in UK abattoirs.

None of this is to preempt a discussion about whether stunning before slaughter results in less suffering for the animal being killed, which is itself questionable, or indeed whether MPs supposedly concerned about animal cruelty might be better occupied addressing the appalling practices to be found in non-halal UK abattoirs. The point is that Tory MPs like Bray and Knight have launched their attack on halal slaughter in the name of animal welfare without bothering to acquaint themselves with the basic facts of the case. In short, they are couple of ignorant bigots out to win popular support by jumping on the latest anti-Muslim bandwagon.

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American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, author of the recently published book The New Religious Intolerance, examines the spurious justifications given for banning the niqab and burqa.

She concludes that "traditions of religious liberty and equality in both the United States and Europe" are under threat as the result of "a climate of fear and suspicion, directed primarily against Muslims".

ABC, 22 May 2012

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More than 50 Muslim and non-Muslim civic and religious groups asked leading senators on Thursday (April 12) to rescind the appointment of an outspoken Muslim activist, Zuhdi Jasser, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Jasser, a Navy-trained physician, is decrying the effort – and others to oust him from the independent watchdog panel – as a "smear tactic."

A separate online petition that began circulating last week, also asking for his ouster, has garnered more than 2,000 signatures.

"Their letter is patently dishonest, deceptive, and continues their unprofessional unbridled smear campaign against anyone who chooses to take on Islamic reform against Islamist ideologies and groups regardless of whether we are observant traditional Muslims," Jasser wrote in an email to Religion News Service.

The signatories to the letter, sent to three key senators, argue that Jasser's rhetoric and activism contribute to a culture that treats Muslims as suspects, and that he would subvert the work of the bipartisan commission, which advises federal officials on the status of religious freedom abroad.

"His consistent support for measures that threaten and diminish religious freedoms within the United States demonstrates his deplorable lack of understanding of and commitment to religious freedom and undermines the USCIRF’s express purpose," they wrote.

They cite Jasser's effort to prevent the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, his support for the New York Police Department’s spying on Muslim institutions, and his defense of anti-Shariah laws, which most Muslim civil rights groups say unfairly paint Muslims as anti-American.

Religion News Service, 12 April 2012

See also "64-member coalition opposes new religious freedom appointee", CAIR press release, 12 April 2012

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