On Thursday February 21, 2013 a peaceful protest and a candlelight vigil were held in front of CNN’s headquarters, Atlanta Georgia USA, protesting the genocide of the Hazara people. The protest ran from 5PM to 6:15PM, with the vigil following from 6:15PM to 7:00PM. This demonstration was held during downtown Atlanta’s afternoon rush hour to attract the most attention of passers-by.

More than 45 people attended this demonstration, including women, children, and sympathetic Americans. Karla Bradbury, an American who was one of the event’s organizers added, “I have many Afghan friends who live in Afghanistan, Australia and now in Atlanta. My heart breaks for the victims and families. As human beings we are all family and we must stand together against violence and embrace love and peace as the answer.” And a local community activist and artist Odijie Bopniface attended, saying, “Let us not close our eyes acting like we do not see innocent Hazara people die.

Let us join hands and do anything humanely possible to stop these senseless killings. We are all one—same human being, despite our culture, tribe or ethnicity. It is sad and heart-broken to wake up and watch our loved ones gone, taken by untimely death. We must stand up and take it as our duty to protect the sanctity of human life, since we cannot make or create one.

I, therefore, use this opportunity to call on all the above to kindly help the Hazaras and stop the killings.” Over all, the reason to this demonstration was to show our sympathy to the victims’ families who lost their loved ones, and to send this message to them that we are with you.

More than 1100 Hazaras have been killed over last one decade in Pakistan’s largest province, Balochistan, by Al-Qaeda-cum-Taliban linked militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Jangvi (LeJ) and its affiliates under the very nose of the government and it’s law enforcement agencies.

The state of Pakistan; the elected government, law enforcement agencies and an otherwise hyperactive judiciary, has blatantly failed to protect the ethno-sectarian minority in Quetta. Inaction of the security forces against the terrorist outfits has resulted to a serious perception that they are complicit in the genocide of Hazaras in Balochistan. Such concerns have been raised by a number of human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International.

The acting Governor of Balochistan province, Nawab Zulfiqar Magsi, has confessed that “the terrorist attack on the Hazara community in Quetta is a failure of the intelligence and security forces”. However, we believe that terrorists groups such as Lashkar-e-Jangvi (LeJ) operate under the patronage of the country’s military establishment and it’s intelligence agencies which is evident from the fact, among others, that a handful of killers succeed to launch terror attacks on Hazaras repeatedly without being apprehended or even chased. We, therefore, stage a world-wide hunger strike unless our demands are met:

1: Declare a state of emergency regarding the Hazara state of affairs, as authorized by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
2: Apply diplomatic pressure on Pakistani government to immediately cease acts of discrimination against the Hazara and to stop supporting terrorist groups who commit violent acts against them.
3: Ask the Refugee Convention’s state parties to protect Hazara asylum seekers and grant them asylum.
4: Establish an international truth Commission to investigate crimes against the Hazara.
5: Open comprehensive cases concerning genocide and gross human rights violations in international courts such as the ICC.
6: Appeal to international media to investigate and report on activities against the Hazara, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

About 100 Pakistanis, mostly Hazara Shias, were killed last week after two bomb attacks on a billiard club in the city of Quetta. It was one incident in a string of violent attacks on the minority group.

Demonstrator Bani Turkmani said Hazaras are being singled out and killed because they are a visible ethnic group, though Shia Muslims at large have also been targeted.

“In Pakistan, the Hazara people have been under target killing. As soon as they see a person that looks like Chinese looking or Asian looking, they’re being killed,” said Turkmani, who is a Muslim Hazara.

Turkmani’s uncle owns a shop in Quetta that was targeted in one of the attacks. She said most of the protestors in Churchill Square Sunday have recently lost a friend or family member to a violent attack targeting Hazara Shias.

“The systematic genocide of the Hazaras occurring in Pakistan has left over 1,000, including women and children, dead and more than 2,000 wounded,” she said, adding many Hazara students and professors in Pakistan have stopped attending school in fear of being killed.

She is calling on the U.N. and the international community to protect the Hazara people, and on the Pakistani government to prosecute the terrorists carrying out the attacks.

“I’m so fortunate to have this peaceful life. I’m living a beautiful life in this beautiful country,” she said. “I’d like everyone to have this.”

Protestors in Quetta have been blocking roads with the coffins of their relatives who were killed in recent explosions.

Many of the attacks have been carried out by terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that are affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Demonstrator Sabira Devjee, who identifies as Muslim, called on people of all faith groups to band together and condemn the killing of innocent people.

“We’re here to condemn all genocide. We’re all human beings,” she said.

“As people, we need to come together. It does not matter what faith group you belong to.”

Similar protests have been held across North America.

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Hazara Protesters’ letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs

Date…………………………….
From:…………………(Name)………..a (citizenship/residence/country) Hazara.
To: the respected Minister of Foreign affairs.
Subject: Committing genocide, forced displacement and systematic discriminations against Hazaras in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I carry the grievances of a people who are being persecuted, massacred and systematically discriminated in Pakistan and Afghanistan even in today’s 21st century when there are a number of institutions and organizations such as the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Court of Justice etc formed to fight against these crimes.

For more than a century our people have been subjected to genocide, forced displacements, slavery and systematic discriminations which are still continuing in the 21st century.
The terrorists groups backed by the intelligence agencies of the countries involved in the region are slaughtering scores of our people in Quetta, Pakistan, while in Afghanistan the systematic discriminations still continue against them and tens of thousands of Hazara men, women and children become the victims of Kochi Pakhtuns each year. The Kochis backed by the Afghan government and Taliban not only massacre them but rob their properties and displace them forcefully.

Respected Minister of Foreign Affairs,

I request you to not to be indifferent towards the systematic crimes against the Hazaras and fulfill your obligations in this regard as a highest responsible authority in the foreign affairs.
I request you to immediately summon the ambassadors of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Foreign Ministry to inquire them about the systematic crimes committed against Hazaras and ask them to ensure that such crimes won’t repeat in the future.

I request you to take up the issue of systematic crimes against the Hazaras in the responsible national and international forums to create consensus in order to effectively prevent crimes against Hazaras and redress their grievances.

Yours truly,

Name and Signature:

PS:
Hazara Timeline Afghanistan: http://www.hazarapeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/hazara_timeline1.pdf
Hazara Timeline Pakistan http://www.hazarapeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/List_Hazara_killed_Pakistan1985_sep2011.pdf

Download the resolution into word (.doc) format.
Related links:
Hazara Protesters’ letter to Ministers of Foreign Affairs
Hazara Timeline Afghanistan
Hazara Timeline Pakistan
Hazara People Worldwide Protest 2012 (Timetable)

RESOLUTION FOR WORLDWIDE PROTEST 2012

Hazara protesters in ………………….(city)……………….…(Country)……………………(dated)

We, the participants of today’s protest rally, have gathered to denounce crimes against humanity and defend human rights and social justice, adapt the following resolutions:

1. We consider the massacre of Hazaras in Quett, Pakistan, as a genocide and strongly condemn the discriminations against them.

2. We think that continuation of such crimes have been planned by secret agencies of the countries involved in the region as a psychological warfare against each other and to create clashes and hatred amongst the groups of various ethnicities and sects for their own strategic interests. We consider these conspiracies as crimes against humanity, spread of hatred and discrimination–which are strongly condemnable.

3. We, the participants of this protest demonstration, blame the intelligence agencies of the countries active in the region to be involved in committing crimes against humanity and warn them to stop killing the Hazara people.

4. We ask the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of genocide of Hazara people and play an active role in order to prevent the crimes and bring the criminals and perpetrators to justice.

5. The international institutions, particularly the United Nations (UN), European Union(EU), Amnesty International(AI), Human Rights Watch(HRW) etc are requested to take notice of Hazara genocide in Pakistan & Afghanistan and take practical steps in preventing their genocide as per resolution of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

6. The massacre of Hazaras has become a routine activity for terrorists organisations/groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi(LeJ), Sipa-e-Sahaba Pakistan(SSP), Taliban, Al-Qaeda etc in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We therefore ask International Criminal Court (ICC) in Den Haag,Holland to prosecute the murderers (be it a group, party or a country) of innocent Hazara people

7. We ask the respected members of our parliament to take up the issue of Hazara genocide and their persecution in a session of our parliament in order to prevent repetition of such crimes by all means possible.

8. We ask our foreign minister to summon the ambassadors of Pakistan and Afghanistan to protest against the genocide of Hazaras and warn them to put an end to such crimes.

9. We respectfully ask the great international institutions of all faiths and senior religious personalities of all religions/sects to break their silence and promote religious/sectarian harmony among people of different faiths in order to prevent clashes, murder and genocide in the name of religion

10. We ask the international institutions including the United Nations, European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch etc to ensure the protection of Hazara people in Afghanistan and Pakistan by warning the respective countries to end systematic discriminations based on ethnicity/faith as per Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

11. The invasion of Hazara land by Kochi nomads and their killings should end forever. The Afghan rulers including present government have never tried to solve the issue on permanent bases but at times have even facilitated them to commit heinous crimes. We ask the International institutions such as UN, EU, Amnesty International etc to pressurise Afghan government to put an end on such crimes and redress grievances of Hazara people.

12. We, the participants of the protests against Hazara genocide, request the members of civil society, intellectuals, journalists, human rights organisations, social and political activists of the world particularly Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to rise up against the genocide, persecution, systematic discriminations of Hazaras by exposing their government’s heinous crimes.

13. We request the Hazara people across the globe to ignore their ideological, sectarian and regional differences and to give priority to the national cause rather than personal materialistic interests in order to fight the crimes committed against your people in a united and effective manner.

14. We ask the Hazaras across the globe to work together, as always, in promoting human rights, rule of law, peace and brotherhood, propagation of human rights values and enlighten the world about their history, traditions and culture in a friendly and peaceful manner–regardless of race, color and religion.