Shia Muslims and ongoing oppression in Sunni Muslim dominated nations

Shia Muslims and ongoing oppression in Sunni Muslim dominated nations
25th January, 2012 – Murad Makhmudov and Lee Jay Walker – Modern Tokyo Times

Shia Muslims don’t face persecution in mainly Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and secular nations. However, throughout the Sunni Muslim world the Shia community faces daily discrimination and deadly attacks often erupt in Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and other nations. This reality needs to be debated more openly and international pressure needs to be felt and this applies to a new motion put before the United Nations.

On January 23 in Iraq more Sunni Islamic terrorist attacks killed innocent Shia Muslims and bystanders who happened to be in a mainly Shia part of Baghdad. This threat is constant because of homegrown Sunni Islamic terrorism in Iraq and international angles. This applies to Sunni religious zealots from Saudi Arabia and other nations instigating mass hatred towards the Shia. Of course, Sunni Islamic terrorists in Iraq also target the Christian community and because of this vast numbers have fled to other nations.

In Pakistan you have many Sunni Islamic terrorist networks which deem the Shia to be infidels and only recently major terrorist attacks killed many Shia Muslims. It matters not if political leaders in Iraq and Pakistan come from the Shia community because elements within the Sunni extremist terrorist networks clearly desire to install fear and instigate sectarianism.

It must be remembered than when Al-Qaeda played a more prominent role in Afghanistan that this Sunni Islamic terrorist network along with the Sunni Taliban movement, targeted and killed Shia Muslims in the tens of thousands. Therefore, many Shia Muslims fled this Sunni onslaught against their beleaguered community.

Bahrain and Yemen are two other nations whereby the Shia are marginalized and betrayed by the dominant Sunni Muslim forces in both nations. More alarming, many Shia villages have been bombed in Yemen whereby women and children have been killed. Also, in Bahrain outside nations like Saudi Arabia have boosted the Sunni ruling leadership with the results being more innocent deaths of Shia Muslims and ongoing persecution of Shia religious leaders.

In Saudi Arabia, a nation which supports killing apostates and whereby not one single Christian church or Buddhist temple is allowed, is also anti-Shia and fanatical Sunni extremists, organizations, and wealthy business individuals, are intent on spreading the anti-Shia theme throughout Saudi Arabia and to other nations. Indeed, the Shia community faces enormous discrimination in this draconian society but of course the oil issue for Western political leaders maintains’ a firm silence. The upshot of this is more oppression of the Shia in regions like Qatif and ongoing restrictions on all non-Muslim religions throughout the nation.

Indeed, while Malaysia is often praised in the “naïve Western media” for being modern and open, the stark reality is that in this nation the Shia faith is illegal. Therefore, Shia Muslims in Malaysia are in constant fear of being arrested and monitored for merely belonging to a different branch within Islam. However, what international pressure is being put on Malaysia internationally and within the Commonwealth nations? …more