PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Gunmen shot and killed a member of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community in an attack Thursday in the deeply conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. The gunmen fled the scene, according to the police and a community leader.
Nauman Khan, a local police official said it wasn’t clear if the attack on Satnam Singh, 45, was a targeted killing. Singh, a herbalist, had been living in the city for the past 20 years and ran a small clinic selling herbal medicine.
The assailants opened fire at Singh inside the clinic, said Sardar Harpal Singh, a local community leader. He denounced the incident and demanded the arrest of those involved in the killing. The herbalist and the community leader are not related.
The majority of Sikhs migrated to neighboring India in 1947, the year British rule of the subcontinent ended and Pakistan was created as a homeland for Muslims in the region. Thousands of them stayed in Pakistan, where they generally live peacefully. But isolated attacks on minority Sikhs, Christians and members of the Ahmadi sect have continued.
Gunmen kill Sikh man in northwestern city — police
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Gunmen kill Sikh man in northwestern city — police
- Satnam Singh, a herbalist, was killed by unknown gunmen inside his clinic in Peshawar
- According to local authorities, no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack
EU criticizes Pakistan over jailing of rights lawyers, flags free speech concerns
- EU says the convictions of Imaan Mazari-Hazir, Hadi Ali Chattha violate freedom of expression
- Both lawyers were arrested last week over social media posts under Pakistan’s cybercrime laws
KARACHI: The European Union on Thursday criticized Pakistan over the conviction of two human rights lawyers for their social media activity, saying the ruling ran counter to freedom of expression and the independence of the legal profession, core democratic principles that Islamabad is committed to uphold under international law.
Imaan Mazari-Hazir and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha were arrested last Friday as they were on their way to a court appearance and were later remanded to two weeks in judicial custody.
Authorities accused them of violating the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) over posts on X that they said incited ethnic divisions and portrayed the military as being involved in “terrorism.” Both deny the allegations.
“The conviction of human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha over social media activity goes against freedom of expression and independence of lawyers,” Anouar El Anouni, the EU’s spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a post on X. “These are not only key democratic principles but also part of Pakistan’s international human rights commitments.”
Pakistan is one of the largest beneficiaries of the EU’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+), which grants duty-free access to most European markets in return for implementing 27 international conventions covering human rights, labor standards, environmental protection and good governance.
Pakistan’s GSP+ status came under scrutiny in the past after, in April 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for an immediate review, citing concerns over violence against religious minorities, curbs on media freedom and broader human rights issues.
Earlier this week, lawyers in Pakistan’s capital went on strike and announced plans to stage a protest against the court ruling, which handed Mazari-Hazir and Chattha a cumulative 17-year sentence.
The Pakistani government has not yet responded to the EU statement.
