PESHAWAR: The Pakistani Taliban have claimed the killing of a provincial minister for minority affairs who was shot dead in a restive northwestern district.
Gunmen on motorbikes stopped Sardar Soran Singh’s car in Buner district, some 160 kilometers northeast of Peshawar, Friday evening and opened fire, killing him on the spot.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing of Singh, who was minority affairs minister for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“These activities will continue until implementation of Islamic system in Pakistan,” Muhammad Khurasani, spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said in an e-mailed statement late Friday.
Singh’s murder was widely condemned by his fellow lawmakers and rights activists.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, whose Pakistan-Tehreek Insaf (PTI) party rules the restive northwestern province, urged his government to set up an inquiry commission.
“Shocked at murder of PTI’s KP MPA & Minorities Minister Sooran Singh. KP govt must immed set up inquiry. A great loss for all of us,” Khan tweeted.
“When will Pakistan stop targeting minorities?” Twitter user Saqeena Qasim said.
Others expressed similar views.
“Tragic minority Soran Singh targeted by terrorists. He was a symbol of Pakistan’s bright inclusive future — May many Soran Singhs now rise!” tweeted Meriam Sabih.
In 2011, the Pakistani Taliban shot dead a Christian minorities minister in Islamabad.
Discrimination and violence against religious minorities is commonplace in Pakistan.
Pakistan Taliban claim killing of Sikh minister
Pakistan Taliban claim killing of Sikh minister
Palestinian ambassador condemns British Museum’s removal of the word ‘Palestine’ from displays
- The museum updated some exhibits in its ancient Middle East galleries to replace ‘Palestine’ with ‘Canaanite’
- It followed complaints from a pro-Israel group that use of the word ‘Palestine’ could obscure the ‘history of the Jewish people’
LONDON: The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, condemned a decision by the British Museum in London to remove the word “Palestine” from certain displays, following pressure from a pro-Israel group.
“Cultural institutions must not become arenas for political campaigns,” the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported Zomlot as saying on Monday. “Palestine exists. It has always existed and it always will.”
The British Museum updated some displays in its ancient Middle East galleries to replace the word “Palestine” with “Canaanite,” The Guardian newspaper reported.
It did so after the group UK Lawyers for Israel expressed concern that the inclusion of the word “Palestine” in displays related to the ancient Levant and Egypt could obscure the “history of Israel and the Jewish people.”
In a letter to the director of the museum, Nicholas Cullinan, they wrote: “Applying a single name — Palestine — retrospectively to the entire region, across thousands of years, erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity.”
The museum said it views the word “Palestine” to be no longer considered historically “neutral,” and that it might be interpreted as a reference to political territory.
However, the Palestinian embassy said: “Attempts to cast the very name ‘Palestine’ as controversial risk contributing to a broader climate that normalizes the denial of Palestinian existence at a time when the Palestinian people in Gaza face an ongoing genocide, and their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank face ongoing ethnic cleansing, annexation and state-sponsored violence.”
More than 9,000 people have so far signed a Change.org petition calling on the museum to reverse its decision, arguing that it lacks historical support and erases Palestinian presence from public memory.
