Being a member of a religious minority in Pakistan, whether that be of a different religion from Islam such as a Hindu, Sikh or Christian or being from a non-Sunni sect of Islam such as a Shia or an Ahmediyya, has never been what one could call ‘safe’. Religious minorities are under constant threat of either violence at worst or being treated as second class citizens at best.

Often the oppression of and violence towards religious minorities is carried out by one Pakistani towards another on an individual basis, as with the use of ‘blasphemy’ laws against Christians. Sometimes the Government actively colludes in the oppression of minorities as can be shown by the way that they treat those from the Ahmediyya sect of Islam. On other occasions, as with a recent atrocity in Baluchistan, outside terrorists aligned to Sunni Islam carry out acts of violence.

It is in the latter category that the latest tale of horror from Pakistan comes into. According to an NBC report (h/t ROP), members of the ISIS terror group captured a group of miners who belonged to the Shia path of Islam and brutally murdered eleven of them.

NBC said:

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack Sunday that killed 11 miners from Pakistan’s minority Shiite Hazaras in Baluchistan province.

The attack took place early on Sunday morning in the Mach area of Bolan district around 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Baluchistan’s capital Quetta, killing the miners who were in a shared residential room near the coal mine where they worked, officials said.

“The throats of all coal miners have been slit, after their hands were tied behind their backs and [they were] blind folded,” a security official told Reuters, requesting anonymity as he is not allowed to speak to media.

A video clip making the rounds on WhatsApp groups, apparently shot by a first responder, showed three bodies lying outside the room and the rest inside in pools of blood.

The Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the local police will be engaged in trying to bring the terrorists to justice but I have doubts that this will actually happen. This is because Pakistan is so corrupt and inefficient and religious extremism is so deeply embedded in the nation’s culture that I really cannot see much real effort being expended to apprehend terrorists who killed minority Muslims. There is often no real justice for religious minorities in Pakistan and I suspect that there will be no justice in this case either, although I would love to be proved wrong on this. Yet again we have religious minorities being targeted for death in a nation that receives financial largesse from both the United Kingdom and the United States. My question is this: If Pakistan cannot keep its religious minorities safe, then why do we and our American allies, keep giving this shithole so much of our money?