Pakistan says Syria needs ‘credible political transition,’ condemns Israeli incursions and airstrikes

KARACHI: From a gated community for her Zoroastrian faith in Pakistan’s megacity Karachi, 22-year-old Elisha Amra has waved goodbye to many friends migrating abroad as the ancient Parsi community dwindles.
Soon the film student hopes to join them — becoming one more loss to Pakistan’s aging Zoroastrian Parsi people, a community who trace their roots back to Persian refugees from today’s Iran more than a millennium ago.
“My plan is to go abroad,” Amra said, saying she wants to study for a master’s degree in a country without the restrictions of a conservative Muslim-majority society.
“I want to be able to freely express myself,” she added.
Zoroastrianism, founded by the prophet Zarathustra, was the predominant religion of the ancient Persian empire, until the rise of Islam with the Arab conquests of the seventh century.

Once the Parsi community in Pakistan had as many as 15,000-20,000 people, said Dinshaw Behram Avari, the head of one of the most prominent Parsi families.
Today, numbers hover around 900 people in Karachi and a few dozen more elsewhere in Pakistan, according to community leaders, many staying together in compounds like where Amra lives.
She acknowledges her life is more comfortable than many in Pakistan — the Parsis are in general an affluent and highly educated community.
But says she wants to escape the daily challenges that beset the city of some 20 million people — ranging from power cuts, water shortages and patchy Internet to violent street crime.
“I’d rather have a life where I feel safe, and I feel happy and satisfied,” she said.
Zubin Patel, 27, a Parsi working in e-commerce in Karachi, has seen more than two dozen Parsi friends leave Karachi for abroad in the past three years.
“More than 20-25 of my friends were living in Karachi, they all started migrating,” he said.

That is not unique to Parsis — many young and skilled Pakistanis want to find jobs abroad to escape a country wracked with political uncertainty and security challenges, a struggling economy and woeful infrastructure.
The number of highly skilled Pakistanis who left for jobs abroad more than doubled according to the latest figures from the Pakistan Economic Survey — from 20,865 in 2022, to 45,687 in 2023.

Parsis are struggling to adjust in a fast-changing world.
The religion, considered among the oldest in the world, forbids conversion and mixed marriages are frowned upon.
“There is a better chance to find a Zoroastrian partner in Canada, Australia, UK and America than in Pakistan,” said Avari, who heads of a chain of hotels.
He points out that Parsi population of Toronto is some 10 times greater than Karachi.
Avari, 57, said that a wave of Parsis left Pakistan during the hard-line military rule of Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, who enforced a program of Islamization.
Since then, militant violence has targeted religious minorities, and while Parsis say they have not been targeted, they remain wary.
He suggested the community’s high levels of education and Western outlook to life meant many eyed a future abroad, while for those who do stay, family size is shrinking.
“Couples are more interested today in looking after their career; they are not interested in family,” he said.
“When they do get married, they will have one child — and one child is not enough to make a positive impact on the population.”

Parsi members were among the pioneers of the shipping and hospitality industries in Karachi, and the city’s colonial-era historic district is dotted with Parsi buildings including hospitals and schools.
But as the community declines, many buildings have crumbled, with as many as half the homes in elegant tree-lined streets of the century-old Sohrab Katrak Parsi Colony lying abandoned.
For many among the younger generation, the only pull left keeping them in Pakistan is their aging relatives.
Patel, the e-commerce worker, said he would leave if he could.
“It would be a difficult decision,” he said. “But if I have an opportunity which would give my parents ... a healthy lifestyle, then I’d obviously go for it.”
Amra, who visits her 76-year-old grandfather almost daily, worries that her parents will be alone when she leaves.
“You have to figure out a way, eventually, to either bring them to you or come back,” she said.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office on Wednesday dismissed a statement issued by United Nations experts demanding the release of Baloch activists arrested during a crackdown on protests in the southwestern Balochistan province, maintaining that the statement lacked “balance and proportionality.”
The arrests came days after the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) targeted a passenger train in the mountainous Bolan region on March 11, taking hundreds of hostages. The siege, which lasted for about 36 hours, ended after a military operation that killed 33 militants. The BLA attack also claimed the lives of over 30 civilians and security personnel and was one of the deadliest train assaults in the country’s history.
According to official statements, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), which has long campaigned for the rights of the ethnic Baloch community, initiated a protest seeking the recovery of the bodies of militants who targeted the passenger train. Subsequently, the BYC announced the arrest of its top leader, Dr. Mahrang Baloch, from a sit-in in Quetta where, according to the group, she and her colleagues were protesting with the bodies of three activists killed during clashes with the police.
The UN experts described these protests as “peaceful,” raising concern over “the use of excessive force” by the state against the protesters along with their subsequent disappearance.
“We have taken note of the press release issued by certain UN experts, which appears to be based on selective and unverified media reports,” the foreign office said in its statement. “It is imperative that public statements of this nature adhere to principles of objectivity, avoid selective criticism, reflect factual accuracy, and acknowledge the full context of the situation.”
“Regrettably, these comments lack balance and proportionality, downplaying civilian casualties inflicted by terrorist attacks while disregarding the crimes committed by miscreants who deliberately disrupt public services, obstruct freedom of movement, and create an atmosphere of insecurity,” it added.
The foreign office noted any assessment of these events should recognize that “these elements are not mere protesters but active participants in a broader campaign of lawlessness and violence.”
It maintained this was evident from the storming of the District Hospital in Quetta, where protesters “forcibly seized the bodies of terrorists” killed during the train hostage rescue operation.
“International human rights law unequivocally prohibits individuals, entities, or groups from weaponizing rights to infringe upon the rights and security of others,” the statement continued. “It also firmly upholds the right of sovereign States to take lawful and necessary action to maintain public order and ensure the safety of their citizens.”
Earlier, the UN experts had said they had been monitoring with concern reports of alleged arrests and enforced disappearances of Baloch activists over the past number of months along with the violent incidents in the past few days.
“Once again we see the use of excessive force as a first response to peaceful protests,” they noted. “We understand the deeply traumatic impact of the 11 March terrorist attack, and we express our deepest sympathy to the victims of this attack, yet a response which relies on arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and violent crackdowns on freedom of assembly cannot alleviate that trauma.”
The foreign office said Pakistan has an open and constructive dialogue with UN Special Procedures Mandate Holders and will continue its engagement based on principles of mutual respect, objectivity, and adherence to facts.