Tuesday, August 23, 2011

PAKISTAN - The Violance in Karachi

"In Karachi, a Call for Calm Amid Deadly Ethnic Violence" PBS Newshour 8/22/2011

Excerpt from transcript

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Violence has never been a stranger to the people of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial center. But as violence has intensified in recent months, some citizens are trying to stem the tide.

Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro has a report. A version of Fred's story can be seen on the PBS program "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly."

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Modern-day Karachi has been defined by migration.

In 1947, at independence, when the British partitioned India, millions of Indian Muslims flocked to the city. So did people from other provinces of the new Pakistan, like Punjab and the northwest along the Afghan border, and migration from that troubled region skyrocketed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and after 9/11.

Today, Karachi's neighborhoods, its politics, and much of its strife happen along ethnic lines.

In recent weeks, hundreds of people have been killed in ethnic clashes in this mega-city of some 16 million.

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