Humanity is experiencing an "emergency" period. If on the one hand the WHO has declared the Covid-19 emergency over, on the other hand the emergency pitting Ukraine and NATO on one side and Russia on the other side with the bugbear of nuclear conflict as a backdrop continues.
by Francesco Alicino — In a constitutional democracy, the right to freedom of religion implies that everyone can freely profess, practise, and propagate their faith in various forms, alone or in community with others, in public or private, in worship, teaching, and observance.
Alessandro Amicarelli, lawyer and president of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief, asked Prof. Vasco Fronzoni, member of the Scientific Committee of FOB, if the ban on Halal slaughter could cause concern in the field of human rights. The result was an interview published in The European Times, reproduced below.
by Steno Sari — Religious freedom is so important that without it no freedom of conscience and no public liberty may exist. Following up the death of the 22-year-old woman Mahsa Arnin, deceased after being arrested by the religious police of Teheran ...
By Aftab Alexander Mughal — Civil-society organisations, including women rights groups, condemned the government minister’s proposal to ban ‘Aurat (women) March.’ Conservative politicians and a section of the media are also supporting the said proposal. Various women’s marches, rallies and events are scheduled to be held on 8 March on the International Women’s Day.
In the following article, Aftab Alexander Mughal, director of Minority Concern Pakistan, informs us of the position taken by the authoritative Council of Islamic Ideology against the violence for blasphemy that shamefully bloody Pakistan, fueling the hope that ignorance and superstition will give way to the knowledge and respect of the dictates of the Koran.
by Victoria Arnold — Russia has used increasingly strict legislation on "foreign agents" (a term which has connotations of spying) and "undesirable organisations" to curtail, complicate, or prohibit the activities of organisations which promote human rights and monitor their violation, including that of freedom of religion and belief. This "indirectly affects the people human rights defenders stand up for", says Aleksandr Verkhovsky of the SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis (branded a "foreign agent").
The case concerned the decision by the Norwegian authorities to allow the adoption of a child by a foster family against his mother’s wishes. The mother, a Somali national who had moved to Norway, did not ask for her son’s return as he had spent a long time with his foster parents, but wished for him to maintain his cultural and religious roots.
Prof. Vasco Fronzoni, is an extraordinary Professor of Muslim Law and Islamic Countries at Pegaso Telematic University, L'Orientale University in Naples and Ca' Foscari University in Venice.
We interview the professor on a topic that is currently arousing interest: "Criminal law and religious factor in multicultural societies. What Criticalities?"
CAP LC — It is with agonizing heart-rending grief that we come to you with the horrible news of the brutal target killing of an Ahmadi Mr. Kamran Ahmad in Peshawar, Pakistan. On November 09, 2021 at around 05:30 PM Mr. Kamran Ahmad an Ahmadi of age 40 years was shot dead by an unknown assailant in Peshawar, Pakistan. He has left behind a widow and 3 minor children. He was an employee at one of the factories on Industrial Estate Kohat Road, Peshawar. He was at work when an unknown man opened fire at him.
Our French associated CAP LC (Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience, NGO with ECOSOC consultative status) has signed a letter addressed to to the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to call on OIC member states to uphold their human rights standards by repealing the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy.
by Massimo Introvigne — Nobody knows how many Ahmadis there are in Pakistan, since many try to hide their religious affiliation for fear of the persecutions described in the previous articles of the series. However, they are in the millions, possibly four millions or five. Enough to be an interesting electoral constituency, and to assert their rights through the ballot box. There is only one problem about this. They cannot vote. From 1947 to 1985, Pakistanis had the right to vote in all elections based on the simple fact of being citizens of Pakistan, irrespective of their religion. In 1985, however, a year after the infamous Ordinance XX of 1984, which we discussed in the previous articles as a statute institutionalizing the persecution of the Ahmadis, the military dictator General Zia ul-Haq decided that, if and when elections will be held, citizens will be divided in two separate electoral lists. Muslims will elect 95% of the members of the National Assembly. Non-Muslims will vote to elect the remaining 5% of the members of the National Assembly, representing religious minorities.
by Massimo Introvigne — As we have seen in the previous articles, the military regime of General Zia created with blasphemy laws and Ordinance XX the most effective legal tools to persecute the Ahmadis. When at the end of 1988, Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister, Ahmadis initially believed in her promises of respect for minorities, although they also remembered that her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, before being deposed and executed by Zia, had also enacted anti-Ahmadi legislation. Their hopes were quickly disappointed. Benazir Bhutto did not touch Ordinance XX, and answered international criticism by arguing that several cases were pending before Pakistan’s Supreme Court, and whether the anti-Ahmadi ordinance was compatible with the Constitution was a matter to be solved by the judiciary.
by Massimo Introvigne — As we have seen in the previous articles, after the bloody Lahore riots in 1953, the Ahmadis went in Pakistan through a period in which, while they were still harassed and discriminated, they were somewhat protected from major violence. Things changed with the rise to power of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Educated in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, this wealthy lawyer served as a minister in most of the military-controlled governments that ruled Pakistan since the coup of 1958. In 1967, having been excluded from the government of Field Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan, Bhutto founded a “socialist Islamic” political party called Pakistan People’s Party, whose motto was “Islam is our faith, democracy is our policy, socialism is our economy.” After the ruinous secession of Bangladesh of 1971, and Pakistan’s defeat in the war with India, the military called Bhutto, whose party enjoyed widespread national support, as the nation’s only hope to avoid further bloodshed. He served as President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973, and as Prime Minister from 1973 to 1977.
by Massimo Introvigne — Because of the theological peculiarities discussed in the first article of the series, the Ahmadis were regarded as heretics by the other Muslims and persecuted since their foundation. Their bloodiest persecution was, however, a consequence of the foundation of Pakistan as a state for the Muslims of former British India. The persecution of religious minorities should not have happened, and was not part of the original project of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the father of modern Pakistan. When he was elected President of the Constituent Assembly in 1947, Jinnah promised to the citizens of Pakistan: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state….
by Massimo Introvigne — One of the oldest and bloodiest persecutions of a religious minority in the world today is targeting the Ahmadis in Pakistan. In this series, we will examine where this persecution comes from and who fuels it. First, we will have a look at who the Ahmadis exactly are.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) was born and lived for most of his life in Qadian, Punjab (for which his followers are sometimes called Qadianis). In the years 1880-1884 he wrote the four volumes of the work Barahin-i-Ahmadiyya, intended to show the superiority of Islam on other faiths, and particularly on Christianity, welcomed by many Islamic circles. In 1889, he announced to have received a divine revelation, around which a community of followers gathered.
By CAPLC — A few months ago, we reported about the demolition of the minarets and domes of the various Ahmadiyya mosques in Pakistan carried out under the supervision of local police authorities. Unfortunately, we again regret to report another destruction and demolition in a rural settlement called 261 R-B, Adhwali district Faisalabad, Pakistan. This profane act was orchestrated by the local police itself disguising themselves as civilians.
They said that the installation in Austria, in the cities of Vienna, Leopoldstadt and in Meidling, of some signs with the words: Achtung! Politischer Islam in deiner Naehe (Beware political Islam is near you) was just an innocent provocation. In fact, those signs indicating the presence of an Islamic site nearby was only the logical consequence of the presentation by the Minister for Integration, Susanne Raab (OeVP) of the so-called Map of the Places of Islam (Islamland karte), i.e. of mosques and Islamic cultural centres, present throughout Austria.
by Massimo Introvigne — An introductory paper at the Special Meeting of the Freedom of Religion or Belief Roundtable Belgium “The New Flemish Legislation on Religion: A Cause of Concern,” June 2, 2021.
The new Flemish legislation on religion and the statements by politicians surrounding its introduction are yet another example of what is emerging as a fascinating, if paradoxical, social and political phenomenon: the discrimination of some non-Muslim religions under the pretext of combating terrorism based on ultra-fundamentalist Islam.
by Massimo Introvigne — New religious movements significantly contributed, disproportionately with respect to the number of their members, to the birth and progress of modernist art. Among many artists who were Spiritualists, Theosophists, Rosicrucians, or followers of other spiritual movements—the list includes such luminaries as Piet Mondrian and Giacomo Balla, who were members of different branches of Theosophy—the Swedish painter Ivan Aguéli is a special case. He remained little known outside specialized circles for decades after his death in 1917, but has then been honored in Sweden by a museum in Sala, the town where he was born in 1869, and even stamps by the Swedish Postal Service.
