Pakistan

Washington D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) strongly condemns increasing attacks against members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan. On May 16, Dr. Sheik Mahmood, an Ahmadi Muslim man, was shot and killed in Sargodha. Earlier this month, on Sunday, May 11, Tahir Mahmood and Ijaz Hussain, both Ahmadi Muslim men, were arrested in Karachi for offering Friday prayers. During their court appearance on May 12, both men were violently dragged from the courtroom and assaulted by mobs, resulting in the death of Tahir Mahmood.

By Peter Zoehrer, Executive Director, FOREF Europe — On World Press Freedom Day, we celebrate journalism’s role in holding power to account and amplifying the voices of the vulnerable. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrines freedom of expression as a pillar of democracy. But this freedom is not without consequence. When media outlets stigmatize religious minorities, they don’t just shape narratives—they shape realities.

Our partner CAP Liberté de Conscience, which has always been at the forefront in denouncing violations of freedom of belief that affect religious minorities, published an article, which we republish below, in which it stigmatises the connivance between the Pakistani police and the extremist zelot group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in the use of violence against Ahmadiyya Muslim communities, their places of worship and even the graves in their cemeteries. The role of social media in spreading hate speech against Ahmadiyya Muslims is also denounced.

The International Human Rights Desk (IHRD) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the UK reports that at around 1.30pm on 28 February members of the Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) extremist group stormed an Ahmadiyya place of worship in Daska, Sialkot District, chanting anti-Ahmadi slogans at a group of Ahmadis who had gathered for Friday prayers. Police were called to the mosque, however they proceeded to arrest 23 of the Ahmadis who were present, including three minors aged 11, 14 and 17.

by CAP Liberté de Conscience — The International Human Rights Committee (IHRC) in association with CAP Liberté de Conscience has continued to draw the world’s attention to the severe persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan.

On March 9, 2024, in London, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ) hosted the 18^th National Peace Symposium. Among the many guests were Alessandro Amicarelli, Chairman of FOB, and Marco Respinti, member of FOB's Advisory Council and editor-in-chief of the academic publication The Journal of CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) and the CESNUR project  Bitter Winter: A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights.

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.

CLAAS (06.01.2022) – A Christian man, Zafar Bhatti, 58, has been sentenced to death by the Pakistan session court of Rawalpindi, after being charged with blasphemy in 2012.

He is accused of sending blasphemous text messages from his phone but has always denied the allegation against him.

Bhatti faced a difficult situation when in the same year the District Bar Association Rawalpindi passed a resolution that no lawyers of District Bar Association would appear in any case under Section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code on behalf of any accused.

How far can the hatred generated by intolerance towards religious minorities go? The article of which we repropose here below some excerpts provides an eloquent answer. In this case to pay the costs of the murderous hatred of ignorant Muslim crowds are faithful Hindus and Christians, i.e. the faithful of two of the major religions on Earth, in the Islamic world, however, they are often in the minority.

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.

Back in late 2018 we published an article on the release of Asia Bibi after 9 years of imprisonment for blasphemy due to the fact that she, a Christian woman, dared to drink water from a glass of her Muslin co-worker. We are now happy to find that she and her daughters are doing fine and that Asia wrote a book about her experience and the 'awful torture Asia Bibi suffered', hoping it will help Pakistan's Muslims to become more tolerant and to embrace a rightful freedom of belief for all religious minorities in that country.

By Aftab Alexander Mughal — Religious minorities in Pakistan criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government for rejecting the proposed ‘Prohibition of Forced Conversion Bill.’ The bill provides protection to Hindu and Christian minor girls from kidnapping, forced conversion and forced marriages. The bill proposed the age of conversion to Islam should be 18 years.

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.

Presentation by lawyer Akmal Bhatti, director of the Minorities Association of Pakistan (MAP) to the press conference “Is Suspension Of Pakistan’s GSP+ Status Overdue?” at the Press Club Brussels, hosted by Human Rights Without Frontiers – Brussels, 9 September 2021

By Akmal Bhatti — HRWF (21.09.2021) Since 1987 to August 2021, 1,865 people have been charged under the blasphemy laws, with a significant spike in 2020, when 200 cases were registered. Punjab, the province where most Christians of Pakistan live, is leading with 76% cases and 337 people in prison for blasphemy. The largest number of inmates is in the Lahore District Jail (60). Also, at least 128 people have been killed by mobs, outside any judiciary process, after being signalled as having committed blasphemy or apostasy, without any chance to have access to an investigation, and nobody has been arrested for their murder.

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.