USA: Muslims respond to terror attack against Muslims

"The time is now for the world to wake up to the realization that the goal of the extremist clerics is to execute a full scale holocaust and they are not mincing their words…nor are they hiding behind any veils in making these goals known to everyone – we must take every measure necessary to stop them." [Naseem Mahdi]

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | US Desk
Source & Credit: Portland Muslim Examiner
By Harris Zafar | Portland, OR | May 3, 2010

The national Vice President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA today delivered a powerful statement about the vicious terrorist attack on two of the community's mosques in Pakistan last week. At a Press Conference in New York City, Mr. Naseem Mahdi - who is also Missionary In-Charge for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA - responded to the incident and delivered a strong message to the government of Pakistan, as well as terrorist groups that perpetrate such crimes against humanity.


In last week's brutal attack, terrorists stormed two mosques belonging to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Lahore, Pakistan, and indiscriminately opened fire with semi-automatic weapons and threw hand grenades at worshipers as they prayed. CNN reports that 98 people were killed during this unfathomable attack which lasted 2 to 3 hours as the terrorists seized the mosques, took worshipers hostage and began firing not only at the worshipers but also at the police who finally arrived some time later.

In a prepared statement, Mr. Naseem Mahdi said the following during today's Press Conference:

"My comments and this press conference are necessitaed by the horrific massacre of 100 innocent Ahmadi Muslims, members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Pakistan, while they had gathered to offer the Friday Prayers in two of our Community’s mosques in Lahore, Pakistan.

"I, and almost every member of our Community in the US, have lost dear and near, young and old, relatives and we – you see these members here with me - will be available for any specific information after I read the basic statement.

"There is also a video I would like to share with everyone and that I would like you all to please get copies from me of and share with the world.

"Let me now read my statement and then I will take your questions:

"In the name of the Most Gracious and Ever Merciful God,

"We are Muslims who believe in the Messiah, Mirza Ghuam Ahmad Qadiani.

"As such we belong to a Messianic Community within Islam that is dedicated to the eradication of war and bloodshed in the name of religion and for 120 years we have struggled to preach and disseminate these ideas among the Muslims especially and the world in general.

"This interpretation of Islam, so solidly based on the Quran, and supported by the life example of the Prophet is anathema to the extremists. The extremists have repeatedly used their power over the masses to brutally attack us in the name of defense of Islam to gain by violence what they fail to gain by argument, reason and rationality.

"This has been their strategy to continue to maintain their hold, maintain their grip, over the masses in Muslim lands. Persecuting and killing our members and burning our property has been their way of trying to gain legitimacy as the defenders of the Faith..

"This is how they recruit suicide bombers and fanatics to their cause both in Muslim lands - principally Pakistan and Afghanistan - and also from among the youth in the West...the killing and murder of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus Sikhs and other non-Muslims, when they can find them is part and parcel of the same campaign of theirs to position themselves as the defenders of the Faith..

"Even today, after this massacre, on television and countless other places in meetings and mosques the hatred goes on being preached and no one in any governmental body takes any step to stop people from such incitement to murder.

"Clerics of the highest rank are discussing on live TV the rules and regulations as they relate to the women of those captured in war and the apostates etc – among them are clerics who have openly declared in the past and declared again after the Lahore massacre, that Ahmadis merit being killed for apostasy and that the property of such people is to be treated as booty and the women of those so slain should be sold into slavery.

"I am here to say that we in America are spending billions in Pakistan and many hundreds of our soldiers have given their lives ...if we do not work to win the WAR OF IDEAS, we will have wasted our money and our soldiers will have died in vain..

"It is high time that we demand freedom of religion and due regard of human rights in all the lands where we are investing so much of our human and financial resources. We must not let expediency cause us to compromise on these principles.

"The blood soaked bodies of the 100 innocent Ahmadi Muslims have just been lowered into their graves in Rabwah, Pakistan. Their sacrifice demands that we take concrete steps to support,, strengthen and help foster in Pakistan the voices of moderation, reason, peace and hope.

"The attack on the Mosques of the Ahmadis was an attempt to silence the strongest of these voices of moderation. I have requested meetings with President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to personally and forcefully convey these sentiments.

"The time is now for the Pakistan Government to step into the 21st century and immediately repeal their blasphemy laws and grant to all citizens their full religious freedom and restore to all Pakistanis all their fundamental human rights, including the right to be able to live in peace and security.

"The time is now for our US Government to ask our Ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, in Pakistan and confirm that those who wish to wipe out the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s 4 million+ members are making no attempt to hide their nefarious objectives. She will confirm that step by step they have followed an agenda laid out many decades earlier. Declare the Ahmadis non-Muslim for purposes of the Constitution – done in 1974…purportedly to safeguard our rights! Make their daily life’s every aspect a criminal activity and deny them every freedom to defend or propagate their faith – achieved in 1984…purportedly to safeguard and not hurt the feelings of the general body of the Muslims…Next they are saying give the Ahmadis 3 days notice to recant their faith failing which line up their able-bodied men and kill them, and distribute as bounty their property and sell their women into slavery. The US Government must take every measure in its power to have all levels of Government in Pakistan eliminate the laws and ordinances that have become the tools to facilitate and institutionalize the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims and have been used against all minorities – including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and others.

"The time is now for the world to wake up to the realization that the goal of the extremist clerics is to execute a full scale holocaust and they are not mincing their words…nor are they hiding behind any veils in making these goals known to everyone – we must take every measure necessary to stop them.

"Today their plans are near maturing vis-à-vis the Ahmadi Muslims of Pakistan, tomorrow it will be the turn of others.

"The time is now to do the right thing.

"Thank you again for coming."

(Syndicated article from the National Muslim Examiner column.)

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