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| Burial of Ahmadi Muslims after May 2010 attacks on two mosques |
Source/Credit: The Heritage Foundation
By Lisa Curtis | Excerpt | January 26, 2011
The minority Ahmadi community ... is suffering severely from the growing culture of religious intolerance in Pakistan.
The Ahmadiyya Jamaat has approximately 10 million [sic*] followers in the world, including approximately 3 to 4 million in Pakistan.
Toward the end of the 19th century, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), founder of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat, broke with centuries-old Islamic dogma by claiming to be an Islamic prophet. (Mainstream Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammad was the last prophet.)
Six years after Pakistan’s independence, Islamists led by Anjuman-i-ahrar-i-Islam (Society of Free Muslims) started a mass movement to declare the Ahmadi sect as non-Muslim, arguing that Ahmadiyya was an entirely new religion that should not be associated with Islam.
In late May of 2010, militants armed with hand grenades, suicide vests, and assault rifles attacked two Ahmadi mosques, killing nearly 100 worshipers.
Human rights groups in Pakistan criticized local authorities for their weak response to the May attacks and for failure to condemn the growing number of kidnappings and murders of members of the Ahmadi community.
The U.S. State Department’s 2010 Human Rights Report noted that according to the Ahmadiyya Foreign Mission, 11 Ahmadis were killed in Pakistan the preceding year because of their religious beliefs.
*-The official website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community states their membership as '10's of millions' followers. According to some estimates Ahmadis number between 160 - 200 millions worldwide.
Read original post here: Pakistan: Fate of Ahmadi Muslims | The Heritage Foundation
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