Pakistan: Persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Continues; Report

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The apathetic response of the authorities germinates the most profound of exclamations not just from Pakistan’s own citizen’s, but from Human Rights Organisations worldwide.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: AMJ International Press
By AMJ Press Desk Report | November 24, 2013

Increasing lawlessness in Pakistan and a growing reluctance of state authorities to challenge religious extremists is resulting in the widespread ‘religious cleansing’ of minorities in Pakistan.

More than 300 Ahmadi Muslims have been killed by anti-Ahmadi extremists because of their peaceful religious beliefs. While Shias, Christians and Hindus suffer too, Ahmadi Muslims remain the only religious community to be persecuted through specifically targeted legislation.

The result has been profound. In every aspect of civil, political and social life, persecution has become increasingly common and in many parts of Pakistan is culturally ingrained. In its 2013 report, Human Rights Watch said:

“Members of the Ahmadi religious community continued to be a major target for blasphemy prosecutions and subjected to specific anti-Ahmadi laws across Pakistan. They faced increasing social discrimination as militant groups used provisions of the law to prevent Ahmadis from “posing as Muslims,” forced the demolition of Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, barred Ahmadis from using their mosques in Rawalpindi, and vandalized Ahmadi graves across Punjab province. In most instances, Punjab provincial officials supported militants’ demands instead of protecting Ahmadis and their mosques and graveyards.”

While Ahmadi Muslim doctors, teachers, lawyers, religious leaders and businessmen have long since been targeted, the killing of prominent Ahmadi Muslim families has become a critical new strategy for anti-Ahmadi extremists. In the last three months alone, three members of the Kiyani family were murdered in separate incidents. In one case a child accompanying one of the victims was also shot at. An Ahmadi Muslim doctor in Karachi was also brutally killed.

The apathetic response of the authorities germinates the most profound of exclamations not just from Pakistan’s own citizen’s, but from Human Rights Organisations worldwide. Far from protecting their inalienable human rights the Pakistani government, implicitly or explicitly, is unwilling or unable to stop the rampant sectarian killing that has devastated the social landscape for so long.

With the recent announcement of the Pakistani Bill, which many have dubbed Pakistan’s Patriot Act, the Pakistan government is trying to tell the international community that it is doing everything it can to deal with terrorists. This should be commended and we welcome every effort to support the stabilisation of Pakistan and maintaining the human dignity of all its citizens. But in the same breath, the Pakistan government must not on the one hand say that it will deal harshly with terrorists but on the other give legitimacy to religious extremists by allowing anti-Ahmadiyya legislation used to justify such violence to remain on the statute books. Equally, as Human Rights Watch has reported, Provincial officials must not support the demands of militants and extremists.

Terrorism and anti-Ahmadiyya extremism in Pakistan, both of which are inextricably linked, can be routed, but to do so requires the Pakistan government to; (1) undo the 1974 second amendment to Pakistan’s constitution which introduced sectarianism into Pakistan, (2) repeal section 295 and 298 of Ordinance XX which has introduced religious apartheid in Pakistan; and (3) make consistent and concerted efforts to arrest and punish all those who take the law, that means any law, into their own hands.



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