Ahmadis are admittedly a class of the citizens of Pakistan. Their religious feelings have been outraged by NEO TV's hate speech; the deliberate and malicious intent was obvious.
Source/Credit: Daily Times Pakistan
By Yasser Latif Hamdani | October 3, 2006
In my view, no real patriot of Pakistan or India can want a war between these two nations. It will all but end Pakistan and India forever, to a point where our collective civilisation will be reduced to the kind of ruins we find in Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Both Pakistan and India have a lot on their plate to be flexing the military muscle anyway. The war hysteria created in recent days is a distraction from the real issues of poverty, inequality, religious and caste bigotry that both these countries have to contend with. I do not wish to comment on India’s treatment of Kashmiris and Dalits because those are undeniable facts that many have written about. However, the day these two countries were bickering over whether there were surgical strikes or not, the big story for me was what happened in Lahore at the PEMRA office. This story was conveniently forgotten and shoved under the carpet because everyone seemed to be obsessed with the prospect of Indo-Pak war. This is what war hysteria does. It obscures the real issues.
The UN Security Council Resolution on Kashmir that Pakistan always brings up and rightly so was the result of masterly oratory and diplomacy of one man: Sir Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s first and most capable foreign minister who also happened to be an Ahmadi. It was he who changed the debate from India’s complaint to the legality of the document of accession on which India was basing its claim to Kashmir. This is an undeniable fact of history. Pakistan has a case on Kashmir thanks to an Ahmadi handpicked by Mohammad Ali Jinnah as the most able person available in Pakistan to plead Pakistan’s case. Quaid-e-Azam’s correspondence with MAH Ispahani about the great Zafrullah Khan is a matter of record and cannot be denied, just as the 11 August speech cannot be denied, try as some liars, crooks and cranks might.
This makes what happened at PEMRA on April 29, 2016 all the more ironic and shameful for us as Pakistanis. PEMRA was due to hear a complaint by the Ahmadi community against hate speech on NEO TV channel, where the panelists on a show on NEO TV had aired vicious lies about the founder of that community. The anchor in question is a civil servant in Pakistan. He mobbed the PEMRA meeting room with hundreds of clerics and failed lawyers, who started abusing the elderly Dr Mehdi Hasan, asking him to prove that he was not an Ahmadi.
The term “Uloo ka patha” was thrown about by a so-called ‘senior lawyer’ who was once part of the lawyers’ movement. Apparently, the lawyers’ movement has empowered the lawyers to resort to naked terrorism whenever they are not likely to win on merits of their case. Video evidence of this incident is available all over social media. The so-called lawyers involved in vandalism at PEMRA are easily visible in it. PEMRA had to have the Ahmadi complainant escorted out of the building after calling for police protection. Later, PEMRA ruled that the complaint was untenable in eye of the constitution of Pakistan. It is clear how they were coerced into making that ruling.
In any civilised country, these mobsters and terrorists would be in jail and their licences to practise law revoked, but we are no longer a civilised country, I fear. It is far more likely that these leading lights of the Punjab Bar Council would cancel my licence to practice law for exposing them here. That is a risk I am willing to take, because it will expose the system for what it is. It will not shut me up nor will the pusillanimous threats to my life will shut me up. I, for one, shall not be a party to silent execution of patriotic citizens of Pakistan. One either stands for Jinnah’s Pakistan or one stands for bigotry and fanaticism that these black coat terrorists stand for. I have made my choice and that choice is unequivocally for Jinnah’s Pakistan come what may. Of course, it is a tragedy that one is so alone in this battle. The silence of self-styled human rights activists in it for the awards is deafening. And what may I ask what is the Chief Justice of Pakistan doing about it? What is our most fair and impartial arbiter, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court, doing about it? Is everyone, including our finest judges, in this country powerless against terrorism and mob violence?
The terrorist mob that attacked PEMRA under the guidance of a civil servant and a ‘senior lawyer’ wanted to know why PEMRA even dared to entertain a complaint from the Ahmadi community. According to these leading lights of the law and civil service, the Ahmadi community does not even have the right to complain against hate speech. The civil servant in question tweeted asking why if Allama Iqbal could be criticised, why shouldn’t Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadi community, be criticised? The answer is simple: You forfeited that right when you declared the Ahmadi community non-Muslim and elevated Ghulam Ahmad to the status of a founder of a separate religion for the purposes of law and constitution. On top of that you put unconscionable restrictions on their freedom of religion untenable in light of Article 20 of the Constitution and the Objectives Resolution, both of which promise unfettered freedom to minorities in this country to freely profess and propagate their religion and freely develop their cultures. If they are not allowed to defend their position in public, no one should be allowed to attack them either. It is only fair.
Section 295-A of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 states: “Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of the citizens of Pakistan, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations insults the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term that may extend to 10 years, or with fine, or with both.” Ahmadis are admittedly a class of the citizens of Pakistan. Their religious feelings have been outraged by NEO TV’s hate speech; the deliberate and malicious intent was obvious. Do the powers that be, the police, the judiciary, the bar councils have it in them to enforce the law fairly and impartially? We all know the answer to that.
Knowing full well that nothing will change in immediate future, I present to you these lines so that when tomorrow the posterity condemns you for silently assenting to the persecution of minorities in Pakistan, they would know that there were some who spoke up against you and some who kept the idea of Jinnah’s Pakistan afloat even in the darkest of times.
____________________
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com
Read original post here: Perspective: Posterity will condemn you | Yasser Latif Hamdani
This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news Islam Ahmadiyya. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Times of Ahmad. Times of Ahmad is not an organ of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, nor in any way associated with any of the community's official websites.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comments. Any comments irrelevant to the post's subject matter, containing abuses, and/or vulgar language will not be approved.