KARACHI - As millions of people around the
world enter the third week of the Ramadan fast,
the fraternity that typically unites Muslims
during the holy month does not extend to
Pakistan's Ahmadi community, which is facing worse
persecution than ever.
What little space
there might once have been for this religious
minority who believe that their founder, Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, is the promised messiah
and reformer whose advent was foretold by the Holy
Prophet Muhammad is quickly disappearing
altogether.
"What space for Ahmadis are
you talking about? They don't have any," Faisal
Neqvi, a Lahore-based lawyer, told IPS.
Declared non-Muslims in 1974, the legal
and social exclusion of
Ahmadis was further
enshrined in a 1984 law that prohibits them from
proclaiming themselves Muslims or making
pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.
While
non-Muslim missionaries are permitted to
proselytize as long as they do not preach against
Islam, Ahmadis cannot even hold a public
congregation or sing hymns in praise of the
prophet.
Last month, hostility towards the
community of four million bubbled over in Kharian,
a city in the Punjab province, when a police
contingent demolished six minarets of an Ahmadi
mosque, Baitul Hamd, and effaced the calligraphy
on its walls.
Raja Zahid, the police
officer who supervised the demolition squad, told
the Express Tribune, an English daily, that the
act of destruction was carried out following a
formal complaint from a religious organization
called Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz-e-Islam.
According to Zahid, there was a mutual
understanding that the demolition would take
place.
"We made sure that we were
respectful, but the law 298-B clearly states that
Qadianis [Ahmadis] cannot call their worship place
a mosque, and if it cannot be called that, then it
cannot resemble the mosque either," said Zahid.
An incensed Ahmadiyya Jamaat spokesperson
Saleemuddin told IPS, "There is no patented design
for a mosque or a law that states that a minaret
of a certain design can only be used by a mosque."
Baitul Hamd was built in 1980, four years
before the Ahmadis were barred from calling
themselves Muslims.
Disputing the police
statement, Saleemuddin told IPS, "They [the
police] came without a court order in the thick of
the night."
Ahmadiyya community leaders
have reported that their mosques and community
lands are routinely confiscated by local
governments and given to the majority Muslim
community. There have been instances where
authorities halted construction or renovation of
these places of worship.
The issue
originates from laws introduced in the early 1980s
when it became a crime for an Ahmadi to use any
symbol or words that might indicate he/she is a
Muslim, Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the
independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
told IPS. "The law is taken to such an extreme
that on one occasion, a child who was just a few
years old was sent to prison because he received
an invitation card that used the word
Bismillah, [meaning in the name of God],"
Yusuf added.
Religion, and with it
religious intolerance, has crept into almost every
state institution in Pakistan. But while many
decry the persecution of Shi'ite Muslims, Hindus
and Christians, few speak out about the Ahmadis,
who are hounded on a regular basis.
Fearing persecution, they have kept a low
profile for years. "While people remain unaware of
your identity, you are safe," Hasan Ahmad, a
medical student, told IPS. "But once people find
out you're an Ahmadi, the attitude changes
completely and anything can happen to you."
Since May 28, 2010, when 86 members of the
community were massacred in their mosques during
Friday prayers in the eastern city of Lahore,
attacks on Ahmadis has increased manifold.
Hussain Naqi, a member of the independent
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), told
IPS that the level of discrimination is becoming
even more severe.
"The civil service
carries out a full investigation of a person's
religious credentials to sift out those belonging
to the Ahmadi community, and if an Ahmadi is
erroneously inducted into the armed forces, he
will never be allowed to rise to a high post," he
said.
Naqi also lamented the irony of the
fact that, under the country's blasphemy laws,
defilement of verses from the Koran is punishable,
but not if they are defaced on an Ahmadi mosque by
the police.
He said the chief justice of
Pakistan should take this matter into his own
hands - "But I know he won't."
The latest
US State Department International Religious
Freedom Report for 2011, made public on July 31,
holds Pakistan's law enforcement personnel
responsible for the abuse of religious minorities,
especially abuses carried out under the guise of
the blasphemy laws.
The report noted the
present government's failure to take adequate
measures to prevent the abuse of discriminatory
laws, in particular the anti-Ahmadi laws.
Non-government organizations have alleged
that the anti-Ahmadi sections of the penal code
and other government policies foster intolerance
against this community and, together with the lack
of police action, create a culture of impunity,
the report stated.
Since the promulgation
of anti-Ahmadi laws in 1984, 218 Ahmadis have been
killed on religious grounds. Since the beginning
of this year, according to Ahmadiyya leaders,
seven Ahmadis were murdered in targeted killings.
"There have never been any arrests made,"
said Saleemuddin.
To make matters worse,
the inquiry commission that was set up to
investigate the May 2010 massacre has still not
come out with its findings and to this day
officials from the commission have failed to
contact the Ahmadi community.
Even more
distressing to the community and human rights
defenders is the media's lack of outrage.
"The media reports atrocities on a daily
basis, but nobody takes a longer term view as to
why this is happening," Neqvi told IPS.
"The narrative being peddled through the
mass media is that it is okay to hate some people,
like the Ahmadis, but not others (Shi'ites and
other moderate Sunnis). That's really what you
call a mixed message."
Himself a Shi'ite,
Neqvi believes the big question of the day is
whether there is any space left for anybody else
besides Wahhabis and Salafis (Sunnis) in Pakistan.
Efforts to wipe out the Ahmadis' religious
and cultural presence in the country have reached
back through the annals of history and are even
trying to scrub away memories of Dr Abdus Salam,
Pakistan's first Nobel Laureate and a member of
the Ahmadi community who was celebrated for his
role in identifying the properties of the Higgs
boson particle.
It is doubtful that even
increased media coverage will bring about any
change. In a recent article in the Express
Tribune, Neqvi wrote, "Despite the many atrocities
in the name of religion that this country has
suffered, I cannot remember even one instance
where the public, parliament and the media stood
united in condemnation for any length of time."
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