Most people in Pakistan, among other mainstream Muslims, do not view Ahmadis as Muslim at all. Only in India are they recognized as Muslims by law. In 1970, in a landmark ruling, an Indian court determined that Ahmadis cannot be declared apostates by other Muslim sects because they believe in the two fundamental beliefs of Islam: that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is a messenger of Allah. But in Islamic Pakistan, it’s a different story is told.
Ahmadis are forbidden from calling themselves Muslims or using Islamic symbols in their religious practices. They face discrimination and violence over accusations their faith insults Islam and community leaders say that open vitriol and calls for violence against the community intensified in 2017.
The punishment in Islam for apostasy is death, and as the world saw with when French teacher Samuel Paty was killed for “blasphemy,” this punishment can in the view of many Muslims be carried out by an individual, a village/mob lynching, or by government authority.
Four months ago, in Bangladesh, Muslims dug up a three-day-old baby girl’s body from a cemetery and left it by the roadside because she was Ahmadi. Not long after that, a Pakistani Muslim who was on trial for blasphemy was shot dead in a courtroom and the perpetrator said that “Muhammad ordered him to do it,” because victim was Ahmadi.
In Pakistan, “a surge in violent attacks on members of the Ahmadiyya religious community” is taking place sporadically, amid the “callous indifference of the authorities.” “Targeted killings of the Ahmadiyya community” are on the rise. Pakistan’s indifference is more realistically a manifestation of the persecution of minorities, as is seen abundantly in the persecution of its Christian minority. All while the country is obsessed with fake accusations of global “Islamophobia,” aimed frequently at India.
“Pakistan: Surge in Targeted Killings of Ahmadis,” Amnesty International, November 26, 2020:
Pakistani authorities should urgently and impartially investigate a surge in violent attacks on members of the Ahmadiyya religious community, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said today. The authorities should take appropriate legal action against those responsible for threats and violence against Ahmadis.
Since July 2020, there have been at least five apparently targeted killings of members of the Ahmadiyya community. In only two of the cases have the police taken a suspect into custody. Pakistani authorities have long downplayed, and at times even encouraged, violence against Ahmadis, whose rights to freedom of religion and belief are not respected under Pakistani law.
“There are few communities in Pakistan who have suffered as much as the Ahmadis,” said Omar Waraich, head of South Asia at Amnesty International. “The recent wave of killings tragically underscores not just the seriousness of the threats they face, but also the callous indifference of the authorities, who have failed to protect the community or punish the perpetrators.”
On November 20, a teenage assailant is alleged to have fatally shot Dr. Tahir Mahmood, 31, as he answered the door of his house in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab. Mahmood’s father and two uncles were injured in the attack. The police reported that the suspect “confessed to having attacked the family over religious differences.”
Several recent attacks have occurred in the city of Peshawar, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. On November 9, Mahmoob Khan, 82, was fatally shot while waiting at a bus station. On October 6, two men on a motorcycle stopped the car of Dr. Naeemuddin Khattak, 57, a professor at the Government Superior Science College, and fired five shots, killing him. His family said he had a “heated argument over a religious issue” with a colleague a day before. Jamaat-i-Ahmadiyya, a community organization, issued a statement saying Khattak had previously received threats and was targeted because of his faith.
On August 12, Meraj Ahmed, 61, was fatally shot as he was closing his shop in Peshawar. On July 29, an alleged 19-year-old assailant killed Tahir Ahmad Naseem, 57, inside a high-security courtroom. Naseem was facing trial for blasphemy accusations. In a video that circulated on social media, the suspect states that Naseem was a “blasphemer.”
Successive Pakistani governments have failed to protect the human rights and security of the Ahmadiyya community. The penal code explicitly discriminates against religious minorities and targets Ahmadis by prohibiting them from “indirectly or directly posing as a Muslim.” Ahmadis are banned from declaring or propagating their faith publicly, building mosques, or making the Muslim call for prayer.
The authorities arbitrarily arrest, detain, and charge Ahmadis for blasphemy and other offenses because of their religious beliefs. The police have often been complicit in harassment and bringing fabricated charges against Ahmadis or have not intervened to stop anti-Ahmadi violence. The government’s failure to address religious persecution of Ahmadis has facilitated violence against them in the name of religion.
“Pakistan was part of the consensus at the UN General Assembly that required that states take active measures to ensure that persons belonging to religious minorities may exercise fully and effectively all their human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law,” said Ian Seiderman, legal and policy director at the International Commission of Jurists. “The Pakistani government has completely failed to do so in the case of the Ahmadis.”….
Michael Copeland says
“The Pakistani government has completely failed…”
As a template that would find a lot of use.
revereridesagain says
Ooooo! Big Brave Soldiers of Allah! They are also busy beating up the savage, militant, defiant Bahai’s in Iran — probably for singing “Summer Breeze” too loudly — and now the Devout Future Clients of the 72 Renewable Virgin Whores are digging up infants because their parents are Ahmadis. That ought to please child-abuser Mo’.
Christians centuries ago abandoned such physical cruelties as the stake and mental ones like consigning the unbaptised to hell. That’s civilization. Enlightenment didn’t hurt, but sometimes a few centuries of being castigated for such things just gets decent people to stop. Obviously, this does not work on most of the Whores of Allah because they do not fit in that category. Good luck to AI with confronting these savages, it will go in one ear and out the other, meeting no obstacles along the way.
Whatever the Ahmadis believe in, it can’t be as vile as doctrinaire Islam. Please tell me there are a lot of Moo-slimeballs who read this site, because I am adept at insult and, even given the embarrassment of riches that currently comprises people deserving such, they still occupy the center of the target.
Blasphemy is a victimless crime. Anyone who kills in its name has no defense whatsoever.
gravenimage says
+1
Infidel says
Ahmadiyas are big time apologists of islam, and no ally of non-Muslims, even if they may not be direct advocates of jihad. There are enough real victims of islam to support, w/o going out of my way to support these apologists. Same goes for Baha’i: they too honor Mohammed and believe in proselytization, which is bad enough in itself
I’ll reserve my support for Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Daoists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains, Animists and so on. Rogue muslim sects like Ahmadiya and Baha’i – hard pass!!!
gravenimage says
I understand your points–but it still makes sense to note that Muslims are victimizing these people, as well.
James Lincoln says
Infidel,
As a devout Christian, I also support agnostics / atheists who are good people, follow the Golden Rule – and are staunch anti-jihadists.
My philosophy is not to be pesky preachy but simply to display good Christian values…
gravenimage says
Pakistan: Surge in jihad murders of Ahmadis, who are deemed apostates
………………
Just horrifying–but no surprise, Orthodox Muslims are often violent towards Ahmadis.
proud kafir says
Ahmadiyas believe in many of the fundamentals of Islam. That makes them just a variation of other mainstream muslims like sunnis, etc. Ahmadiyas have so far not come out in total rejection of islamic terrorism or jihad. Ahmadiyas are the example of muslim violence turning against fellow muslims where enough kafirs are not available. That should be a good warning for leftists and islamic apologists that a muslim majority society cannot be a peaceful society, as the reaction to even a small mis-step is incommensurate violence. But of course, this is not to support the pogrom against them, or for that matter, against anybody.
Giacomo Latta says
Ahmadis, Sunnis, Shiites, they are all muslims. As the koran says, they live for Islam and die for Islam. None of them should be complaining.
infidel says
And these Ahmadis UNITE with this human garbage to do Jehaad on Khafirs..