Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan During the Year 2010
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Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan during the Year 2010 A Summary Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan during the Year 2010 A Summary Contents Page no. 1. Foreword 3 2. Three special reports: 6 a. Massacre in Lahore mosques 6 b. Provocative conference in Rabwah 16 c. Suppression of Ahmadis in Azad Kashmir 19 3. Religiously motivated murders, assaults and attempts 25 4. Prisoners of conscience 39 5. Tyranny and prosecution go on 43 6. The duet of the state and the mulla 47 7. Mosques under attack, and worship denied 55 8. Problems in education 59 9. Burial problems, graveyards 63 10. Plight of Rabwah 65 11. Anti-Ahmadiyya open-air conferences 71 12. Miscellaneous, and reports from all over 76 i. Reports from cities 76 ii. Reports from towns and villages 81 iii. Media 87 iv. Diverse 91 v. NGOs 107 13. The anti-Ahmadiyya hate campaign in Pakistan 112 14. From the press 116 15. Executive summary 131 Annexes: I. Particulars of police cases registered in 2010 134 II. Updated statistics of police cases and other outrages since 1984 135 III. Laws specific to Ahmadis, and the so-called blasphemy laws 137 IV. List of Ahmadis murdered for their faith in 2010 138 V. Incitement to murder through a hand bill 141 VI. An appeal to the authorities in Azad Kashmir 142 VII. Auction of plots in state-owned housing scheme 143 VIII. Op-ed: An intolerant nation 146 IX. Op-ed: The Second Amendment 147 X. Hate material in circulation 148 XI. Some statistics and information for the year 2010 149 2 1. Foreword This year we provide a brief note on the background of persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan and make a few observations on its overall impact on the community. Introduction The Ahmadiyya … Jama‘at is a religious community and organization, international in character, with established branches in 198 countries in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and Australia. It has tens of millions of members worldwide and is growing. The Ahmadiyya community was founded in 1889 by Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, which he saw as an embodiment of the benevolent message of Islam: peace, universal brotherhood and submission to the will of God. He opposed violence as a means of advancing religion, rejecting terrorism in any form or for any reason. Anti-Ahmadiyya riots in 1953 and 1974 The Pakistani religious establishment brands the Ahmadiyya community heretical in nature and does not approve of its reformatory nature. Politicians have also found it expedient to support the religious establishment in their anti-Ahmadiyya stance. The first countrywide wave of violence against the community erupted in 1953. Following the riots, an in-depth judicial inquiry by the chief justice and a judge of Lahore High Court found politics to be the main cause of disturbances. Many a year later, in 1974, Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then the Prime Minister of Pakistan, found it advantageous to have Ahmadis declared a non-Muslim minority, which in Pakistan is a form of second rate citizenship. In his personal life Bhutto was nominally religious and his party had a progressive agenda, but his political rapacity moved him to interfere in the forbidden territory of religion. He orchestrated violent and countrywide riots in partnership with the religious leadership, culminating in a constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadi Muslims as ‘Not-Muslims’. It was a unique innovation; while other Non-Muslim religious groups, like Christians and Hindus, were Non-Muslim minority by their own profession, Ahmadis were forcibly declared a Non-Muslim minority through legislation. General Zia’s Ordinance XX Following Bhutto’s lead, General Ziaul Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, went many steps further when to gain the support of extremists he promulgated the notorious anti- Ahmadiyya Ordinance XX in 1984 which added Sections 298-B and 298-C to the Pakistan Penal Code. (The text of these laws is available at Annex III.) Through this ordinance, the religious rights of Ahmadis were directly violated. Under its provisions, Ahmadis could be imprisoned for three years and fined an arbitrary amount for ordinary expression of their faith. In addition to prohibiting them from proselytizing, it expressly forbade them certain religious practices and usage of Islamic terminology. This ordinance effectively makes a criminal out of every Ahmadi by including the broad provision of “posing as a 3 Muslim” a cognizable offence, giving the extremists a carte blanche to terrorize Ahmadis with the backing of the state apparatus. Since 1984, approximately two hundred Ahmadis have been murdered, hundreds more subjected to attempts of murder, a large number saw their personal properties looted and their places of worship desecrated. More than three and half thousand Ahmadis have faced prosecution in courts and hundreds of them have been convicted. An updated summary of police cases and other outrages since 1984 is available at Annex II. All branches of the government were directed to ensure proactive enforcement of Ordinance XX. As a result, Ahmadis have to live under a constant threat of arrest and harassment. Even using the normal greeting of Assalamu Alaikum has landed Ahmadis in prison. Emboldened with sometimes tacit and at other times active support of law enforcement agencies, extremists have been able to orchestrate large scale riots and violence with impunity. In many townships of Punjab, such as Nankana Sahib and Chak Sikandar, large sections of Ahmadiyya communities were forced to migrate after suffering loot, arson and murder. In all cases government did little to help the victims. Travesty of justice really played out when the victims themselves were arrested by the authorities. This atmosphere of persecution was pervasive and covered almost every aspect of Ahmadiyya life, from political representation to social life, from education to employment; there was hardly any area of human activity which remained untouched. Although the government has allowed a seat in the National Assembly for Ahmadis, it comes attached with the unacceptable condition that Ahmadis vote as Non-Muslims. This way, they have been effectively disenfranchised in the country’s democratic set-up. Ahmadi students have been denied entry into professional colleges for no other reason. On occasions, Ahmadis were admitted to a college on merit, but later saw their admission canceled because of their faith. Even to take residence in certain college hostels, students have to declare that they are not Ahmadi. A column of religion was added to the Pakistani passports and voter registration forms. In order to get a national identity card or a passport, every citizen of Pakistan who wants to be counted as a Muslim has to denounce the founder of the Ahmadiyya community. In the field of employment, even low level jobs are often denied to Ahmadis simply for the reason of their religion. These laws forced the Head of the Ahmadiyya Community into exile, for he could no longer perform his functions in Pakistan. In his absence, he was implicated in 17 different criminal cases, most of which carried long prison terms and one, for alleged blasphemy, the death penalty. He died in 2003 while in exile. The situation at Rabwah At Rabwah, the headquarters of the Ahmadiyya community, the Ordinance’s effect is especially glaring. Ninety-five percent of the population of this town is Ahmadis, yet the government has taken steps to deny them their basic rights of representation and assembly. The annual Ahmadiyya religious gathering has been banned since 1984. In 1989, the District Magistrate disallowed the residents from celebrating the first centenary of the establishment of the Community. They were even forbidden to put up decorative lights outside their homes or to distribute sweets among them. The same absurdity was repeated by the administration on May 27, 2008, the occasion of the Khilafat Centenary. In contrast, religious extremists, most of them non-residents, are allowed to hold meetings and rallies in Rabwah where they indulge in crude personal insults against Ahmadis and their leadership. Even holding of major sports events is prohibited. Through a legal device, Ahmadis have been deprived of their democratic right to vote. According to rules, Ahmadis may only vote after denying the very basis of their belief system — by declaring themselves Non-Muslim; consequently, the elected town council of Rabwah does not represent 95% of its population. There is even a criminal case registered against the entire Ahmadiyya population 4 of Rabwah. It remains open and any Ahmadi from Rabwah can be arrested against this particular FIR at any time. Publication of Ahmadiyya religious literature is forbidden. Ahmadiyya press is gagged; scores of criminal cases have been registered at the orders of the government against the editors, publishers and printer of Ahmadiyya daily paper and periodicals. They are not permitted to use simple phrases like Amen and Inshallah. The printer in charge of the press has been booked in scores of cases, qualifying him perhaps for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records. In 1999, the Punjab Government in a petty display of its power over a disenfranchised community changed the name of Rabwah to Chenab Nagar. On April 30, 1999, authorities arrested the top leaders of Ahmadiyya community on a fabricated charge of defiling the Quran, a charge that could have landed them in prison for life. It was only under international condemnation and pressure that the charges were withdrawn. The Blasphemy Law In 1986, the blasphemy law, PPC 295-C, was promulgated. It calls for the death penalty to perpetrators of “blasphemy”. True to the design of its authors, a large number of the victims of this law are Ahmadis even though it is unimaginable for an Ahmadi to countenance defiling the name of the Holy Prophetsa.