Opposition and Persecution in Pakistan
Religious extremist groups, who are made up of mullahs (self-appointed religious clergy) have long opposed the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Many such groups are regarded as terrorist organizations and all of them engage in and advocate violent and cruel opposition to the rights and lives of members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The most prominent of such terrorist groups is the Jama’at-i-Islami, formerly led by the late Maulana Maududi. The view of the Jamaat-i-Islami and other groups regarding jihad is equivalent to the view held and espoused by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban of Afghanistan, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and other such groups. Indeed, very recent events in Pakistan have witnessed the religious parties of Pakistan threatening to overthrow the Government of Pakistan and install a Taliban-like regime in its stead, all of whom affiliated in some way with the Jama’at-i-Islami. The following is a discussion of the development of the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan, and its legal framework.
1953 - Anti-Ahmadiyya Riots
In 1953, extremist religious groups, led by Maulana Maududi and other Mullahs, launched a campaign of extreme violence and rioting which resulted in widespread death and destruction throughout the Pakistani Punjab province. The professed target and intended victims of these disturbances were members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
An official Commission of Inquiry was set by the government after the disturbances, presided over by Justice Munir. The report of the Commission, known as the Munir Enquiry Report, completely exonerated the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from any blame and found the extremist clergy guilty, as a result of which the Pakistan Government imprisoned all of the extremist perpetrators.
1974 – Constitutional Amendment Ahmadis declared non-Muslims
Somewhat as a re-run of 1953, there were well-planned riots against the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in 1974, and the response of then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto was to placate the religious extremists by enacting a constitutional amendment which declared the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to be non-Muslim. The support for such a declaration was the ruling of the 1973 Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), convened in Pakistan consisting of representatives of each denomination in the Islamic world for the express purpose of determining whether the Ahmadiyya were Muslim. Not surprisingly, the conference delegates unanimously ruled in favour of declaring the Ahmadiyya as non-Muslim.
To this day, the Jamaat-i-Islami and its affiliated organizations continue to advocate the killing of members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and promise those who do so will be granted Paradise. Many members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community have been murdered on the streets of Pakistan and other countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka, and when the murderers are questioned as to why they did so, they invariably cite that promise of Paradise given to them from the pulpits of extremist mullahs as their primary motivation.
In order to gain political support, these extremist mullahs began threatening government authorities to accede to their demands of barring the religious practice and worship of the Ahmadiyya or risk the unleashing of violence and killing. Eventually, this persistent pressure produced results, first from Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto’s constitutional amendment declaring the Ahmadiyya to be non-Muslim, and eventually, with President General Zia-ul-Haq’s (the son of a mullah) criminalization of Ahmadiyya belief and practice.
1984 – Criminalization of religious routine of Ahmadi Muslims
Within the context of referring to the Ahmadiyya Community as the “cancer” of Pakistani society in a written message sent to an religious conference held in London, U.K. in 1982, the late President General Zia-ul-Haq promulgated Military Ordinance XX, which amended Pakistan Penal Code Sections 298B and 298C, to prohibit the Ahmadiyya Community from “posing as Muslim”. Simply by calling oneself a “Muslim”, greeting people with the Arabic greeting “peace”, praying (either in a mosque or in private at home), reciting any Qur’anic prayer aloud or calling their house of worship a “mosque”, an Ahmadi could be charged and fined or imprisoned for up to 3 years. In other words, the committing of normal, prevalent and socially acceptable acts in a peaceful manner would be punished under criminal law if (and only if) such acts are committed by a member of the Ahmadiyya Community. This enactment that did not criminalize an act, but rather, it criminalized the actor. Indeed, in Pakistan, even Christians, Jews and Hindus greet others using the Arabic greeting of “peace”, and their doing so is not only allowed but considered socially normal.
As extensively documented by non-governmental organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, pursuant to Military Ordinance XX, thousands of members of the Ahmadiyya Community have been charged and imprisoned for the mere peaceful practice of their faith. As Ordinance XX justifies violent sentiments felt by extremists regarding the existence of Ahmadis, thousands of Ahmadis have been assaulted or killed, have experienced the destruction or desecration of their property, or have been denied admissions to schools or employment. In addition, Ahmadi graves have been desecrated and the bodies lying in them have been disinterred and demeaned. As a result, Ordinance XX has been condemned by a United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights resolution and a United States House of Representatives resolution, as well as by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations.
1993 – Supreme Court validates anti-Ahmadiyya Black laws
In 1993, the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared Military Ordinance XX as constitutional on the basis that the commission of peaceful Islamic acts by members of the Ahmadiyya Community constitutes their “posing as Muslims”, and is injurious to the feelings of real Muslims and thus provocative. Therefore, the Pakistan Supreme Court held that forbidding Ahmadis from practicing their faith is necessary to maintain social order. Moreover, the Supreme Court of Pakistan referred to the practicing of Islam by the Ahmadiyya as akin to being a “Salman Rushdi” and thus so inflammatory that no government authority could justifiably contain people’s outrage. By making this analogy, not only did the Pakistan Supreme Court support and justify deadly violence against members of the Ahmadiyya Community, but they also indicated the applicability of the “Blasphemy Law” and the death penalty -- as Pakistan Penal Code Section 295C, also known as the “Blasphemy Law”, punishes blasphemy with the death penalty, the Supreme Court thus authorized the prosecution of the members of the Ahmadiyya Community and having them made subject to the death penalty merely for their peacefully-held religious belief and practice. As Section 295C imposes the death penalty, a person charged under it cannot be granted bail.
The lone dissenting Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan revealed that, after oral arguments and submissions, “religious scholars” (or mullahs), obtained private audiences with the Justices of the Supreme Court in their chambers and submitted evidence ex parte, thereby revealing that the Supreme Court Justices were recipients of pressure from these mullahs who were able to make submission despite not being parties to the action and hidden from open court hearings.
The result of the Pakistan Supreme Court judgment has been that thousands of members of the Ahmadiyya Community have been arrested and convicted for blasphemy in Pakistan and are either still in custody without bail or are currently sitting on death row. In addition, since the inception of the anti-terrorist legislation in the late 1990’s, as the prosecutions under it takes place in military and not civilian courts, where they are not charged under the Blasphemy Law, Ahmadis have primarily been charged pursuant to this legislation, now making Ordinance XX a less utilized enactment but still remains as the basis for the persecution.
While the Supreme Court of Pakistan asserted that its judgment was rendered in order to promote and preserve public order and safety, in actuality, its decision served to reward the violence-mongering of the mullahs and further encouraged by branding as justified any further violence and killing inflicted by them and those whom they recruit.
Former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Pervaiz Musharaf and as well as current President Pervaiz Musharaf each refused to end the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Indeed, the late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto deemed this persecution as her father’s honourable legacy and refused to declare the Blasphemy Law as un-Islamic.
2010 – Lahore Mosques Attack
On May 28th 2010, at least 100 members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at were murdered during the Friday prayer in Lahore. Terrorists armed with AK-47 rifles and hand grenades entered and opened fire on the worshipers gathered at the Baitul Noor Mosque in Model Town and Darul Zikr Mosque in Garhi Shahu. The mosques are covered in blood. An estimated 2,000 worshippers were attending Friday prayers when the attacks occurred. According to the media report, the police did not arrive until 25 minutes after a worshipper had called for help.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it had been warned of threats against the Ahmadiyya community in Lahore for more than a year and demanded “foolproof security and protection” from the government. Ahmadi community leaders had approached the police to register that threats had been made against the community, but yet again, no action was taken by the police.
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