Premeditated murders: Ahmadis concerned over state inaction

Pakistan Punjab

Premeditated murders: Ahmadis concerned over state inaction

Rana Tanveer
December 30, 2010

Community condemns murder of man, the fourth in his family to be shot dead this year.

LAHORE: The government has failed to provide adequate protection to Ahmadis, members of the Ahmadiyya community said while expressing concern over the killing of a man in Mardan on December 23.

The man, who was expecting the birth of his first child soon, was the fourth in his family to be killed in this manner this year.

Talking to The Express Tribune on Wednesday, members of the community criticised the government and said that they were targets of a deliberate ‘divinely-sanctioned’ reprisal campaign.

Sheikh Omar Javed was killed on December 23 in Mardan. According to a statement issued by the community, Javed was returning home from work with his father and cousin when assailants on a motorbike ambushed them.

Javed, sitting in the back of their family car, died after sustaining bullets in his head and chest. His father and a cousin were also injured.

The handout said that the assailants, having fired about 17 or 18 bullets, fled the crime scene. The condition of Javed’s father and cousin is said to be stable.

Javed’s widow is expecting their first child, the press release said.

The statement recalled that one of Javed’s cousins, Sheikh Amir Raza, was killed in a suicide bombing on an Ahmadiyya place of worship in Mardan on September 3 this year. His father-in-law, Sheikh Mahmud Ahmad and one of his uncles were killed on November 8, the press release said.

The handout recalled that another member of his family was also killed in 1974, the year in which Ahmadis were declared non-Muslim in Pakistan.

Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the head of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat, said that despite numerous killings that have befallen this family, they continue to bear difficulties with bravery and patience.

Jamaat spokesperson Saleemuddin said that Ahmadis were being threatened all over the country. He said that it appeared that the government was not serious in protecting the life and property of Ahmadis.

Appealing to the government to provide proper protection to the members of his community, he said that despite official inaction and silence over innumerable excesses, they continue to bear losses of lives all over the country with patience.

Munawar Ali Shahid, a member of the community, said that it was impossible for them to even mention that they were Ahmadis in public. According to him, just introducing oneself as an Ahmadi was enough to attract criticism and public isolation.

He said that because of a deliberate hate campaign initiated by some radical clerics, Ahmadis were considered not even worthy of staying alive.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2010.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/96675/premeditated-...-inaction/

Govt monitors Ahmadiyah religious practices

THE ARCHIPELAGO Fri, 11/26/2010 10:20 AM

Govt monitors Ahmadiyah religious practices

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

MATARAM: The government continues to provide counseling to the Ahmadiyah sect and ensuring that Ahmadis are not disseminating their teachings, says an official.

Didiek Darmanto, head of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) prosecutor’s office also heading the religion and sect monitoring body, warned people against resorting to violence in dealing with the issue.

“The prosecutor’s office helps monitor Ahmadiyah in NTB based on joint decrees by three ministries,” he said at a media conference on Wednesday.

“We hope people do not resort to street justice.”

Considered heretical, minority Ahmadiyah followers have been refused from the Muslim community including those in West Lombok, NTB.

After having been forced to take shelter, around 12 families last week returned home to their village, only to be evicted again by local residents.

They are part of 35 families taking shelter at Wisma Transito in Mataram after being evicted from their village in February 2006.

They had been forced to return to their homes because they had been staying at the Wisma Transito shelter without any certainty of their fate.

“The prosecutor’s office only monitors religious activities by Ahmadiyah. The social impact and the placing of Ahmadiyah followers are the domain of both West Lombok and NTB offices,” Didiek said. — JP

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/11/26/govt...-practices.html

Ahmadiyah followers threatened again

CITY Sat, 11/13/2010 12:08 PM

Ahmadiyah followers threatened again

The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA: Students of the Islamic College of Da’wah (PTDI) renewed Friday their threat to close down the Ahmadiyah sect’s Nuruddin Mosque in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.

“For security reasons, we leave it to the police,” Ahmadiyah national security commission chief Deden Sujana said Friday, as quoted by tempoinetraktif.com, adding that Ahmadiyah followers in Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi were ready to help.

PTDI students reportedly protested in front of the Nuruddin Mosque following Friday prayers. Police were seen around the mosque after 1 p.m. Last week, tens of PTDI members came, unsuccessfully, to seal the mosque. — JP

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/11/13/ahmadiyah-followers-threatened-again.html

Damned by Faith

Home » News & Politics

Damned by Faith

By Aftab Alexander Mughal                              10 JUNE 2010

Drowned in sorrow: Men console each other after the deadly attacks on Ahmedi places of worship on May 28. Photo: AFP

At least 95 Ahmedis were killed and nearly 100 injured in two dastardly attacks on their places of worship in Garhi Shahu and Model Town in Lahore. According to local police sources, around 10 terrorists, wearing suicide vests and armed with hand grenades and automatic weapons, attacked the worshippers who had gathered for Friday prayers. At the end of the five-and-a half-hour operation at the Garhi Shahu worship place and a relatively brief one at Model Town, two of the assailants were arrested while the rest blew themselves up.

The Ahmedis have consistently been targeted by sectarian outfits. They view themselves as Muslims, but following pressure from some Sunni religious parties, they were declared non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment passed in 1974 by the Bhutto government. Subsequently, the late president, General Zia-ul-Haq, introduced several anti-Ahmedi laws in the ’80s, including the controversial Blasphemy Law, adding to the miseries of the two million Ahmedis living in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, a certain section of the media, especially some Urdu newspapers and TV channels, have been actively engaged in instigating their audiences against the Ahmedis and other religious minorities, rendering their lives and properties insecure. Last year, well-known TV anchor Amir Liaquat was accused of inciting hatred against Ahmedis in his religious programme on Geo television, which allegedly resulted in the murder of two Ahmedis by fanatics in Sindh. Despite protests raised by civil society groups, Liaquat’s programme continues to be telecast. A few weeks back, Hamid Mir, another anchor from the same TV channel, was accused of using very irresponsible language against Ahmedis in a mobile phone conversation with a Tehrik-i-Taliban member – they are “worse than infidels,” he is reported to have told the TTP guy and accused Khalid Khwaja, a former ISI official who was then in their custody, of having links with the Ahmedi community, which allegedly may have led to his murder. (Mir disputes the claim that it was his voice on the mobile phone recording).

Shockingly, certain sections of the media in Pakistan appear to be more sympathetic to the Taliban and other terrorist outfits than they are to religious minorities.

In this carnage of Ahmedis, for instance, certain sections of the Urdu media were quick to accuse the Indian intelligence agency RAW and the Americans of being involved in the bloody incident. They continue to live in a state of denial. As does the Punjab government, which appears to be blind to the existence of militant outfits in South Punjab. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told the media that the attackers had come from North and South Waziristan’s tribal belt where the Taliban have been running their self-styled government. What he failed to mention was that it was the Punjabi Taliban, who had trained in Waziristan and returned to the Punjab to carry out the deadly attacks. The Punjab branch of the Taliban comprises mainly the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, who have joined forces with the Taliban.

Last year, Ahmedis, Shias and Christians in various parts of the country had received threatening letters from various militant groups. Consequently, the Ahmedis along with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had requested the government to provide them security but their request was not taken seriously. The HRCP, in its last report, had stated that at least five members of the Ahmedi community were murdered in target killings in 2009, raising to 100 the number of murders since the introduction of anti-Ahmedi laws by the Zia-ul-Haq government in 1984.

The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) headed by an erstwhile Zia protegé, which is in power in the Punjab now, is known to hold right-wing views and is often accused of having links with militant organisations.

Recently, his brother, the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, drew a lot of flak when he publicly requested the Taliban not to attack the Punjab because they, like the Taliban, were opposed to the US drone attacks in Waziristan. And Punjab’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah participated in an election rally with the leaders of a banned terrorist organisation in Jhang. Incidentally, many terrorists who attacked Christians in Gojra in 2009 came from that city.

In some instances, the police have succeeded in arresting the terrorists but the courts have released them “for want of evidence” much to the disappointment of the victims and their families. On May 25, the Supreme Court upheld the Lahore High Court’s decision to free Hafiz Saeed from house arrest by dismissing the appeals of the federal and Punjab governments for lack of evidence. Saeed is the notorious chief of the banned terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), which is now working in the garb of a ‘charity organisation’ called the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD).

A question that still remains unanswered is, why didn’t the Punjab government take any security measures to protect the Ahmedis despite the federal interior ministry’s warnings of possible terrorist attacks on them?

Police stand armed in their counter-attack against the terrorists in Lahore in May 2010. Photo: AFP

Following this latest attack on the Ahmedi community, other religious minorities living in the Punjab are feeling extremely vulnerable. And more so since the militants returned to Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital where one of the assailants was being treated, along with several other injured Ahmedis of the May 28 carnage.

There is no denying the fact that the Lahore attacks were the work of Punjab-based militant groups, and they need to be tackled just like the militants operating out of Waziristan in order to avert attacks of this nature in the near future.

Unless and until the establishment does not treat the country’s religious minorities as equal citizens and the media does not stop inciting hatred against them, the minorities will remain under constant threat from extremist forces.

URL: www.newslinemagazine.com/2010/06/damned-by-faith/