This Pakistani Baloch elder and his two sons are today hiding in Afghanistan. Rights groups have criticised the Pakistan government’s crackdown on the Baloch people. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ZARANJ, Afghanistan, Mar 18 2015 (IPS)

Balochistan, divided by the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a vast swathe of land the size of France. It boasts enormous deposits of gas, gold and copper, untapped sources of oil and uranium, as well as a thousand kilometres of coastline near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite the wealth under their sandals, the Baloch people inhabit the most underdeveloped regions of their respective countries; Afghanistan is no exception.

Often overlooked, the Afghan Baloch count as just one among the many groups that make up the colourful ethnic mosaic of Afghanistan. And like the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, they have also seen their land divided by the arbitrary boundaries in Central Asia.

In his late sixties, this former MP during the rule of Mohammad Najibullah (1987-1992) is today a professor, writer, and a leading advocate for the preservation of the Baloch language and culture in Afghanistan.

In coordination with the Afghan Ministry of Education, Purdely has written textbooks in Balochi that go as far as the 8th grade, which are already being used in three schools.

The Baloch in Afghanistan make up just a tiny portion of a people scattered throughout the Iranian Plateau, but they are united by the experience of religious, linguistic and ethnic persecution in a region increasingly marked by Islamic extremism.

In Pakistan, for instance, the Baloch people have long weathered a crackdown against what the government calls an insurgency, while “Tehran is constantly trying to quell any Baloch initiative in Nimroz [a province in southwest Afghanistan] as they consider it a potential threat to their security,” according to Mir Mohamad Baloch, a political and cultural activist.

This Afghan-born Baloch tells IPS that an independent Balochistan is a “life dream” for him – but under current political conditions in the region, this dream is a long way from reality.

Currently, Zaranj hosts the only TV programme in Balochi in Afghanistan for one hour a day between five and six pm. Although the first TV channel in Balochi was set up in 1978 preceding the printing of the community’s first books and newspapers, the fall of the Communist government led to a sharp cultural decline in Afghanistan.

Historically a nomadic group, the Baloch people have endured years of brutal repression for their moderate vision of Islam. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, even issued a fatwa, an Islamic edict, against the people of Nimroz, calling for the ethnic cleansing of the Baloch and Shia population.

“Against all odds, our national identity is [growing] bigger despite the ongoing chaos in the country,” proclaims Abdul Sattar Purdely from his office in downtown Kabul. “We just need the rest of the world to know about us.”

Sikhs in northern Pakistan are fleeing the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where threats, intimidation and attacks are making life impossible for the religious minority. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Nov 20 2014 (IPS)

Balwan Singh, an 84-year-old shopkeeper living in Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is well past retirement age, but any illusions he may have had about living out his golden years in peace and security have long since been dashed.

The elderly man is a member of Pakistan’s 40,000-member Sikh community, which has a long history in this South Asian nation of 182 million people.

“The constitution limits the political rights of Pakistan’s non-Muslims." -- Javid Shah, a Lahore-based lawyer
Though constituting only a tiny minority, Sikhs feel a strong pull towards the country, believed to be the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.

Sikhs have lived on the Afghan-Pakistan border among Pashto-speaking tribes since the 17^th century, but in the last decade the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – once a cradle of safety for Sikhs fleeing religious persecution – have become a hostile, violent, and sometimes deadly place for the religious community.

For many, the situation now is a veritable return to the dark ages of religious persecution.

Today, Balwan is just one of many Sikhs who have abandoned their homes and businesses in FATA and taken refuge in the neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

“We are extremely concerned over the safety of our belongings, including properties back home,” Balwan, who now runs a grocery store in KP’s capital, Peshawar, tells IPS.

Balwan is registered here as an Internally Displaced Person (IDP), along with 200,000 others who have left FATA in waves since militant groups began exerting their control over the region in 2001.

Calling Sikhs ‘infidels’, the Taliban and other armed groups set off a wave of hostility towards the community. Shops have been destroyed and several people have been kidnapped. Others have been threatened and forced to pay a tax levied on “non-Muslims” by Islamic groups in the area.

According to police records, eight Sikhs have been killed in the past year and a half alone. When Balwan arrived here in Peshawar, he was one of just 5,000 people seeking safety.

“We want to go back,” he explains, “but the threats from militants hamper our plans.”

Karan Singh, another Sikh originally hailing from Khyber Agency, one of seven agencies that comprise FATA, says that requests to the government to assist with their safe return have fallen on deaf ears.

“Maybe the government doesn’t grant us permission to go back because it doesn’t want to enrage the Taliban,” speculates Karan, also an IDP now living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The 51-year-old, who now runs a medical store in Peshawar, is worried about the slow pace of business. “We earned a good amount from the sale of medicines in Khyber Agency, but we have exhausted all our cash since being displaced.”

Indeed, many Sikhs were business owners, contributing greatly to the economy of northern Pakistan.

Now, hundreds of shops lie abandoned, slowly accumulating a layer of dust and grime from neglect, and scores of Sikhs are reliant on government aid. The average family needs about 500 dollars a month to survive, a far greater sum than the 200-dollar assistance package that currently comes their way.

The situation took a turn for the worse in June of this year, when a government-sponsored offensive in North Waziristan Agency, aimed at rooting out militants once and for all from their stronghold, forced scores of people to flee their homes amidst bombs and shelling.

Some 500 Sikh families were among those escaping to Peshawar. Now, they are living in makeshift camps, unable to earn a living, access medical supplies and facilities or send their children to school.

Male children in particular are vulnerable, easily identifiable by their traditional headdress.

While some families are being moved out and resettled, Sikhs say they are consistently overlooked.

“We have been visiting registration points established by the government to facilitate our repatriation, to no avail,” Karan laments.

Dr. Nazir S Bhatti, president of the Pakistan Christian Congress, says, “About 65 Christian families, 15 Hindu families and 20 Sikh families are yet to be registered at the checkpoint after leaving North Waziristan Agency, which has deprived them of [the chance to access] relief assistance.”

Such discrimination, experts say, is not conducive to a pluralistic society.

According to Muhammad Rafiq, a professor with the history department at the University of Peshawar, Sikhs are the largest religious minority in Pakistan after Hindus and Christians.

Thus the current situation bodes badly for “religious harmony and peaceful coexistence in the country”, he tells IPS.

He says that minorities have to contend not only with the Taliban but also Islamic fundamentalists who regard any non-Muslim as a threat to their religion. By this same logic, Hindus and Christians have faced similar problems: threats, evictions and, sometimes, violent intimidation.

Kidnapping for ransom has also emerged as a major issue, with some 10 Sikhs being kidnapped in the past year alone, prompting many to pack up their belongings and head for cities like Peshawar, says Lahore-based Sardar Bishon Singh, former president of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC).

Bishon’s shop in Lahore, capital of the Punjab province, was looted in September 2013, but he says the police didn’t even register his report.

“Thieves broke into my shop and took away 80,000 dollars [about eight million rupees] but the Lahore police were reluctant to register a case,” Bishon recalls.

He says the police are afraid, “because the Taliban are involved and the police cannot take action against them [Taliban].”

Some experts say the problem runs deeper than religious persecution in Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas, extending into the very roots of Pakistan’s political system.

“The constitution limits the political rights of Pakistan’s non-Muslims,” says Javid Shah, a Lahore-based lawyer.

“Only Muslims are allowed to become the president or the prime minister. Only Muslims are allowed to serve as judges in the Federal Shariat Court, which has the power to strike down any law deemed un-Islamic.”

He believes these clauses in the constitution have “emboldened” the people of Pakistan to treat minorities as second-class citizens.

This mindset was visible on Aug. 6 when a Sikh trader, Jagmohan Singh, was killed and two others injured in an attack on a marketplace in Peshawar.

“We have no enmity with anyone,” says Pram Singh, who sustained injuries in the attack. “This is all just part of the Taliban’s campaign to eliminate us.”

He alleges that the gunmen, who arrived on a motorbike, did not face any resistance when they rode in to the marketplace. “Police arrived after the gunmen had left the scene,” he adds.

On Mar. 14 this year, two Sikhs were killed in the Charsadda district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but their killers are yet to be identified, Pram says.

While eyewitness accounts point to negligence on the part of the authorities, some believe that the government is doing its best to address the situation.

Sardar Sooran Singh, a lawmaker in KP, insists that the government is providing security to members of the Sikh community, who he says enjoy equal rights as Muslims citizens.

Peshawar Police Chief Najibullah Khan tells IPS that they have been patrolling markets in the city where Sikh-owned shops might be vulnerable to attack.

“We have also suggested that they avoid venturing out at night, and inform the police about any threat [to their safety],” he says.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Christian girls at a school in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 19 2014 (IPS)

Minority communities in Pakistan have long had a raw deal. Accounting for just 10 percent of this country’s population of 180 million, they are no strangers to marginalisation, discrimination or even violence.

But persistent reports that Christian and Hindu girls are being forcibly converted to Islam might just take the top spot in a long list of atrocities that non-Muslims are forced to endure.

“The situation is extremely grim. About 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are abducted in Pakistan every year. They are converted to Islam through the use of forced marriages,” Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, chief patron of the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC), told IPS.

Rights groups who have been following the issue for years say the number of reported cases fails to capture the true extent of the problem, since many families are unable or unwilling to lodge formal complaints, and the girls themselves are reluctant to speak out against the perpetrators.

In December last year, a six-year-old girl named Jumna, along with her 10-year-old sister Pooja, went missing from their home in Mirpur Khas, a city in Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh province. After hunting day and night, their parents discovered the girls were living with a man named Rajab Pathan.

Soma, the girls’ mother, told IPS that the case quickly blew up in the media, leading to a trial at which both girls admitted to having embraced Islam of their own free will.

This, according to a report released last month by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace in Pakistan, is typical of young girls who are kidnapped, forcibly kept away from their families and – in all likelihood – intimidated by their captors.

“Once in the custody of the abductor, the victim girl may be subjected to sexual violence, rape, forced prostitution, human trafficking and sale, or other domestic abuse,” the report found.

Focusing primarily on the Christian community, the study says roughly 700 of the girls abducted each year are Christians, while “conservative estimates” indicate that about 300 are Hindu. Most of the girls are thought to be between 12 and 25 years of age.

A dearth of press coverage and reluctance on the part of the police to disclose details of such cases mean the actual figures could be much higher, the report’s authors say.

Even when families do file official complaints in the form of First Information Reports (FIRs) for abduction or rape at the local police station, the kidnappers immediately file counter-claims on behalf of the victims, stating that the conversions were voluntary and accusing the families of “harassing” the happily married girls.

The cases are then closed, without any relief for the families involved.

PHC’s Vankwani told IPS he is unhappy with officials’ reaction so far to the problem. “The government fears reprisals from fundamentalist groups, so our complaints go unheeded,” he said.

The threat of armed groups is not to be taken lightly. A famous case in 2012 involving a girl named Rinkle Kumari illustrated the darkest side of the forced conversions.

Abducted from her home in the Sindh province in February, the girl was subsequently produced before a magistrate to whom she allegedly stated that she had married her captor, Naveed Shah, of her own free will.

That statement, according to PHC General Secretary Hotchand Karmani, was “made under duress” due to the presence of “dozens of armed men in the court premises,” he told IPS.

A troubled history

Comprising just 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s overwhelmingly Muslim population, Christian communities have traditionally settled in the southern port city of Karachi, as well as throughout villages in the Punjab, and in large industrial metropolises like Lahore and Faisalabad.

An estimated 200,000 Christians also dwell in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, formerly known as the North Western Frontier Province, with 70,000 Christian residents in Peshawar, the capital city of the largely tribal region.

Hindus form a larger group, counting seven million members who make up 5.5 percent of the population. Many reside in urban areas throughout the province of Sindh, but at least 50 percent are concentrated in the southeast district of Tharparkar, which borders India.

A long history of invasion, conquest and settlement has shaped the demographics of present-day Pakistan. Hindus, for instance, once made up the majority of the Sindh province, but were forced to scatter in the wake of Persian, Arab and Ottoman invasions, the earliest dating back to 513 BC.

Waves of violence following the bloody partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 forced thousands of Hindus to flee to cities like Delhi and Mumbai. While the Christian community has not experienced comparable bouts violence, they too have suffered attacks and systematic discrimination.

Those who wish to preserve Pakistan’s diversity fear that the latest wave of religious intolerance spells trouble for a country already torn asunder by fundamentalists often operating in collusion with what Vankwani calls the “illiterate clergy”.

All Hindu Rights Organization Chairman Kishan Chand Parwani told IPS he is “deeply perturbed” over the forced conversion of minority girls.

“Our problems are increasing with each passing day, with no apparent interest on the part of the government to solve them,” he added, pointing to the government’s failure to pass the 2008 Hindu Marriage Act, which would allow Pakistan’s largest religious minority to register its own marriages.

Government officials, meanwhile, deny that they have been sitting on their haunches. Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Sardar Muhammad Yousaf told IPS his office had issued instructions to all provincial governments to take legal steps to prevent forced conversions.

“The government has given us approval to take concrete steps for the protection of the rights of minorities,” he insisted. “We are set to present the Hindu Marriage Bill in the National Assembly soon.”

For religious experts, forced conversions fly in the face of Islam’s most basic tenets of peace, love and brotherhood. “People should be free to live in line with their chosen religions,” Peshawar-based religious scholar Ghulam Rahim told IPS.

“The government should protect them. Islam itself forbids the idea of forcing someone to take a religion they do not truly believe in. It goes against the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him.”

(END)

Soldiers in Bashiqa, Iraq, an area where Iraqi Christians are seeking autonomy. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
BASHIQA, Iraq, May 20 2013 (IPS)

Luis Shabi nostalgically recalls his nine years of novitiate in Rome and a “fantastic road trip through Europe” before returning to Iraq in 1969. “Those were the good times,” sighs the Chaldean Archbishop of Baghdad from a bunker in the heart of the Iraqi capital.

His office, in the basement of the church of Saint Mary of the Rosary, east of the city, is a humble temple. Yet it is protected today by high concrete walls, barbed wire and soldiers on guard next to an armoured vehicle at the entrance.s

“We have always been a peaceful and hardworking people, with a reputation for contributing to Iraqi culture with many writers, poets, philosophers,” the priest, wearing an immaculate black cassock and a pink bonnet, says of Iraqi Christians.

“But since the invasion in 2003, the extremists have reinforced the idea of us being ‘newcomers’, something like an ‘extension of the West’ in the Middle East,” laments Shabi, stressing that the fact that there were some Christian ministers during the years of Saddam Hussein “makes things even worse”.

“What has Europe done to help us? What about Rome? Neither civil authorities nor the religious ones in Europe have moved a single finger to assist us in one of the worst moments of our history.”

Targeting Christians

With Iraqi Mandaeans quite literally decimated – nine out of 10 have either died or fled since 2003 – the local Christian community has suffered significantly over the last decade. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports that about half of that population has left the country since 2003.

The Assyrian Council of Europe, an independent non-governmental organisation, goes further, pointing to the Iraqi Constitution as one of the culprits of marginalisation faced by minorities in Iraq.

“Islam is the state religion and a basic foundation for the country’s law,” states Article 2.1 of Iraq’s 2005 Carta Magna.

“We are not Arabs but Semitic,” Shabi proclaims. “We’ve been speaking Aramaic in Mesopotamia since the times of Hammurabi. We are the grandsons of Abraham and of Nebuchadnezzar, but our future in Iraq does not go any further than tomorrow.”"Our future in Iraq does not go any further than tomorrow.”
-- Luis Shabi

From his underground bunker, it’s just a ten-minute walk to the modern and majestic white facade of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The church was renovated last year, but here no one has forgotten what happened here less than two years ago.

“They were five. They jumped over the concrete walls and entered the church yelling ‘God is great’,” remembers Aysur Said, the current pastor of the church. “They said they belonged to the Islamic State of Iraq – a Sunni group linked to al-Qaeda. It was Oct. 31, 2011. We were attending mass.”

Said’s predecessor, Father Waseem, was one of 50 killed in the most severe attack against this community since 2003. “Some died by gunfire and others by suffocation. A number of them were locked in a room that we use to dress up. There are no windows and the air ran out right away,” Said told IPS.

A place in Eden

Immediately after the brutal attack, the Christians of Iraq demanded their own autonomous region in the plains of Nineveh region, in the northwest of the country, bordering the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq.

In those plains, where the Bible places the Garden of Eden, is a compact Christian population. Today the area is disputed by Kurds and Arabs. Its administrative capital is the former Baathist stronghold of Mosul, a place shaken by sectarian clashes since mass protests began taking place last December.

Bashiqa, 30 kilometres from Mosul, is one of the places that many Christians claim as part of their would-be autonomous region. From the Orthodox church of Mart Shmouni, 23-year-old Father Daniel underscores “the importance of unity among Iraqis”, though he admits that unity is not easy.

“This is chaos. The new authorities in Baghdad are unable to protect us, so our people continue to flee in the thousands,” Father Daniel told IPS. “However, in recent months we have also welcomed many Christian families arriving from Syria and knocking the doors of our monasteries and churches. Many of them [come] with virtually nothing.”

Despite its proximity to volatile Mosul, Bashiqa enjoys relative stability, something that Father Daniel attributes to the deployment of Kurdish soldiers in the area. “For many, Bashiqa is just a stop along their way to the Kurdish Autonomous Region, where security is complete,” explains the pastor.

Kirkuk, 230 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, also languishes in a legal limbo between Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government.

Imad Yokhana Yago, a member of parliament in Baghdad for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, denounces “genocide at the hands of Islamists” and the “continuous mass flight” of his people since 2003. At the same time, he advocates for a project tailored to his dwindling community.

“We fear there will be a new war in the country due to the tensions between Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Arabs,” Yago tells IPS from Kirkuk, calling for Christian autonomy in Nineveh region that would “protect our community and also work as a ‘buffer zone’ between the warring sides”.

The project, however, is a controversial one, as many fear that such region could turn into a ghetto into which Christians from all the country would be displaced.

“The repression we are suffering does not come exclusively from the Iraqi Arabs,” asid Yousif Eisho, executive of the Assyrian Christian Movement. “Iran, Saudi Arabia… there are too many foreign agents involved in the ethnic cleansing of our people.”

“The said ghetto will eventually turn real if the constant interference from the outside remains,” Eisho warned.

Twenty-five-year-old Syed Hasan, a doctor practicing in a private hospital in Lahore, plans to spend most of May 11, Pakistan’s long-awaited Election Day, in bed.

Members of the minority Ahmadi community in Pakistan say they have been disenfranchised by the country’s election laws. Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

A member of the Ahmadiyya faith, Hasan has promised to boycott the impending elections on the grounds that his community of roughly four million has been disenfranchised.

Ever since the constitution branded them non-Muslims, Ahmadis — who believe that the 19^th century cleric Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is the messiah promised by God – have been amongst the most persistently persecuted minorities in Pakistan.

This discrimination is felt deeply at the ballot box, where Ahmadis are compelled to register their votes under a separate category from other residents and thus accept the status of non-Muslim, in violation of their religious identity, Amjad M. Khan, president of the U.S.-based Ahmadiyya Muslim Lawyers Association, told IPS in an email.

According to Hasan, “If we want to vote as Pakistani Muslims, which we consider ourselves to be, we have to denounce the Ahmadi community and our spiritual leader, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as a false prophet,” a move he is not prepared to make.

He told IPS his faith is more important to him than casting a vote.

Though the choice is a clear one for many Ahmadis, civil society leaders and even conscientious political parties worry about what the boycott means for democracy in this country of 170 million, where hopes for a “free and fair election” have been running high ahead of the May 11 polls.

For Adnan Rehmat, chief of the influential Islamabad-based media development organisation ‘Intermedia’, “If 200,000 adult Ahmadis cannot vote because the…laws disenfranchise them…it means the elections are technically neither free nor fair” and indicates that something is “seriously amiss” at the core of the state’s functioning.

“Ahmadis…are discriminated against at a level that’s unprecedented, even in our own chequered history,” Pakistani novelist and journalist Mohammad Hanif told IPS, adding that forcing Ahmadis to mislabel themselves at the ballot box is “much worse than disenfranchising people – it’s more like taking their humanity away”.

Decades of discrimination

From its inception in 1947 until Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq took over as military dictator in 1985, Pakistan has had a joint electorate system that allowed all citizens equal right to elect political candidates of their choice, irrespective of religious leanings.

In a bid to “Islamise” Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq ordered a separate system for what he called non-Muslims who could only vote for five percent of the parliament seats allocated to them.

The system has effectively robbed the community of political representation, preventing Ahmadis from rising to prominent posts within the government or even finding employment in state institutions like the police force.

In 2002, attempting to appease hard-line Islamists, former President Pervez Musharraf issued Executive Order No. 15, which mandated that Ahmadis be registered on a “supplementary voter roll”, a move Khan says is “anathema to Islamic justice”.

Since then, he said, successive governments have been wilfully blind to Pakistan’s “voter apartheid”, violating Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Pakistan has been a signatory since 2008.

Although some see this discrimination as a purely political issue, for Ahmadis it is a matter of life or death. Legal loopholes allow religious extremists to lash out at the minority community, while the country’s controversial anti-blasphemy laws pave the way for further intolerance.

Last month, the Jamaat-i-Ahmadiyya (Ahmadi Movement) issued its annual report for 2012, stating that 19 members of the community were killed last year; in total an estimated 226 Ahmadis have been killed in sectarian violence since 1984.

Almost three years ago, on May 28, 2010, 94 members of this community were massacred in their mosques during the Friday congregation in the eastern city of Lahore. Not a single perpetrator has yet been brought to justice.

This year, the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by former cricket star Imran Khan, has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the persecuted minority. PTI Spokesperson Zohair Ashir told IPS his party considered all Pakistani citizens equal under the law.

“It’s a shame that past governments did not rectify the many injustices and inequalities in the system,” he said, adding that, if it comes to power, PTI will “address all such issues in an expeditious manner”.

He stopped short of specifying what concrete steps would be taken to ensure Ahmadi participation in the political sphere, admitting, “It is hypothetical at this stage to determine what legislative measures need to be taken and when. Fixing the economy and energy crisis and fighting terrorism are areas of immediate and high priority for us.”

Few believe the upcoming election will bring any changes.

Speaking to IPS over the phone from Chenab Nagar, a city in the Punjab province where 95 percent of the 70,0000 residents are Ahmadis, a 37-year-old Ahmadi journalist named Aamir Mehmood said he “cannot think of any politician or party that has the courage to initiate a debate and scrap these discriminatory laws in our country which are used against the minorities”.

As Election Day draws near, groups and individuals acting to protect the “sanctity of Prophet Muhammad” have been vocal about their approval of discriminatory election laws and their disdain for the scheduled boycott.

“If they (Ahmadis) want to reverse this decision (the 2002 executive order), they must take the route of the courts and the parliament,” Qasim Farooqi, spokesperson of the proscribed sectarian outfit Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) told IPS.

“Boycotting is not the answer,” said Farooqi. “Voting is important, the Ahmadis must play their role — by not participating in the elections, they are only making the country weak,” he stressed.

The simmering tension bodes badly for Ahmadis, who sooner or later will be forced to bear the brunt of Islamists’ wrath. Last month, seven Ahmadis were booked on various charges including “defiling the Holy Quran” and “calling themselves Muslims”. They were also accused of printing and distributing “blasphemous” literature in the form of the community’s newspaper, ‘Al-Fazal’.

Community leaders said that the paper, one of the oldest in Pakistan, was only distributed within their community.

As millions 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 before.

One of the minarets of Baitul Hamd in Kharian, in the process of being demolished. Credit: Ahmadiyya Jammat

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 proselytise as long as they do not preach against Islam, Ahamdis 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 organisation 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.”

In fact, 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.

“It all originates from the laws introduced in the early 80s 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 “once, 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 Shia Muslims, Hindus and Christians, few speak out about the Ahmadiyya, 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 in 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 Quran 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,” he concluded despairingly.

The latest U.S. State Department International Religious Freedom Report for 2011, made public on Jul. 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-governmental organisations (NGOs) have alleged that the anti-Ahmadi sections of the penal code and other government policies fostered intolerance against this community and, together with the lack of police action, created 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.

But what is 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 mass media is that it is okay to hate some people, like the Ahmadis, but not others (Shias and other moderate Sunnis). That’s really what you call a mixed message.”

Himself a Shia, Neqvi believes the big question of the day is “whether there is any space left for anybody else besides Wahabis and Salafis (Sunnis) in Pakistan”.

Efforts to wipe out 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 indentifying 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 (significant) length of time.”

(END)