A heavy police contingent on Friday, on the demand of a banned organisation, removed Quranic verses and religious texts written on tombstones of Ahmadi graves to save the area from clashes on religious grounds.

An application was moved to the area police of Uncha Mangat claiming Kassoki villagers’ demands of the removal of Quranic verses and religious text from Ahmadi graves in the graveyard on Hafizabad-Sheikhupura Road.

The applicants threatened of religious clashes and bloodshed if this was not done.

The DPO Hafizabad asked the police station in charge to take appropriate steps for averting any untoward incident or clash on religious basis.

The local SHO summoned elders and notables of the Ahmadi community of the village who met him under the supervision of Nasir Javaid, acting Ameer Jamaat Ahmadiyya, Hafizabad.

The SHO, according to Nasir Javaid, asked them to remove religious inscriptions, adding that if they did not do so themselves, the police would take measures for removing them in order to maintain peace and tranquillity in the area.

When they disagreed, says Nasir, the police went on with the operation anyway and forcefully entered the graveyard and whitewashed all religious text from the graves late Friday.

Calling it a positive achievement, the SHO claimed that no case had been filed against the act as it was meant to save the locality from clashes.

Secretary Amoor-e-Aama, Jamaat Ahmadiyya Faisalabad, Syed Mahmood Ahmad Shah, however, criticized the action and said that the persecution of Ahmadis was wrong and may lead to increased hatred between the two communities.

He demanded that the government take appropriate steps to save the Ahmadi community from such “unjustified and cruel acts of other communities”.

There are about 150 Ahmadi graves located in the graveyard while about 35 graves of Muslims are also found there.

Prior to declaring the Ahmadis a minority in 1974, Muslims used to bury their dead in this graveyard. Later, the graveyard was demarcated into two parts for burying Muslims and Ahmadis separately.

 Members of an Islamic organisation removed Quranic texts and religious words from the shop of an Ahmadi family in Kot Abdul Malik, Sheikhupura, on August 14 with the help of local police. 

Factory Area Police had gone to Qamar Zia’s mobile shop with members of an Islamic organisation, Almi Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat and removed two lines of Quranic texts and the word Mash’Allah from outside the shop and inside as well.

His father’s name “Muhammad Ali” inscribed on the gate of the residence, next to Zia’s shop, was also removed with the help of welding equipment and then painted over.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Zia said, “I kept on saying that this is my father’s name and not a religious expression, and it can be verified from his identification card, but they did not pay heed to my request.”

Zia added that after committing the act, a mob of residents and members of the Almi Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat, congregated outside the house and spoke against Ahmadis. The police then dispersed the mob.

Zia, a 35 year old cell shop owner who has lived in the Muhalla Roshan Abad, Scheme number 3, Kot Abdul Malik since he was three year old, said that at the beginning of August, three young men from the aforementioned organisation came outside his shop and began taking pictures. When Zia asked them to stop, the men abused him, saying, “You have no right to put this text up.”

On August 6, Zia submitted an application in the Factory Area Police Station, to complain against the harassment, but the police did not take notice of his protest.

However on August 7, the organisation’s men went to the police station and filed an application for registering an FIR against Zia, to charge him under section 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, after which the police invited both parties to the police station on August 10 to resolve the matter.

According to Zia, at the meeting, when he was asked to remove the religious texts from the shop, he refused, saying that the law can decide whatever steps it wants to take, but he would not commit the disrespectful act.

Zia claims that the police officer had cautioned him that he would be killed if he did not comply.

“Son, even if the Khatam-e-Nabuwwat men kill you, I will not be able to do anything,” the officer had said.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Dr Abdul Kursheed, one of the members of the Majlis said, “The Ahmadi man violated the law, and we will report them again if they repeat this act, and unlike this recent incident the police will take action, not us.”

Similar to recent incidents, wherein Ahmadis were accused of “posing as Muslims”, in this case too, police officials said the steps were taken to “maintain peace.”

SHO Factory Area Police, Sami-Ullah Khan told The Express tribune, “We took all measures to resolve the issue, we did not want unrest. Anyone can take guidance from the Holy Book.”

Khan added that, “we sent our personnel because people were gathered at the spot, and we did not want any untoward incident.”

Zia said that, “there was no way for us, but to give in to the law.”

He added that he did not send his children to school after the incident on August 14, out of fear, and said that he had heard rumors that the Majlis men were involved in campaigning against his business as well.

Almi Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat is known to campaign against Ahmadi business men and in promoting social boycott against the community through lectures, conferences and literature in form of stickers, banners and posters.

Zia said that such polarization had only increased in his area in the last couple of years.

In Punjab, persecution of Ahmadi citizens has been on the rise in 2012, including desecration of their places of worship.

Country spokesperson for the Ahmadi community, told The Express Tribune, “We send monthly updates to the Presidency, PM house, interior ministry, ministry of religious affairs, ministry of human rights and respective provincial governments, but have hardly ever received even an acknowledgment of our correspondence.”

On the role of the police, the spokesperson added that, “Kot Abdul Malik is next to Lahore, this is not Waziristan that the police could not control the cleric without giving into their pressure,” adding, “In a country, where our dead are not spared, how will we protect our living.”

‘The condemned’ is an endeavor to capture the persecution faced by the minority Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan – from their eyes.

The short documentary is a collection of testimonies in which those Ahmadis who have faced persecution narrate the target killings of loved ones, discrimination at the hands of fellow students and what it is like to live in jail as a blasphemy convict.

A town called Rabwah

Rabwah, is a town of District Jhang with the highest population of Ahmadis in Pakistan. The town is also home to some who have been convicted of blasphemy and under the anti-Ahmadi Ordinance of 1984, making them prisoners in this town.

A major chunk of the report was filmed in Rabwah and identities of some community members have been hidden for the sake of their security. The young man who shares the story of the horrors his family faced after his brother was accused of blasphemy has now left Pakistan. Therefore, we took the risk of showing his face on-camera. The town still provides a sense of security for the rest, so the condemned could speak with hidden faces.

They ripped his name out of books

with scissors dipped in venom
so our children wouldn’t be poisoned
with a heretic’s intellect.

They scraped his person from his
gravestone, because those in the
underworld would also object to his
being Muslim.

They bomb his places of worship,
they don’t like them being called
mosques, as if their own belligerence
was a superior form of prayer;

Our flag’s white rectangle,
the so-called symbol of the few,
flaps tattered and stained with
the blood of peripheral pariahs
like him.

They banished a man from the annals
of history for a sin so heinous
to be exiled by its own seven sisters.
It’s called genius.

While their bodies simmered with
the disgust of imposters and false
prophets, while they vigilantly clicked
the prayer beads like ticking
suicide bombs,

He presented them the Nobel like a
white flag, a fresh white rectangle.
While they thought they brought God
to the world with their self-righteous
calligraphy of hate,

He unveiled the God-particle.
And guess what, he wasn’t even ‘Muslim’.

An Ahmadi jeweller in Silanwali, Sargodha was charged with blasphemy for the second time in his life for “posing as a Muslim” and for putting up a translation of the Quranic text in his shop.

Muhammad Ashraf, who was earlier charged along with his co-workers in 2009 for posing as Muslims, was charged with blasphemy on July 23 this year under Section 298-C on the complaint of Hafiz Muhammad Imran.

Ashraf was sent to Central Jail Sargodha on July 24 and was released on bail on the exchange of bail bonds worth Rs50,000 on July 31. The case is under trial at a local magisterial court in Sargodha.

The FIR registered against Ashraf mentioned that he had put up translations of text from the Holy Quran in his shop at Kobi Market, Saeed Bazar, which was against the Section 298-C of 1984 Ordinance.

As per Section 298-C, an Ahmadi who “refers to his faith as Islam, or preaches or propagates his faith, or invites others to accept his faith, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations, or in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims” will be punished with up to three years in prison and is liable to pay a fine.

The text translation in Ashraf’s shop read, “O people of faith always speak the straight truth.”

The Station House Officer (SHO) of the Silanwali Police Station, Irfan Safdar, told The Express Tribune that, “After the complaint, our security constable Aslam and other investigation staff of police went to verify if the translation of the Quranic text was actually there at Ashraf’s shop, and it was. So we registered the FIR.”

The SHO said the security constables verified that, “Ashraf was spreading his faith and pretends to be a Muslim.” He further said that the “entire process of verification and taking Ashraf into custody took about two hours. Ashraf was taken into custody and then the FIR was registered quickly after that.”

According to details shared with The Express Tribune, on July 22, Hafiz Imran came to the jeweller’s shop which has been in the market for seven years, and asked for removal of the translation, which Ashraf refused to take off.

Ashraf recalled that Imran said to him “these are good words, but this (Ashraf’s shop) is not a good place.”

The next day, when Ashraf went to open his shop at around 11am, he met the police security constable Aslam, who according to the SHO verified the presence of the Quranic text translation in Ashraf’s shop.

Ashraf said the police security constable was followed by another man in civilian clothes from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) who picked him up and said that the SHO wanted to speak to him.

Ashraf was then taken to the police station and put behind bars. Eventually he was imprisoned for six days in the Central Jail Sargodha where he stayed in the same section as that of murderers and prisoners on death row.

In 2009, Ashraf and two other Ahmadi men who have businesses in the same market, were arrested for ‘posing as Muslims’ and for praying inside a room in the market. After spending 28 days in jail after that FIR, Ashraf and his co-accused got bail from the court.

District Police Officer (DPO) Sargodha Dr Rizwan told The Express Tribune that, “In my field of experience, the intolerance against Ahmadis has considerably decreased, over the last few years – I mean the use of violence against them by the extreme right wing. The use of legal apparatus to redress perceived transgression is indicative of improved civility.”

Spokesperson of the Ahmadi community in Pakistan, Saleemuddin asked, “Does the Punjab police have nothing better to do, than to register FIRs against peaceful citizens on complaints of every cleric? Do they not have terrorists and criminals to catch for people’s protection?”

The community says that there are a number of cases which are pending in courts against Ahmadi citizens, in which even women and children have been charged with 298-C. There is also an active FIR registered against the residents of the entire town of Rabwah with the same charges. Rabwah, or Chanab Nagar, is in district Jhang of Punjab and has the highest population of Ahmadi community in Pakistan.

‘Treated like lepers and Jews’

Leading human rights activist, former chairperson HRCP and former president Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan Asma Jahangir while speaking to The Express Tribune said that the government officials have always given a message that they do not recognise the Ahmadi community, which is “treated like lepers and Jews” in Pakistan.

Commenting on the current state of Ahmadi persecution, Jahangir said that “the situation is so bad that I, who do not support the Ahmadi faith but oppose their persecution, have been threatened.”

Jahangir added that the “politicians will only care about Ahmadi community when they are not on the separate electorate anymore.”

A well known Ahmadi schoolteacher was allegedly tortured to death while in police custody in Rabwah city of Punjab. The Chenab Nagar police has registered a case against two accused police officials.

Master Abdul Qudoos Ahmad, 43, was detained by the police in the first week of February in connection with the murder of Muhammad Yousuf, a stamp-paper seller from the Nusrat Abad area.

He was brutally tortured during interrogations, causing severe internal injuries, Ahmad’s family alleged.

“Later, the police released Qudoos and threatened us to hush up the matter. He was admitted to a local hospital where he died due to excessive loss of blood,” said Imtiaz Ahmed, brother-in-law of the slain teacher.

SHO Khadim Hussain of the Chenab Nagar police station told The Express Tribune that they have registered a case against two police sub inspectors, Sujhat Ali and Manazar Ali, under sections 302, 148, 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

He, however, maintained that the accused was picked up on March 24 and was released two days after as the police was convinced of his innocence. Hussain claimed that Qudoos might have died of some fatal disease.

Hussain said the body was sent for postmortem examination, adding that if the autopsy proved the cause of death to be torture, action would be taken against the accused.

Spokesperson for the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan Saleemud Din condemned the incident, terming it “callous and inhuman”.

“The way Master Abdul Qudoos was tortured and brutalised is the lowest form of humanity. The Police should investigate the murder and whoever is involved should be brought to justice,” Din said.

Saleemud Din alleged that the real reason for the teacher’s arrest was to taint the reputation of the local Ahmadiyya administration of Rabwah. “Master Abdul Qudoos was the President of Jamaat-e-Ahmediyya’s local chapter and he was arrested to defame the administration.”

The demolition of six minarets by the police at an Ahmadi place of worship in Kharian

The demolition of six minarets by the police at an Ahmadi place of worship in Kharian says a lot about the continued official discrimination against the beleaguered community and our culpability in this discrimination. The spate of attacks on Ahmadi places of worship and the continuous assault on their property and business has made life intolerable for them. Meanwhile, every time we sign a form specifically singling out the Ahmadi community as not being Muslim, we are quietly adding to the many problems it faces in the country. It is our acquiescence to the treatment meted out to Ahmadis that allows injustice to continue and even intensify. Essentially, in Pakistan, Ahmadis have been declared an outlawed community, one that is not only undeserving of protection, but in whose case law-enforcement agencies do nothing if vigilantes target the community.

Since the government has shown absolutely no inclination to protect the Ahmadi community from trumped-up attacks, it will be up to those few human rights campaigners and others, who care about the plight of downtrodden communities, to chronicle and reveal the many cases of violence against them. In Kharian, the complaint was that the Ahmadi place of worship should not have minarets since that would make the place of worship resemble a mosque. In other cases, Ahmadis have been accused of blasphemy and other crimes when the real issue was perhaps a property dispute or a related matter. In such cases, the police nearly always end up taking the side of the aggressor.

As tempting as it may be to simply turn a blind eye to the treatment of Ahmadis because the community is small and not worth the bother, we should always keep in mind that it is exactly this intolerant and bigoted attitude that has made life impossible for other minority communities and sects. The Shia Hazara community is just one example of a group of people, who are being targeted in a similar manner. Soon, groups will be targeted not just on the basis of their ethnicity and beliefs but also because of their lifestyle. Not stopping this menace dead in its tracks now, only ensures that it mushrooms and takes over the entire country later

PTA banned the official website of the Ahmaddiya community.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has banned the official website of the Ahmaddiya community, alislam.org, according to a report published in The Nation on Friday.

A PTA official, speaking to The Nation, said that the site was blocked because, as per the Constitution, the Ahmadis are not allowed to propagate their religious views publicly. He added that the PTA has already blocked several sites with inappropriate content in the past.

ProPakistani had earlier reported that the site was blocked after it was accused of publishing blasphemous content against the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

The Nation’s sources add that the Muttahida Ulema Board had demanded that PTA block the website for blasphemous content.

After media reports emerged of the site blockade, former MNA Farahnaz Ispahani tweeted saying that she had taken up the issue with concerned officials in Pakistan and is waiting for action.

    Ahmadiyah Again Find Themselves in Mob’s Sights

A mob attack last Friday on an Ahmadiyah community in Bogor’s Cisalada village has rattled the beleaguered group as it tries to recover from a similar, more violent, incident from two years ago. 

“It was about 1 p.m. when we heard people shouting outside and telling use to get out of the house,” Holisah, 32, a mother of two, recalled of last week’s incident. 

She hurried to get to her children; just moments later, rocks began raining down on her house, shattering the windows and the tiles on the roof. 

“We hid under the table and screamed for help, but when the mob broke down the door to get in, we ran outside through the kitchen door and hid in a ditch,” Holisah says. 

Her home had been repaired a year ago after being burned and looted by a mob of 200 people, mostly from the neighboring villages of Kebon Kopi and Pasar Selasa, in an attack in October 2010. 

Several homes, a school and a mosque belonging to the Ahmadiyah community of around 600 were targeted in that earlier attack, and it took the community more than a year to rebuild without any help from the government. 

Most of the 2010 attackers were minors and given suspended sentences. By contrast, an Ahmadi man who stabbed one of them in self-defense was given a nine-month jail sentence. 

“I don’t know what was wrong [this time],” Holisah said. “We just want to live in peace and quiet, with no more conflicts.” 

She sent her children to stay with their grandparents in another village. 

“Both of them are traumatized, they don’t want to come back. My husband also asked us to move to Jakarta,” she said. 

Witnesses have identified some of the attackers from Friday as having taken part in the attack two years earlier. One of them is Rahmat from Kebon Kopi village. 

“We don’t want [the Ahmadis] to live here because they are infidels,” he said, adding that he would continue to oppose the sect that mainstream Muslims deem deviant “until they leave the area.” 

Blame the press 

Bogor Police have blamed the latest attack on the arrival in Cisalada on four foreigners, including two journalists. 

“One of the journalists was recording the non-Ahmadi people, and this upset [the villagers] because the foreigners did not ask for their permission,” Bogor Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Hery Santoso said.

Not long after Friday prayers, people from surrounding villages descended on Cisalada and began hurling rocks at the homes of the Ahmadis. 

“We were at the mosque, it was quite far [from the village entrance],” said Michel Maas, an Indonesia correspondent for Dutch broadcaster NOS and newspaper De Volkskrant there to shoot a documentary. 

“We saw people running, and then the police officer who was with us ordered us to get into the car and said we had to go.” 

Maas and his team were whisked away to the Bogor Police station where they underwent eight hours of questioning. 

“We already followed the procedures, we have the right papers,” Maas said, adding that as soon as he arrived his team had reported to the local authorities, including the police, military and the local administration. “[But] we were the only ones who were brought to the police station, I didn’t see [police] arrest the perpetrators,” he added. 

The team headed to Jakarta after their release, but had to report back to the immigration office on Monday to verify their documents. 

“The media are blaming the foreign journalists, but nobody talks about the perpetrators who came with stones and sticks and damaged property, or about the people who provoked them not being arrested. This is very strange,” Maas said. 

The local authorities also used the journalists’ visit to urge local Ahmadiyah leader Mubarik Ahmad to write an apology for the violence. 

“The district police and military chiefs told me what I had to write, that it was my fault for not reporting the foreign journalists,” Mubarik said on Sunday. 

“Based on their instructions I also wrote that we will never allow reporters to enter the village without permission from the subdistrict head.” 

Isolate the victims 

Prior to writing the statement on Saturday, Mubarik asked to consult the regional office of the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), but was refused. 

“I have no experience in writing such things. I was not allowed to consult with anyone because the subdistrict head said they were short on time and wanted to settle the matter as soon as possible,” he said. 

Lawyers from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), which represents JAI nationwide, said they had been denied access to the village since Friday. 

“Police and military personnel posted around the village did ID checks and most vehicles with Jakarta plates were turned away,” Muhammad Isnur from LBH Jakarta said on Monday. 

He was also concerned that with the intimidation, the Cisalada Ahmadis would now be reluctant to seek outside help. 

“They have ceased communication with us, while we can’t force our help on them if they don’t ask for it,” he said. 

Firdaus Mubarik, a national JAI spokesman, said he believed the authorities had deliberately tried to cut off all outside access to Cisalada by preventing journalists from going in. 

“Now if a reporter shows up, the surrounding villages can use it as a reason to attack,” he said. 

Eko Maryadi, chairman of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), urged media companies to denounce the move. 

“Besides violating the Press Freedom Law, this means that local authorities are trying to stop news of the persecution of the Ahmadiyah from getting out,” he said. 

Silence the minorities 

Ismail Hasani, from the Setara Institute of Peace and Democracy, said local authorities were becoming more creative in finding ways to persecute Ahmadis. 

“The prohibitions against the Ahmadi community have now spread to their supporters,” he said. 

According to a report by the institute published earlier this month, there were 12 attacks against the minority sect between January and June 2012, compared to 114 last year.