[..... according to figures published last November, 756 people have
been booked for the "crime" of displaying the Kalima -- which carries
the death penalty, 404 for "posing as Muslims," and 27 for celebrating
the Ahmaddiyya Centenary in 1989. More than 1,300 others have been
charged under similar provisions of this law -- all facing punishment
ranging from three years and a fine to life imprisonment or the death
penalty ..... In one case, Nazir Ahmad Khoso, a seventeen-year-old
Ahmadi boy from Sindh, was charged with "injuring the religious
feelings of Muslims," and other related blasphemy charges and sentenced
to 118 years in prison ..... And the entire population -- 35,000 people
-- of Rabwah, a town built by the Ahmadis -- was charged under "PPC
298-C" in 1989. The crime -- having inscribed the Kalima Tayyaba and
other Quranic verses on their graves, buildings, offices of the
community, places of worship, and business centres. They were also
charged with having said Assalamo-Alaikum to Muslims, for having
recited the Kalima Tayyaba, and for having repeatedly indulged in
similar Islamic activities]
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/03/05/d603051503107.htm
Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Sunday, March 5, 2006
Unwelcome home
By Kiran Malik
No dome, no minaret, no call to prayer, just an unmarked house in a
secret location. This is Eid prayers for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community
of Karachi, Pakistan.
As our taxi turns the corner, my mother recognises the "place of
worship" by the obvious blank space where its signboard once was. She
says nothing as we drive past it, then asks the driver to drop us at
the end of the road.
At the gate, a man asks us who we are, where we're from, who we're
related to. Satisfied, he lets us in.
He is right to be suspicious. The Ahmadiyya Muslim sect -- of which I
am a British Pakistani member -- was recently described as, "one of the
most relentlessly persecuted communities in the history of Pakistan" by
the BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan.
In 1974, following riots orchestrated by Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami
party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto caved into pressure from the Mullahs and
passed a motion to declare Ahmadis non-Muslim.
Ignoring warnings from prominent judges, human rights activists and
academics, Bhutto argued that appeasing the Mullahs would put an end to
sectarian problems.
But more than 30 years on, Pakistan's Muslims are in a state of civil
war. As well as the persecution of Ahmadis and recent attacks on the
minority Ismaili sect, extremists from Pakistan's dominant Sunni and
Shi'ite sects are intent on destroying each other.
Mosques and mullahs
As we enter the mosque, a small television in the corner plays MTA, the
television channel run by the Ahmadis out of London. On it is a re-run
with the Pakistani poet Obaidullah Aleem exchanging humorous couplets
with the third Caliph of the Ahmadi Jamaat, Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad.
Although watching MTA in your own home is not forbidden under Pakistani
law, this seemingly innocuous action has led to targeted attacks on
Ahmadis all over Pakistan.
The Khutba is on the importance of giving charity and helping others.
There is no mention of Ahmadi persecution, no demand for rights, no
cries for vengeance.
At the end of the Khutba our Caliph asks us to pray for those killed in
the earthquake which took place a few weeks earlier. He also asks us to
remember those Ahmadis killed in an attack on an Ahmadi mosque around
the same time. That's it.
We say our salaams and wish Eid Mubarak to those around us. If caught,
we would face a minimum of three years in prison.
Freedom of expression
During my two weeks in Pakistan this January, I come across four
articles citing recent anti-Ahmadi propaganda. All report inflammatory
speeches from various mullahs describing the "Qadiani problem" (Qadiani
is what detractors call Ahmadis) as "the greatest problem facing
Muslims today," nearly all compare Ahmadis to Jews and insist they are
agents of Israel.
One Mullah, not satisfied that Ahmadis are legally forbidden from
calling their places of worship "mosques," from giving Azan, from
voting and from calling themselves Muslim, insists on a social boycott
of all remaining "Qadianis" -- "Anyone who speaks to Qadianis will be
considered an agent of the Qadianis and deserves to be punished."
In another speech quoted by The Herald, a local mullah insists it is a
good Muslim's duty to "wipe Ahmadis off the face of Pakistan." Another
allegedly tells his audience at Majlis-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat that Ahmadis
are "non-Muslims who deserved to be killed."
In light of recent events, when Muslim groups in Pakistan and the world
over have urged the media to consider practicing freedom of expression
with responsibility it seems ironic that for Pakistan's mullahs,
freedom of expression is a one-way street.
Irfan Hussain, a columnist with Pakistan's Daily Times and Herald
magazine, is one of the few voices maintaining pressure on the
Pakistani administration to resolve the Ahmadiyya issue. He argues that
Musharraf's policy of enlightened moderation is ineffective until the
will to change is passed through the entire system. A system which,
under Zia-ul-Haq, was progressively Islamised.
The mullahs don't agree. They see Musharraf's modernisation drive as a
sinister plot to create a "Qadiani state." Their criticisms would be
laughable if the repercussions were not so sinister.
One rants: "Musharraf is giving the Qadianis free reign, they are
saying Assalamo-Alaikum with impunity. We have evidence that they are
praying in the Muslim way and many have the Kalima in their homes."
In fact, according to figures published last November, 756 people have
been booked for the "crime" of displaying the Kalima -- which carries
the death penalty, 404 for "posing as Muslims," and 27 for celebrating
the Ahmaddiyya Centenary in 1989. More than 1,300 others have been
charged under similar provisions of this law -- all facing punishment
ranging from three years and a fine to life imprisonment or the death
penalty.
In one case, Nazir Ahmad Khoso, a seventeen-year-old Ahmadi boy from
Sindh, was charged with "injuring the religious feelings of Muslims,"
and other related blasphemy charges and sentenced to 118 years in
prison.
And the entire population -- 35,000 people -- of Rabwah, a town built
by the Ahmadis -- was charged under "PPC 298-C" in 1989. The crime --
having inscribed the Kalima Tayyaba and other Quranic verses on their
graves, buildings, offices of the community, places of worship, and
business centres. They were also charged with having said
Assalamo-Alaikum to Muslims, for having recited the Kalima Tayyaba, and
for having repeatedly indulged in similar Islamic activities.
Of course, I haven't researched any of this as I make my way to Rabwah
-- the centre of the Ahmadi community in Pakistan.
Houris and bureaucrats
On the face of things, Rabwah is an ordinary town. Unusually clean and
well-ordered compared to its surrounding area perhaps, but ordinary in
every other way.
Flanked on one side by the river Chenab, it is built on land purchased
by contributions from the community's faithful.
But Ahmadis have not even been able to find peace here. Local
government bodies, from which Ahmadis are excluded, have maintained an
incessant campaign of harassment against the townspeople.
In 1985, eleven years after declaring Ahmadis non-Muslim, the Punjab
Assembly ruled that the town be declared an open town, and forcibly
changed the name to Chenab Nagar.
Prior to this, in 1976, local mullahs took over Ahmadi-owned land on
the eastern part of Rabwah as police and local government forces looked
on. Ahmadis petitioned the Lahore High Court, and, unusually, the court
upheld the Ahmadis rights to the land.
Despite this, numerous mullahs and their acolytes are still in illegal
occupation of the land and have established a mosque, a seminary, and a
"Muslim Colony" there -- with government support.
"Muslim Colony" is flourishing and the various Mosques set up in it
take every opportunity to use their loudspeakers to spew hatred filled
sermons at their "Qadiani" neighbours. Ahmadis are, of course, legally
prevented from using loudspeakers in their own "place of worship."
And during my trip, the District Housing Committee Jhang, a government
body, advertises empty plots in Rabwah on the riverside in the press.
In direct violation of the Lahore High Court hearing, the text of the
advert reads: "Plots will be sold by auction, but only to those who
believed in 'complete and unconditional end of prophethood' and who is
not a disciple of anybody who claimed to be a prophet in any sense of
the word or was an Ahmadi/ Qadiani/Mirzai/Lahori."
And a few weeks earlier, local authorities shut off Rabwah's water
supply for four days, leaving "citizens groping for drops," according
to a Lahore-based newspaper.
This, under Musharraf's policy of enlightened moderation.
As we drive to my grandmother's grave, my mother tells me about the
university graduate she met on a train who insisted he had seen naked
houris dancing in the Ahmadi graveyard in Rabwah. My mother politely
suggested that this was maybe hearsay, but the man was adamant he had
seen them "with his own eyes."
Disappointingly, no such visions of loveliness greet us at our arrival
to the Chiste-Mukhbara, where my grandmother is buried alongside other
practising Ahmadis.
Instead, an ordinary graveyard, with two old men acting as guards.
As we are guided to my grandmother's grave we walk past hundreds of
graves which have had the Islamic inscriptions written on them scraped
off. Even in death, there is no respite.
I come across one positive story though. A family friend tells us of
how a teenager was arrested for saying Assalamo-Alaikum to a military
man. Apparently, after the boy had offered the greeting, the man asked
him if he was "Qadiani" to which the boy replied truthfully. This
admission of "guilt" was then used to drag the boy to the local police
station. Apparently, the police officer on duty that particular day saw
the absurdity of the charge and admonished the boy saying, "Did you
have to wish Salaam on this man? If you had just told him to go to hell
I wouldn't have to arrest you."
Preaching and PR
After Rabwah, I go to Lahore where I meet up with an uncle who has just
come back from the earthquake zone.
A trauma surgeon at Chicago's Cook County, he is one of 60 American
Ahmadi doctors who came to help following the earthquake in northern
Pakistan.
Like other overseas Pakistanis, Ahmadis have been active in the
earthquake effort and the community's charity has donated over 286 tons
of Aid and helped over 50,000 earthquake survivors.
Yet they are unable to disclose who they are in the region, for fear of
being accused of missionary activity.
In the meantime, the earthquake region has turned into a PR battlezone
for Jamaat-e-Islaami and other extremist parties -- each loudly
claiming its role in helping the citizens of Pakistan and no doubt
recruiting members as they go.
Another positive story (kind of). I meet a lady in Lahore whose cousin
died in an attack on an Ahmadi mosque the day before the quake. Seven
Ahmadis were gunned down and 21 injured after gunmen attacked the
mosque in Moong, near Mandhi Bahuruddin.
She tells me of how local Sunnis rallied round their Ahmadi neighbours
at the time, and were the first to condemn the attacks: "Relations
between Ahmadis and other Muslims had always been good in Moong," she
says. "It was trouble-makers from outside, they came on motorcycles."
Ahmadis, Ismailis and the rest
Back in Karachi, it hits me that this rage and spirit of sectarianism
doesn't stop with the Ahmadis. As we drive past a KFC in my uncle's
lower-middle-class neighbourhood of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, my cousin tells me
of how it was rebuilt only months ago after it was burnt down by
protestors in May last year.
The protestors were not the usual anti-US suspects, but an enraged
Shi'ite mob that not only torched the building but prevented emergency
services from saving the workers trapped in the building. Four were
burnt alive and another two froze as they hid from the rabble in the
freezer.
They were victims of a revenge attack after three men from a militant
Sunni group, including a suicide bomber, stormed the local Shi'ite
mosque during evening prayers.
It wasn't the first time violence flared between the two largest sects
and the latest Shi'ite-Sunni clashes in the NWFP show that it isn't
likely to be the last either.
And last year, a new group was formed. The Difa-e-Islam Mahaz: "Front
for the Defence of Islam" purports to protect Islam from the "evils" of
the "Aspostate Ismailis." They do this by burning down charitable
schools and hospitals built by the Aga Khan Foundation, which is
patronized by the spiritual leader of the Ismailis, the Aga Khan.
While Pakistan's Shi'ite and Sunni clerics continue to war amongst
themselves, police collusion and government apathy make Ahmadis an easy
target. In a country where Ahmadis are not allowed to defend themselves
through legal means (any defence of Ahmadi beliefs constitutes
missionary work and is thus a jailable offence), they reject violent
resistance.
And the persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan, codified in law and
completely institutionalised, takes far more insidious forms than the
killings that make the news.
There are tragic stories of forced conversions, of people who keep the
truth about their beliefs secret from their neighbours and colleagues
and of other Muslims who have been forced to cut all links with Ahmadi
friends and family after threats of violence. In one particularly
obscene example, a Sunni doctor was brutally beaten after tending to an
Ahmadi child. This is the state of tolerance in Pakistan.
Hatred at home and abroad
In Naeem Mohaiemen's recent film, Muslim or Heretics
(muslimsorheretics.org), an anti-Ahmadi protestor in Bangladesh raises
his hands up to the sky as he prays, "Oh Allah! We are happy to live
side-by-side with our Ahmadi brothers, as we do with Hindus and
Christians, but that they call themselves Muslim, this we cannot bear!"
The experience of Pakistan, however, shows that branding the Ahmadis
non-Muslim will not be enough. Each concession leads to ever greater
demands.
In Pakistan, appeasing the mullahs has horribly backfired. And putting
the genie back into the bottle is a task that no government in
Pakistan, democratic or otherwise, has managed to do. Today, not only
Ahmadis but Ismailis, Christians, Hindus and even Shi'ites and Sunnis
are open targets in their places of worship. Places which, in all but
the most barbaric societies, are supposed to be sanctuaries.
During my trip, I met a surprising number of ordinary, practicing
Muslims who were genuinely ashamed of the way Ahmadis are treated.
By not speaking out however, those who know better in Pakistan have
allowed those who shout the loudest to hijack the political agenda.
There are a few brave exceptions, but most of the Pakistani media has
moved on -- Ahmadi persecution has become mundane.
And Ahmadis themselves seem resigned to their status as second-class
citizens. Many fear that rocking the boat could lead to more problems
for those who live there.
When I suggested making a documentary about the treatment of Ahmadis in
Pakistan, an Ahmadi Imam warned me against it saying: "Pakistan is not
Bangladesh, doing something like that here is almost impossible."
This indictment of Pakistan is a tribute to Bangladesh, where the
battle against fundamentalist forces is far from over.
As for Pakistan, some argue that the country -- which has the dubious
honour of being the birthplace of the term "secticide" (the systematic
destruction of a religious sect) -- is too far gone. They say it is
only a matter of time before the rest of the country follows the NWFP
into Talibanisation.
Others are more optimistic, and point out that the Islamic parties
garnered less than 5 per cent of the vote prior to the US "War on
Terror." They believe it is not too late to roll back to Jinnah's
vision of a secular and democratic state of Pakistan.
After years of repression, dissenting voices are few in Pakistan. Let
us hope that the example of Bangladesh will inspire Pakistani
progressives to once again speak out. And let us hope that this time,
the Pakistani administration has the will -- and the guts -- to listen.