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Uch Sharif; September 26, 2009: Mr. Muhammad Azam Farooqi was murdered because of his faith on September 26, 2009 in the presence of his wife and daughter. He was returning on his motorcycle from a family wedding at 8:30 p.m. when two unknown persons brandishing a firearm forced him to stop. In the muddle Mr. Farooqi, his wife and daughter fell from the motorcycle. The assailants pointed a gun at him. Mr. Farooqi pleaded with them to take whatever they wanted and leave him and his family alone, but as he said this, one of them shot him in the temple. He died on the spot. The assailants took nothing else and fled the scene. It was a targeted killing; he was killed only for being an Ahmadi. Mr. Farooqi was in the medical profession. He was a helpful man, and was popular in the area. He is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. The Supreme Head of Ahmadiyya Community mentioned his martyrdom in his Friday sermon, and said:
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Karachi; September 12, 2009: Twenty-nine year old Mr. Luqman Ahmad Gondal s/o Mr. Nasir Ahmad Gondal (president of the local Ahmadiyya community) closely escaped an attempt on his life. He departed from his house in the morning for his job. The bus of Abbot Laboratories picks him up daily a short distance from his home. As he made his way up to his regular pick up point, two men on a motorcycle approached him from behind and fired at him. The bullet pierced his hip. He was taken to a government hospital where the doctors simply administered the wound and bandaged it. However, afterwards he was taken to a private hospital where eleven stitches were required to seal the wound. The police registered an FIR. Mr. Luqman has no personal quarrel with anyone. He was targeted for his faith. Badomalhi, district Narowal; September 29, 2009: Two Ahmadis, Mr. Javed Ahmad Malhi and Mr. Tahir Hameed have been falsely booked under Ahmadi-specific PPC 298-C at Police Station Badomalhi on September 29, 2009 with FIR 110/09 on a fabricated accusation. Mr. Mahli was arrested immediately, and the police are searching for the second accused. The applicant Imran Faraz Butt accused him in the FIR of coming to his shop, beating him, and threatening him with grave consequences in case he did not fill in the form for initiation into the Jamaat Ahmadiyya etc. The complaint is obviously ridiculous and false. The reality is that the applicant has business dealings with the accused. Butt borrowed some stock from the Pepsi agency of the accused. When the accused asked him for the payment, he refused to pay, and called his friends for assistance. After the incident the applicant went to nearby mosques, and started a propaganda campaign against the Ahmadiyya community. The next day he went to the police station along with a procession and had the case registered. It is routine to use anti-Ahmadiyya laws to settle personal scores. This demands the immediate attention of the authorities. The central Ahmadiyya office at Rabwah brought it to the notice of all concerned. Raipur, District Sialkot: Drafters of the Ordinance XX, law specific to Ahmadis, targeted Ahmadiyya mosques in particular. They were of the opinion that an attack on Ahmadis’ places of worship would be one of the most effective ways to repress Ahmadiyyat. Accordingly, since the promulgation of the said ordinance, miscreants, with the support of authorities, have demolished 21 Ahmadi mosques, set 11 on fire, forcibly occupied 14 and barred construction of forty more. By hook or by crook the system deprives Ahmadis of their places of worship. In village Raipur, the Ahmadiyya mosque is built on a community plot designated as Shamlat Deh. The adjacent plot is used as a graveyard for non-Ahmadis. The care-taker of the graveyard applied to the Revenue Department to claim the plot of the Ahmadiyya mosque. The department conveniently granted him the claim. So, Ahmadis appealed to the court, who issued a stay order. The care-taker thereafter had a criminal case registered against 7 Ahmadis. The defendants hurriedly approached a magistrate to seek bail before arrest, which was granted. There is no shortage of officials who seek an easy entry into paradise by serving the cause of religion. The staff of Police Station Sabz Pir has acted accordingly. They have moved Article 145 to have the mosque sealed under the pretext that it was a ‘risk to law and order’. Freedom of religion has strange interpretation in the land of the pure. The police consider it their right to close down the places of worship of ‘others’. Lahore: Encouraged by the tacit but explicit policy of the provincial government and the federal government, the mullas have become very active in terms of their anti-Ahmadiyya activities. Incidents have occurred in various neighborhoods of Lahore since the new government took over after the February 2008 election. Here we report the latest developments in Model Town and Green Town areas of the provincial capital. Office-holders of the Aalami Majlis Tahaffuz Khatme Nabuwwat Model Town recently wrote an application to the Chief Secretary of Punjab in which they conveyed that at the Ahmadi place of worship Bait un Noor in Model Town Ahmadis preach, distribute literature, post armed guards at the time of Friday prayers and use loud speaker. Ahmadis also offer Eid Prayers in the adjacent ground “thereby violating PPC 298-B and C, so action should be taken against them”. This was the mullas’ demand. At this the administration ordered an inquiry by a Deputy District Officer. He wrote in his report that Ahmadis have a mosque in Model Town where they offer their prayers in the traditional way of Fiqh Hanafia; they do not preach, nor do they distribute literature; they post armed guards on Fridays for self-defence, they use loudspeakers in low volume, and their neighbors have no objection to that. Despite the above report the authorities prevented Ahmadis from holding the Eid prayers in the ground where they had been congregating annually for this purpose for years. They had no option but to pray inside the building. However mullas arrived in Model Town in numbers shouting slogans and abuse at Ahmadis and declared their own intentions to offer their prayers in the ground. The police prohibited them from doing so, and registered a case against them. Some of these miscreants had come all the way from Sargodha, Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi like mullas Akram Toofani (cyclone), Afan Farooqui and Shiraz Bhatti. However, no arrests were made. The clerics, in view of the police report favourable to Ahmadis, applied to the Sessions Judge, Lahore to order the police to register a case under Ahmadi-specific laws PPC 298-B and C against seven named Ahmadi notables. The judge was happy to oblige the mulla, and ordered the police to register a case. The Daily Times of Lahore reported in its issue of September 29, 2009 that the Green Town (Lahore) Police was “set to launch an operation to remove verses of the Holy Quran from more than 20 shops of Ahmadiyya community on College Road, Township, on the complaint of local traders.” The above-mentioned incidents show a clear trend of state-supported lack of tolerance, curbing of religious freedom, and tyranny against a peaceful community. The Taliban are not isolated in Fata; they have spread into the heart of the plains of the Punjab and enjoy support of plenipotentiaries. Lathianwala, District Faisalabad; September 24, 2009: It will be recalled that on behest of anti-Ahmadi agitators in Faisalabad the police booked as many as 32 Ahmadis in July under the blasphemy clause and the law specific to Ahmadis. Subsequently a heavy police contingent desecrated the Ahmadiyya mosque in the village and removed Islamic and religious inscriptions from all Ahmadiyya houses. These Ahmadis are on temporary bail until September 30. The mulla, however, is bent upon mischief. A number of clerics railed against the Ahmadis of Lathianwala in their Friday Sermons. The religious leadership is busy in instituting further agitation. The Sunni Tehrik, a politico-religious sectarian party sent a group of armed mischief-mongers to Lathianwala on 24th September. They parked their vehicle in front of the entrance of an Ahmadi home. Ahmadi children came out and touched the vehicle. At this the visitors started making noise as to why the children even touched their vehicle. They shouted threats, moved over to the bazaar, collected some local colleagues who brought along fire-arms. These gangsters started firing at Ahmadis. Ahmadi youth also fired in self-defence. At this the attackers retreated. In this exchange, three young Ahmadi young men received minor injuries. The police came to know of the developments and arrived at the scene. At this the attackers fled. The police and senior officials stayed on late into the night. The police SHO refused to register a case based upon the injuries to the Ahmadi youth. The next day, at the orders of the Superintendent of Police Jaranwala, the SHO registered a case against 24 men of each party under an anti-terrorism clause. This is a bizarre form of non-partisanship and justice. Rawalpindi: Rawalpindi is often referred to as the twin city of Islamabad. The police here share the Federal Government’s lack of concern for the human rights of Ahmadis. May be, they take their cue from the capital of the Punjab, from where they receive their orders. Malik Ghulam Mustafa, an Ahmadi, lives in the neighborhood of Muslim Town. He is facing harassment from local extremist elements. He used to drive a taxi, but had to stop doing so in the face of this opposition. He decided to start a general store business along with his two sons Irfan Ahmad and Adnan Ahmad. Last month someone abducted the maid of a non-Ahmadi family residing in the same plaza. They wrongfully accused Irfan and Adnan of involvement in the crime. The police arrested Irfan Ahmad and kept him in detention for eight days. When presented in the court, the parents of the girl told the court that they did not suspect Irfan’s hand in the case; so he was released. More recently, on September 7, the police took Irfan Ahmad once again. On this occasion he was also beaten up. He had fever in the preceding days. His parents and relatives are worried and upset. They have written to the Supreme Head of the Community for prayers. Organized opposition and agitation is rife in Azad Kashmir these days, and in Bhimbar area particularly. Organizations banned officially for their terrorist activities have changed their names and are taking a leading role in the anti-Ahmadiyya drive. They distribute provocative literature, issue fatwas of death, and assault Ahmadis, damage their businesses while authorities shirk from providing security to these victims. The extremist elements enjoy support from some political heavy weights. Ahmadiyya headquarters have reported the situation to the authorities and requested relief. It would be appropriate to quote from the hate literature that is being distributed, to provide an insight into this campaign of hate. Excerpt (translated from Urdu):
It further states:
The distributors have given their contact address:
These groups are obviously free to operate openly, and are quite safe from the authorities who only pay lip service to opposition to extremism and sectarianism. Multan: It will be recalled that five Ahmadis including four school children were booked under the blasphemy law PPC 295-C in district Layyah early this year. They remained in prison for almost six months before the High Court accepted their plea for release on bail. The incident attracted worldwide attention from the human rights lobby. These accused are now facing trial in a sessions court at Multan. The judge has ordered a medical report on the teen-agers to assess if they are adults, because that is relevant to the penalty of ‘death’ under this clause. Although the police investigation stated clearly that there was no proof or witnesses to the alleged incident, the authorities continue to pursue these innocent victims. This is ample proof of the bigotry and hypocrisy of the officials and politicians. The Punjab government should bear direct responsibility for further victimization of the innocent boys.
August 2, 2009: An Ahmadi, Mr. M. Afzal died here on August 2, 2009. Preparations for his burial were being carried out when the Imam of the local mosque threatened on the loudspeaker that the burial of Muhammad Afzal would not be allowed in a Muslim graveyard nor would any Muslim observe his funeral prayer. This graveyard is not exclusive to any sect; 15 Ahmadis’ graves are already situated here. The police intervened and reprimanded the mulla for his announcement, and assured security to the Ahmadis. However, by the time the dead body was about to be taken to the graveyard, a hostile crowd had gathered there. The police thereafter wilted, and advised caution to Ahmadis. Ahmadi elders then decided to take the body to another village for burial.
September 7, 2009: Mrs. Abdul Majeed died on September 6, 2009. A grave was prepared in the common graveyard the following day for her burial. Some miscreants arrived at the scene and opposed the burial. The authorities and the elders of the locality intervened, and allocated a separate plot for the burial of Ahmadi dead. A grave was dug up there, and the burial took place.
September 12, 2009: Mr. Rahmat Ali, an 80 year old Ahmadi, died here, and a grave was prepared for him in the common graveyard. Some miscreants and extremists gathered there to oppose and stop his burial. The DSP Pasroor arrived at the scene. He advised Ahmadis to bury him at another location, and he undertook that the graveyard would be divided in the next few days after which the dead body could be shifted back. Ahmadis decided to take the coffin to a nearby village, but a non-Ahmadi friend offered a piece of his own land where the burial then took place. Director Public Affairs, Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, Rabwah addressed the following letter to various authorities of the Punjab and the Federation (translation):
The conference was permitted nevertheless. Rabwah; September 7, 2009: Opponents of Ahmadiyyat were permitted to hold a conference at Rabwah despite a request from the Ahmadiyya head office that there was no justification for such a conference at Rabwah, organized by non-resident mullas. As expected, the speakers made provocative speeches full of hate and fabrications. Below we reproduce extracts from a press report published in the daily Nawa-i-Waqt of Lahore on September 9, 2009 (translation):
etc.
The conference was addressed by Maulana Muhammad Ahmad, leader of an organization banned for terrorist activities, and by Maulana Alam Tariq who is a brother of the fire-brand mulla Azam Tariq who was also leader of a banned religious body that was responsible for a large number of targeted killings in the sectarian strife of the past. As if this conference was not enough, the clerics have declared they will be holding conference next month at Rabwah. Here is a press report on the civic situation in Rabwah (translation):
September 7, 2009: The daily Jang has adopted anti-Ahmadiyya policy to promote its sales and to curry favour with the clerics. It issues a special edition annually on September 7 to celebrate the day when through an amendment to the constitution, Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims by Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto in 1974. Editors and column-writers of this daily never tire of preaching morality to others. However, when it comes to political mullas, the paper spares all its space to support them in curbing religious freedom of others and making shameful demands. For instance this time an essay written by Mufti Khalid Mahmud unabashedly recommends death for so-called apostasy, ban on propagation of dissenting religious opinion, imprisonment for use of epithets forbidden by the state, forcible take over of places of worship of ‘heretics’, usurpation of their property etc. This so-called ‘free press’ uses its freedom to curb universal human rights and freedom of others. This it does despite the state’s declared policy to disown and discredit communalism. The Jang defiles the dictates of social and governmental consensus that spreading communal hatred is evil. The Mufti, however, must take credit for not repeating the lie that 10,000 were ‘martyred’ during the anti-Ahmadiyya riots in 1953. The daily Jang is edited by Abid Abdullah, and its Chief Executive (Editor) is Mir Shakil ur Rahman. London: Mr. Altaf Hussain, the Quaid of MQM, now residing in London talked about Ahmadis in Pakistan in a television interview. It was reported in the Daily Express of September 9, 2009. Excerpts (translation): I do not want an Islamic Republic; I want a Peoples Republic of Pakistan where everyone should be free to live in accordance with his faith. I do not want a Pakistan of pretended mullas and politicians. … In 1988 when we won seats in the National Assembly, I toured the entire country. I noticed that the country was occupied by thieves and robbers and looters of national wealth. If a petty official takes bribe he is sent to prison, but the feudal lords who take loans worth trillions, get these remitted and excused….
The MQM is the only party whose leader issued a message of condolence on the demise of the Qadiani Amir, Mirza Tahir Beg (sic). A number of daily papers wrote editorials that I had committed Kufr. Well, I am going to commit the Kufr again, let anyone who wishes to, issue a fatwa. Qadianis who live in Pakistan should have full freedom to live in accordance with their faith and belief. It is their right. Qadianis, like other minorities, should have complete freedom to propagate their dogma. I have read Ahmadiyya literature. Their Kalima (Islamic creed) is the same as ours. They also believe in the Finality of Prophethood of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The first Nobel Prize laureate of Pakistan, Dr Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi. It would be most unjust of us not to accept that. When the MQM comes to power, I will request the authorities to let me establish a (big) compound where I shall build a Mosque, a Gurdawara (for Sikhs), a (Hindu) Temple, a church and also an Ahmadiyya Mosque. All of them will worship in their own way at their own timings in that compound. …
Religion has nothing to do with politics. Whenever you bring in religion, you will get nowhere. I say, do not hate (on the basis of) how one worships. Do not distribute tickets for heaven and hell; everyone worships (the same) God. September 3, 2009: A TV channel Express News holds a weekly talk-show “Point Blank with Lucman” which is hosted by Mr. Mobashir Lucman. Lucman is known for discussing sensitive issues. On September 3, 2009 he had invited three mullas, Jalil Naqvi a Shia, Amir ul Azim of Jamaat Islami and Tahir Mahmud Ashrafi, a Brelvi political cleric. Lucman took up the issue of Ahmadiyyat for about 10 minutes. It is rare that the electronic media mentions Ahmadiyyat; occasionally when it does, it provides an opportunity to the mulla to restate his aggressive and obscure position. Lucman introduced the subject by showing a video of the incident of Lathianwala where the police undertook the sacrilege of defiling the Ahmadiyya mosque. The three participating mullas and viewers all over Pakistan saw how the state was involved in violating Ahmadis’ human rights and freedom of religion by removing the Kalima (Islamic creed) with a chisel and covering up other holy inscriptions with paint and cement from Ahmadis’ homes. The incident must have shocked most of the viewers but the penal of mullas was not impressed. Lucman asked them: “These holy inscriptions are being broken up with hammer and chisel. This whole big tile, on which Allah and Masha Allah are written, fell down in the gutter below. Let me tell you that this place is a Masjid of Jamaat Ahmadiyya from which the Kalima is being defaced while the worshippers are (seen) offering prayers (Namaz). All the homes (that were shown) belong to Ahmadis. I do not belong to any sect, particularly Jamaat Ahmadiyya, but I do know that defiling the Kalima or Quranic verses (that is a sin), what should be done about this? Will you please tell me?” At this Allama Naqvi, the Shia took the plea that as the constitution of Pakistan has declared Ahmadis non-Muslims they should forego their link with Islamic practices like other non-Muslims. The Allama conveniently forgot that the fatwas of the majority of the ulama on the Kufr of Shias are more numerous and more severe than against Ahmadis. Tahir Ashrafi suggested that ‘Qadianis’ should have their own logo and Kalima as they believe in Mirza Qadiani. Ashrafi did not mention the fact that Brelvis have their own whole range of saints whom they are accused of worshipping. But the most ludicrous of the three responses was from none other than the mulla representing Jamaat Islami, Amir ul Azim. He said, “What I say is on the basis of ‘copyright.’ As you cannot permit me to name my own (TV) channel as Express or name my own cola as Pepsi or Coca Cola, use and write their logos, and then say: let the people decide as to which one is real and which one is fake, which one is better and which is not good.” Only Azim could have the audacity to compare the licenses for a TV channel or Coca Cola with the institution of a worldwide religion. Lucman should have offered to show him the ‘license’ for the Express News and demanded from him the license that the Jamaat Islami has got from Allah to appropriate all the copyrights of Islam. One wishes that Lucman would also invite an Ahmadi to join his program; however there is the great risk that the Blasphemy law and laws specific to Ahmadis would be invoked against any participating Ahmadi. Islamabad; September 30, 2009: According to a press report Maulana Fazlur Rahman of JUI(F) has offered to mediate talks between the government and Taliban. As he is active in promoting the violation of Ahmadi human rights, we record and report below extracts from this press report (translation):
It is relevant to mention that the CII has recommended, inter alia, the penalty of death for apostasy. The JUI(F) and JI members of the National Assembly proposed a draft bill on apostasy with the Assembly in May 2007. There are strong indications that this mulla is trying to push the bill for which there is no precedent in the Holy Quran. His offer of ‘arbitration’ betrays his close links with the Taliban who continue to kill innocent civilians by the droves within Pakistan and across the border. The monthly Herald, Karachi of August 2009 published an interview of Mr. Iqbal Haider, a leading human rights activist in Pakistan. Its excerpts are reproduced below:
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