They are not recognized as Muslims in a country where Islam is the state religion and are persecuted by extremists in the face of complacent silence from the government supported by much of the law enforcement. Cases of arrests, persecution and harassment increased, especially during the festival of sacrifice.
Chenab Nagar () – This year incidents to forcibly stop the Ahmadi cult have increased considerably. Throughout Pakistan extremist “vigilantes” have raided the homes of community members with the approval and sometimes involvement of the police.
There are 100 million in the world, and they are spread over all the continents, but most of them are far from their place of origin: the border area between Punjab and Pakistan, where they continue to be severely persecuted. Imprisoned for blasphemy, mistreated, killed because they consider them a heresy of Islam.
The Ahmadi religious community is over 100 years old and was founded in 1889 in Qadian, in present-day Indian Punjab, by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a Muslim mystic. But although the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Known for their motto “Love everyone, hate no one”, this community is hated – and persecuted – in Pakistan to the point that they cannot profess their faith even within the walls of their homes.
Most of the Ahmadis still living in Pakistan have been denied even the possibility of praying during the holy festival of eid ul adha (feast that commemorates the sacrifice of Abraham). These are true violations of fundamental rights enshrined in Article 20 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and in the 2021 ruling of the country’s Supreme Court, according to which Ahmadis are free to practice their faith.
Despite this, 23 complaints were filed at various police stations to prevent Ahmadis from practicing the ritual of animal sacrifice for eid ul adha, against 89 vigilantes simply denounced for intimidating and harassing Ahmadis and preventing the ritual of animal sacrifice. On four occasions, Ahmadis were also prevented from praying for the Eid and fined 28 people. A Gujrat police inspector also announced through a megaphone at a mosque that Ahmadis are not “true” Muslims and that one must be before sacrificing an animal in a holy ritual. The thing did not end there: 13 Ahmadis were arrested, 10 animals taken into custody and the police searched the houses of the Ahmadis faithful.
The spokesperson for the Ahmadi community stated: “These are gross violations of the religious rights of Ahmadis by extremist vigilantes, supported by state officials, including the police. The Islamabad government is silent on these atrocities, while he himself is concerned about similar incidents related to the persecution of Muslims in other countries, we demand that all these acts of persecution against Ahmadis be stopped immediately and that all those imprisoned be released because they are innocent.”
