Rabwah Times

As the political and judicial crises deepen in Pakistan, the only winners emerging from the scene seem to to be the extremists. Lashkar e Taiba has reemerged with the new name of Jammat ud Dawa led by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Jammat ud Dawa was a declared a terrorist organization and Saeed its terrorist leader in 2008 by the UN.

Even though Jammat ud Dawa was declared a terrorist organization by the UN it operates freely in Pakistan and has so far enjoyed the full protection of Punjab’s political leadership and is trying to gain political points by inciting anti-Indian sentiments. As soon as you enter Lahore you are met with countless posters and banners filled with anti-India slogans plastered all over the walls and back of Rickshaws. But Pakistan’s economic and civil situation has forced the masses to ignore this hoopla with most of the households immersed in Indian TV series revenge from India is the last thing on their mind. Read the full story

“General Zia singled out Ahmadis in an open and vicious hate campaign of persecution. He and members of his administration made numerous public speeches urging Pakistanis to seek out, expose and even to kill Ahmadis.”

In 1977, Gen Mohammed Zia ul Haq usurped the constitution of Pakistan and enacted Operation Fair Play by seizing power in Pakistan. He declared martial law and imprisoned the democratically elected Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and in the first of many lies and broken promises declared that his only desire was to facilitate elections in 90 days, after which he faithfully promised he would step down. Ignoring world public opinion and despite the wishes of the citizens of Pakistan he remained entrenched in power and consolidated his brutal dictatorship over the coming years. Zia would have remained a hated peripheral figure had fate not intervened following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. This event rapidly propelled Zia from world pariah status to center stage as he was lauded as the West’s bulwark and friend against the spread of communism. Read the full story

In the past few weeks there has been a lot of debate around the supposed ban on social media by ahmadiyya muslim community but the joint efforts by ahmadi twitter users proved those reports to be inaccurate.Not only that it also drew attention towards the struggle and persecution of the ahmadiyya muslim community which normally goes underreported but this time round their tweets were picked up by Al-Jazeera’s THE STREAM.

The Stream is a unique TV show based upon social media community and aims to cover unheard voices and lesser covered communities around the world. Read the full story

RABWAH: The tombstones in Rabwah’s graveyards tell a macabre tale. The graves of the men killed in the attacks on Ahmadi places of worship in Lahore – retired army officers and young factory workers among them – rest with the dozens killed due to the persecution of the Ahmadiyya community.

The graveyards have been defiled in the past as locals have released animals in the graveyards or trod on the graves.

Other tombstones in a row show how entire families were systematically killed.

“If you knock at any door in Rabwah, you will find a story of persecution,” says Amir Mahmood, who works at the Jamaat Ahmadiyya’s press section.

One door leads to a prominent Ahmadi family from Mardan. Despite years of harassment, lawsuits, imprisonment and a kidnapping, the family’s men vowed to stay in Mardan. Four of them were gunned down. “After my father’s assassination I told my husband to be more careful. But he wasn’t scared,” says Rabia Mehmood, who was expecting her first child when her husband was killed.

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