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Rabwah Times

Speech in Pakistan’s Parliament causes uproar in UK Parliament

A Pakistani parliamentarian’s speech has garnered international attention after he announced plans to table a resolution that will bar non-Muslims from holding public office and exclude them from the country’s armed forces. On 10th October 2017, MNA Captain (R) Safdar, a former Army Captain and son-in-law of the recently dismissed Prime Minister made a fiery speech against the Ahmadis. The Ahmadis are a persecuted Islamic sect which has been declared “non-Muslim” under the country’s constitution. During his speech Safdar said: …

Pakistani court sentences three Ahmadis to death for blasphemy

A Pakistani court on Wednesday condemned three Ahmadi men to death on charges of committing blasphemy. The court also fined the men Rs 200,000 (USD 2,000) each, and if they are unable to pay the fine, they would have to undergo six months of rigorous punishment. In his decision, Additional District and Sessions Judge Mian Javed Akram stated that the three individuals, Ehsan Ahmad, Ghulam Ahmad and Mubasher Ahmad from the Ahmadiyya community of Bhoaywal town had committed blasphemy by …

Ahmadi Lawyer, wife and son shot dead in Pakistan

A lawyer, his wife, and 2-year-old son were shot dead by unidentified gunmen who on early Monday stormed their home located in Rehman Garden in Sheikhupura and opened fire. The five-year-old son of Advocate Rauf Ahmad Thakur miraculously survived the attack by hiding under the bed. Thakur who was of Ahmadiyya sect of Islam married Abida Bibi against the wishes of her family around 8 years ago, Ahmadis are considered heretic under Pakistani law and are not considered Muslims. Police suspect …

Rohingya Crisis: UK Minister of State Lord Ahmad meets Bangladesh PM Hasina in London

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has requested help from the UK and the international community, to help resolve the Rohingya crisis. Hasina who was on her way back to Bangladesh from U.S. made a stopover in London where she met Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon who currently serves as the UK Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Briefing media, Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim said Hasina told Lord Ahmad that the UK should continue pressing Myanmar government. …

Former Malaysian MP wants Ban on peaceful Islamic teachings

Malaysia’s prominent female Islamic scholar and former member of the Cabinet Dr. Mashitah Ibrahim has called for action against “the dissemination of deviant teachings of Qadianis”, a peaceful minority Islamic sect considered heretic by mainstream Muslims. She made the comments on Thursday during a panel discussion on the Islamic school fire which killed 21 children. The Executive Chairman of the Pondok Malaysia Development Foundation said “We do not want Malaysia to be like the neighboring country where freedom of Islam …

Turkish couple reportedly “kidnapped” by Pakistani security forces for Gulen links

According to reports, a Turkish couple with alleged links to controversial Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen has been “kidnapped” by Pakistan’s security forces. Mesut Kacmaz, the former director of PakTurk school and his wife were picked up during a midnight raid on their rented house in the city of Lahore. Kacmaz and his family had been staying in Wapda Town, Lahore on an asylum seeker certificate issued by United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The couple applied for asylum after Turkey …

Pakistan and Russia launch joint counter-terrorism exercises

Today in the village of Nizhny Arkhyz, Karachay-Cherkess Republic (KChR), a solemn ceremony of opening the joint Russian-Pakistani exercise “Friendship-2017” was held. More than 200 servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan took part in the event. The opening ceremony of the exercises began with the raising of state flags and the playing of the national anthems of Russia and Pakistan. Colonel Sergey Dmitriev, commander of the motorized rifle brigade of the …

Pakistani envoy to UN caught using picture from Gaza to show Indian atrocities in Kashmir

Pakistan’s envoy to the U.N. has been called out for using a fake image to illustrate Indian atrocities in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. The move backfired when Maleeha Lodhi, the Pakistani envoy to U.N. showed a picture of an alleged “pellet gun victim” in the UN General Assembly. However, the picture that Lodhi displayed was of 17-year-old Rawya Abu Jom’a who was injured during Israeli airstrikes on her family’s apartment in Gaza during the 2014 war. was, …

IAEA honors Pakistani Nobel laureate Abdus Salam

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has honored Pakistani Nobel laureate, Dr Abdus Salam by unveiling a bronze bust at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna. The bust was unveiled on Wednesday by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, according to a statement issued by Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO). The bust of Dr Salam will be placed at the IAEA HQ alongside those of other notable figures, most of them scientists, who were instrumental in the promotion of nuclear science and technology. …

Pakistani PM Abbasi dodges question on Blasphemy Laws

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi dodged the question on the country’s controversial blasphemy laws while speaking at a session organized by U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Kenneth Roth of the Human Rights Watch asked Abbasi whether he as prime minister would speak out against the blasphemy law under which a Christian man was recently sentenced to death for a poem he sent on WhatsApp that was deemed blasphemous. Abbasi responded by saying: The laws in the …

Algeria’s Ahmadis forced to worship behind closed doors

Algiers – Accused of heresy by Islamist extremists and targeted by the authorities, members of Algeria’s tiny Ahmadi community say they have been forced to go underground to worship. Abderahmane, a 42-year-old trader from Kabylie in northern Algeria, joined the reformist Islamic movement after years as an ultra-conservative Salafist. People he once called friends reported him to the local imam, who publicly denounced him as an unbeliever. The imam went on to urge worshippers not to let their children play …

Pakistani refugees make their home in New Zealand

Over three months, Stuff journalists Adam Dudding and Chris McKeen followed a family of Ahmadi refugees from Pakistan as they arrived in New Zealand and went through an immigration experience unlike any other in the world – a six-week assessment and support programme that is also a kind of crash-course in being a Kiwi. Attia Tul Kafi is in the back seat, looking out at the rolling green hills. She’s six-and-a-half, though she’s so tall she could pass for eight, …