WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has strongly condemned the arrest, detention, and sentencing of Abul Shakoor, an 80-year-old optician, for propagating the Ahmadiyya Muslim faith, which is banned in Pakistan.
Two Pakistani clerics have come to blows at a meeting of the religious establishment over the fraught issue of the status of Ahmadis, a Muslim sect that hardliners want declared apostates. A scuffle broke out on Tuesday between the two at a gathering of Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) when the chairman, Mohammad Khan Sherani, called on the group to consider whether Ahmadis, who are declared non-Muslims by the constitution, should be considered murtads that have rejected Islam.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Canada condemned the terrorist attack at a university in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. According to reports, four gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked Bacha Khan University in Charsadda today killing at least 19 people including students, teachers and staff members. They also used hand grenades.
On Saturday Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. PM Sharif was received by Director General CERN Fabiola Gianotti. Uoin meeting PM Sharif Ms.Gianotti said that the Pakistani scientist Dr Abdus Salam had played an important role in the establishment of CERN.
The Vice President, Mr K. B. Amissah‐Arthur, yesterday met with the National President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Ghana at its headquarters in Accra. They discussed a range of issues including the protection of minority rights, religious tolerance and how to sustain the prevailing peace and stability of the country.
An Australian man will turn to the Australian Government for help after his 81-year-old Ahmadi Muslim father was imprisoned in Pakistan last month. Khalid Ahmad’s father, Abdul Shakoor, who owns a bookshop in Pakistan where the Ahmadi faith is outlawed, made international headlines when he was jailed for eight years in December for selling books deemed hurtful or hateful to another religious group’s beliefs.
Abul Shukoor a member of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Pakistan has been sentenced to 8 years in prison for the crime of keeping Ahmadiyya books. 81-year-old Shukoor and his bookstore manager Mazhar Ahmad were arrested on Dec. 2 by Punjab Police. Both were charged under section 298-C and provision 8 of the anti-terrorism act for the simple act of keeping books of Ahmadiyya Muslim faith. Shukoor has been sentenced to 8 years in prison and fined 150,000 PKR ($1,500) while his …
An Ahmadi man was killed in Chenab Nagar (Rabwa), the headquarters of Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya, late on Monday. Bilal Ahmed, 26, was an active member and paid worker of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. His brother, Ghulam Tahir, is president of the Ahmadiyya community in his neighborhood of Darul Yaman, Rabwah.
Pakistani authorities have arrested two Ahmadi Muslim men for alleged Blasphemy. Bookstore owner Abul Shukoor and manager Mazhar Ahmad were arrested Wednesday, Dec. 2 from Ahmadiyya Book Depot in Rabwah. Both men were taken to an unknown location after their arrest. According to a leaked charge sheet the men were charged under section 298-C of Pakistan’s Penal code. The infamous law prevents members of Ahmadiyya sect from preaching and calling themselves Muslim. In a surprising turn of events, the two …
A Supreme Court of Pakistan bench on Tuesday denied bail to the publisher of Al-Fazl, a 102-year-old Ahmadiyya publication, who is behind bars for three years on blasphemy and terrorism charges. The bench headed by Justice Sardar Asif Saeed Khosa directed the prosecution to submit a challan in the matter in the trial court without further delay.
The complainant in the FIR, registered against the factory’s security in-charge for allegedly torching some pages of the Holy Quran at the Pakistan Chip Board Factory in Jhelum on November 20, says he had not witnessed the torching incident but had filed the complaint on the statement of one of his colleagues who claimed he had seen it.
“Are these the people with bullets who took my papa away?” two-year-old Sabiha Ahmad asked her mother anxiously when AFP visited her family, members of Pakistan’s persecuted Ahmadi minority, who are currently living in hiding. The toddler’s family have had little contact with anyone since they were forced to flee for their lives on November 20 when hundreds of people torched a factory in the eastern city of Jhelum after rumours spread workers were burning copies of the Koran. Sabiha’s …