Pakistani actor Hamza Ali Abbasi, who has not shied away from discussing controversial issues on social media, has this time spoken out in favor of religious freedom and criticized the country’s growing intolerance towards Ahmadiyya and Shia Muslims.
Sitara was a special kid from the start. Questioning everything around her, she was a difficult student to be satisfied. At the young age of 9, she passed her O Levels exams to become the youngest child in the world to achieve the feat. In an ideal world, she would have been praised and supported by the government of Pakistan and civil society alike. But Sitara Brooj Akbar belongs to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. She wouldn’t go out of her …
A documentary featuring testimonials and stories of minorities was screened at the Jinnah Institute (JI) on Friday. Titled ‘Strangers in their own land’ and ‘اپنی زمین پر اجنبی’ for English and Urdu segments respectively, the documentary is an initiative of the institute. It was screened at a closed-door event and was attended by its filmmaker Ali Aftab Saeed, human rights activists, and researchers, who opened the floor for discussion and encouraged feedback post-screening.
Ahmadiyya Muslims targeted in fresh gun attacks in Karachi, Pakistan. On 11th October Unknown men shot three Ahmadis in “Gulshan e Iqbal” area of the large Pakistani seaport city of Karachi.
The state is not a silent spectator, but an active participant in the persecution of Ahmadis, accused members of the Ahmadi community at a meeting organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The meeting was titled, ‘Ahmadi Citizens: dealing with discrimination, exclusion’ and was held at the Regent Plaza on Sunday. “The persecution, these days, has taken a new trend as door-to-door conversions of people belonging to the faith are taking place where a cleric accompanies the area’s …
A petition seeking directives for Chiniot police to prevent the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from offering ritual sacrifice on Eid ul Adha was disposed of by Lahore High Court with a directive for the DPO to proceed in the matter in accordance with law. On receiving the order a few days before Eid, the DPO sought guidance from the inspector general of Punjab police. The DPO has yet to receive a response from the office of the IGP.
Speaking to a KhatmeNabuwat conference in Mardan, speaker of Pakistan’s KP (Khyper Pakhtunkhawa) Provincial Assembly Asad Qaiser said that “Provincial government will soon add a chapter on the belief of KhatmeNabuwat in the syllabus.” Asad Qasier is a politician from Swabi District of KP Province and is affiliated with PTI (Pakistan Tehrik e Insaf) which is considered to be a “liberal nationalist party”, lead by former cricketer Imran Khan.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Mufti Kifayat ullah who was arrested on September 10th under hate speech charges has been released on bail.He was released from Faisalabad Central Jail on Tuesday. Mufti Kifayatullah, a former JUI-F provincial assembly member from Mansehra district, was arrested in Chiniot for making an objectionable and provocative speech at an “Ishtekam-i-Pakistan Conference” which was organized by another politician Ilyas Chinioti (PML-N) who is a member of Punjab Assembly.
The Times, September 25, 1974 The adoption earlier this month by Pakistan’s national assembly of a Bill conferring non-Muslim status on the Ahmadiyya sect, was a depressing victory for religious bigotry. The assembly’s decision must greatly strengthen the hand of the more rigidly orthodox “Ulema” (professional theologians) and the Muslim fundamentalists of Maulana Maudoodi’s politically active Jamaat-i-Islami a group Mr Bhutto once described to me as ” antediluvian and obscurantist “.
The combined Opposition in the Pakistan Parliament has demanded that the Government should declare the Ahmadiyya sect, a non-Muslim minority, remove all its members from influential and sensitive offices, and arrest Mirza Nasir Ahmad, who describes himself as third Caliph of the sect. The demand, which came yesterday, even from parties professing to be secular, followed a week of anti-Ahmadiyya agitation in Punjab. Today Opposition members walked out of the National Assembly after tear gas was used to disperse 2,000 …
Islamic extremists linked to the “Khatme Nabuwat” movement are set to hold a “Khatme Nabuwat conference” at the illegally constructed Jamia Usmania in the “Muslim Colony”. The conference is being held to celebrate Pakistan National Assembly’s decision which declared Ahmadis as non-Muslim 41 years ago on 7th September 1974. The conference will be attended by several local islamists including Amir Hamza, a leading member of the banned terrorist outfit Jammat ud Dawa, JUD’s Chief Hafiz Saeed has a $10 million US government bounty …
When you visit a mosque, you don’t really expect to go through a fence topped with barbed wire and be greeted with men carrying rifles. But when it’s a mosque where dozens of worshipers were gunned down and killed five years ago, it’s become necessary.