“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 …
An American University Professor has exposed a Pakistani University’s secret hiring policy that prohibits hiring of Ahmadiyya Muslims. The professor is a member of an external committee that reviews applications of faculty candidates at Pakistani Universities.
My family moved to Lahore in early 1970s. We rented the lower portion of a house in what was still called Kirshan Nagar, despite being renamed Islampura, probably after the 1965 war. It was an old style house with an open central courtyard. There were two front rooms both having an opening onto the street. The owners lived in the upper portion but they purposefully kept one of those front rooms. They would hold a weekly religious gathering in that …
Anyone remotely familiar with the poetry of Dr Muhammad Iqbal would know of his multi-pronged flirtations with numerous – often paradoxical – ideologies, at the same time. From fluctuating between a poet and a preacher to being the torchbearer of theocracies and personal faith at the same time – from presenting an anti-capitalist case for theism through Vladimir Lenin in Lenin Khuda Ke Huzoor Mein to his appraisal for sultani, while ostensibly challenging the British Raj – from promoting a …
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.
The Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan (JA) will not partake in the forthcoming local government polls to register its protest against what it calls the step-motherly conduct of the state towards it. These elections have separate elections only for Ahmadis, says a letter written to the Election Commission of Pakistan, a copy of which was made available to the media. It is strange that Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians are included in one electoral roll and only Ahmadis are registered in a separate …
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.
Speaking to a Friday congregation, Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq who is the chairman of the Hurriyat Conference and chief of Muttihda Majlis-e-Amal Ameer said the ‘Ahmadis won’t be allowed to spread tentacles in Kashmir’. Mirwaiz warned people to beware of the expansionist plan of the Ahmadis in Kashmir and foil their nefarious designs. “Earlier, Christian Missionaries were trying to spread their tentacles in Kashmir by offering monetary benefits and now it was Ahmadis who want to do the …
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.
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.
Tahira Ahmad was hoping to celebrate this week the end of a 12-year wait to legally call India her home. A September 7 notification issued by the Narendra Modi government has shattered that dream. The home ministry order, for the first time in decades, allows Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis from Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are now in India, to stay in the country indefinitely without worrying about either passports or visas.
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.