In Pakistan: A community under threat from fanatics

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Is it an offence to read the Holy Quran? You would have thought not, but it is – in Pakistan. That is if you are a member of my community, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Because in Pakistan, increasingly in the grip of extremist and fundamentalist thinking, there is little room for enlightened thinking or free debate. Instead, there is oppression – of women, of minorities like Shias, Christians, Hindus, Khojas and indeed of anyone who challenges the status quo. It is in this climate that a 72-year-old British national has been thrown into prison – for reciting the Holy Quran. Mr Masood Ahmad is a member of the Ahmadi Muslim Community, that is declared non-Muslim under Pakistan's constitution and subject to widespread discrimination, violence and abuse. Mr Ahmad was arrested in Lahore, Punjab province, on December 15 last year after two people from a Muslim extremist group secretly filmed him reading a translation of a verse from the Holy Quran. The accusers posed as patients at a clinic run by Mr Ahmad and after receiving medication stayed to ask religious questions. They questioned him about his faith and used mobile phones to secretly record him reading a verse from the Quran. Mr Ahmad was arrested when a mob, including local clerics, gathered outside a police station demanding he be arrested. His family members fear the country's discriminatory laws are being used to persecute the widower and strip him of his pharmacy. The Muslim extremists are exerting pressure on the provincial government and judges to convict him. The lawyers have filed three different bail applications and it is unacceptable that on the one bail application the extremists occupied the court premises and shouted slogans and threatened the doctor's lawyers and the judge. On the hearing of two bail applications the lawyers of the victim were absent. Mr Ahmad is in the prison and there is a chance he will be killed in custody as the extremist groups are inciting the prisoners to force Mr Ahmad to recant his faith or be killed. Religious hardliners are preaching openly that anyone who murders an Ahmadi Muslim will be assured a place in paradise. His clinic has been illegally occupied by a Muslim leader who incited the community to punish Mr Ahmad so as to obtain possession of his property. The Pakistan government must take action to release Mr Ahmad and ensure that his property is returned to him.

Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/community-threat-fanatics/story-20554416-detail/story.html#ixzz2sTReJmfm