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Middle-aged Shahnaz Bibi’s ordeal at the hands of her village’s tough guys makes hers the most read story on the BBC World website (video interview). Earlier this month in the remote village of Neelor Bala in Haripur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, she was punished for her son’s alleged affair with a neighbour’s wife, possibly under a jirga ruling.
There are no American drones or the CIA at work here. Nor are Pakistan’s own intelligence agencies behind such horrible incidents. Hence there are no protests in the streets or the media for sullying national honour — even as such horror stories make the international headlines, day after day, year after year — as time stands still.
If you consider the social ordeal Pakistani women and our minorities have to put up with (together they make up the majority of our population), you cannot even laugh at those proud males of this country who cry themselves hoarse over such fancy notions as sovereignty and national pride. Does a nation that has stripped the majority of its own people of their respect and the right to a life of dignity deserve any respect from any quarter? One just marvels at having the cheek to demand it under the circumstances.
Why is it that leaders of all hues and shades who put their lot together to safeguard national pride and honour never as much as issue a statement of condemnation when such reprehensible acts take place? No long marches are called for to discourage hate crimes against women and minorities; no threats are issued to block the roads; no strike calls are given when not a day goes by that a woman is not severely beaten up, burnt, mutilated or humiliated.
Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis suffer even more and risk being served mob justice if they even dare demand social justice. Ahmadis are not even allowed to practise their faith but behind closed doors; they cannot congregate in one place or, blasphemy of all blasphemies, call their place of worship a mosque, even though their call to pray and the prayer itself are the same as the namaz and the masjid of their countrymen. We must also abuse their religious leader as an article of faith even as we go signing legal documents like the national identity card or even a bank account form, which demand that we establish our antecedents as true Muslims.
Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan – International Law Study
Before September 11, 2001, the United States characterized the Pakistani government as an unstable regime with a tarnished history of corrupt dictators, military coups, and territorial violence along its borders. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, Pakistan became a leading partner in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, thrust into a position to bring “international criminals” to justice and to act as a hero for the “civilized” world. Indeed, one of the lessons of September 11 is that exigencies often spur credulity. United States concerns with Pakistan’s human rights problems lost significance once Pakistan agreed to stand with the United States against terrorism.
Pakistan’s leaders saw September 11 as an opportunity to gain redemption. Blasted in the past for conducting nuclear testing, suspending its Constitution, and breeding Islamists, Pakistan, post-September 11, was in an excellent position to curry favor with its critics by suffocating terrorist networks. Seizing upon this opportunity, President Pervez Musharraf led a fight against militant Islam. This shift in Pakistan’s priorities resulted in a decrease in attention paid to the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan, once a recognized problem of serious international concern. The two issues of human rights and terrorism were treated as unconnected, without the slightest suggestion that addressing the former would be helpful in addressing the latter.
PENAL CODE AND BLASPHEMY
The problem of Pakistan’s treatment of its religious minorities once again merits consideration. Pakistan’s Penal Code carries specific provisions criminalizing behavior considered blasphemous to Islam. Apart from stifling religious freedom for non-Muslims, these provisions also target a particular group of minority Muslims that the Sunni Muslim majority deems heretical to Islam, namely members of the Ahmadiyya Community, a Muslim group of roughly four million adherents in Pakistan that has always considered itself as belonging to the Muslim ummah (or larger “community of Muslims”). The fundamental difference between Ahmadis and the Sunni Muslim majority concerns the identity of the Promised Messiah, the reformer that the Prophet Muhammad foretold would appear after him. Doctrinal interpretations peculiar to Ahmadis were deemed sufficient to place them outside the pale of Islam by the religious orthodoxy.
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
For over five decades, Ahmadis have endured senseless persecution. Their mosques have been burned, their graves desecrated, and their very existence criminalized. According to a 2002 United States State Department report, since 1999 316 Ahmadis have been formally charged in criminal cases (including blasphemy) owing to their religion. Between 1999 and 2001, at least twenty-four Ahmadis were charged with blasphemy; if convicted, they could be sentenced to life imprisonment or death. The offenses charged included wearing an Islamic slogan on a shirt, planning to build an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore, and distributing Ahmadi literature in a public square.
Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, and yet their persecution is wholly legal, even encouraged, by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and its leadership.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
