The Ahmadi community in Pakistan is being subjected to increasing discrimination under the PTI government, according to a report released by the minority group this week.
The report states that Ahmadis are the victims of institutionalised bigotry and are being prosecuted for their faith in growing numbers in the wake of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s election campaign.
In its annual report, the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan notes that its people were denied the right to contest these elections as candidates or even take part in them as voters.
Spokesperson for the minority community, Saleem-ud-Din, said in a statement that the discrimination that has long beset the group continued throughout 2018 at levels ‘worse than ever before’.
In the same statement, Din attributed the worsening discrimination against Ahmadis to actions taken by political parties during the 2018 general elections: ‘During the election period, candidates from all the major parties including the prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan fanned the flames of religious hatred against Ahmadis.’
The report details the worsening discrimination against the community throughout 2018, including the declaration of Ahmedis as non-Muslim in the Azad Kashmir parliament in February and the attack which severely damaged an Ahmedi place of worship in Sialkot in May. The report also states that throughout the year two other places of worship were demolished, five were ordered to close by the authorities and a further two were set on fire or damaged in an indication of the nationwide persecution of the community.
According to Din, anti-Ahmedi laws ‘have helped empower religious extremists and fostered an environment in which the murder of Ahmadis, the destruction of community worship places, the illegal appropriation of property belonging to members of the community and the desecration of Ahmadi burial sites has become the norm.’
The report states that two Ahmadis were murdered for following their religion in 2018.
Pakistan’s Ahmadi population was declared non-Muslim by a constitutional amendment in 1974. 10 years later, members of the community were banned from calling themselves Muslim under a new law enacted by the military dictator, General Zia ul Haq.
Pakistan is home to the world’s largest population of Ahmadis but is the only country to have officially declared them non-Muslim.
Din warned that ‘Ahmadis have no religious freedoms in Pakistan and recent actions taken by the authorities mean that the situation is going to deteriorate even further and make it impossible for Ahmadis to carry on with their everyday lives.’