ISLAMABAD: Global rights organisation Amnesty International called on Pakistan Tuesday to free and drop all charges against minority Ahmadis jailed in recent weeks and ensure adequate protection of their places of worship.
In the last two weeks alone, more than 60 Ahmadis, including children, have been detained and their places of worship vandalised in Punjab and Sindh provinces. Police have filed cases against them under section 298-C of Pakistan Penal Code, which bars the community from calling themselves Muslims or preaching their faith.
“The disturbing pattern of arbitrary arrests, harassment and violence against Ahmadi community is in violation of their right to freedom of religion and belief. Local authorities in Pakistan must provide adequate protection to Ahmadi places of worship and officials engaged in harassment or destruction of Ahmadi property must be brought to justice,” Amnesty posted on X.
In Pakistan, Ahmadis face significant and escalating threat from the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a far-right Islamist political party known for its hardline stance on blasphemy and its targeting of religious minorities.
TLP members have been linked to physical attacks on Ahmadis, desecration of their graves, and demolition of their places of worship. Since the start of this month, TLP members have reportedly attacked 27 Ahmadis in Bahawalnagar, demolished a 120-year-old place of worship in Gujranwala and gathered outside worship sites in cities like Karachi, Sialkot and Jauharabad to prevent Ahmadis from praying, often with police either unable or unwilling to intervene effectively.
On March 1, police arrested 22 Ahmadis in Daska region of Sialkot for offering prayers in their religious place. On March 7, over two dozen members of the Ahmadi community, including children, were taken into “protective custody” by law enforcement personnel as a mob gathered outside its place of worship in Surjani, Karachi.
Later that day, police registered a criminal case against over two dozen Ahmadi members and arrested six of them on a TLP activist’s complaint in Surjani.
The previous day, police booked nine people, two of them Ahmadis, on charges of torturing a TLP activist to death during a scuffle in Bahawalnagar. However, intelligence and police sources suggest the TLP activist’s death was not a result of a fight with Ahmadis. They said the seven people who faced charges of killing a TLP worker were members of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ). There had been a confrontation between ASWJ activists and TLP members a couple of days back.