Hundreds of people surrounded a chipboard factory in Jhelum city on Friday night and set it ablaze after reports surfaced that an employee had allegedly desecrated the Koran.

“The incident took place after we arrested the head of security at the factory, Qamar Ahmed Tahir, following complaints that he ordered the burning of Korans,” Adnan Malik, a senior police official in the area, told AFP.

On Saturday, another mob gathered in the town of Kala Gujran near Jhelum and torched the homes of several Ahmadi families and an Ahmadi mosque.

Troops have been sent to patrol the area and bring the situation under control.

According to police, Tahir belongs to the Ahmadi sect, a religious group who have been declared non-Muslims by the Pakistani government due to their “heretical beliefs”. Ahmadis are frequently victims of discrimination and violent assaults.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan, an Islamic republic of some 200 million, where even unproven allegations frequently stir mob violence and lynchings.

Critics including European governments say the country’s blasphemy laws are often misused to settle personal scores.

According to police, another employee at the factory had reported that Tahir was overseeing the burning of Korans in the facility’s boiler and intervened to stop the act.

“We registered a blasphemy case against Tahir, who is Ahmadi by faith, and arrested him after confiscating the burnt material, which also included copies of the Koran,” police official Malik said.

Following the arrest, a mob reportedly descended on the factory, setting it alight.

A statement from the Ahmadi community termed the incident “a monstrous plan, an attempt to burn Ahmadis alive”.

“Announcements were made on loudspeakers in mosques that the Holy Quran had been desecrated in the Ahmadis’ chipboard factory.

A violent mob formed because of these provocative announcements, and surrounded the factory, threw stones, caused damage and then set the factory on fire,” said the statement, adding that law enforcement personnel rescued people trapped in the factory, seventy per cent of which was destroyed in the fire.

A spokesman for the Ahmadi community, Saleem Ud Din, told AFP that three of their members were arrested after the incident.

District police chief Mujahid Afsar said authorities were trying to negotiate between the communities, but Din said that the atmosphere was still violent.

Eleven Ahmadis were murdered for their faith in 2014 and authorities have failed to apprehend any of the killers, highlighting growing intolerance toward the sect.

The post Pakistan mob attacks Ahmadis in Jhelum appeared first on I Stand With Ahmadis.

letter1In a recent blog post, a King Edward Medical University graduate, Abbis Haider detailed how the engineering professor called him to express his disappointment on the discriminatory anti-Ahmadiyya clauses in a Pakistani University’s application for a faculty position.

He said:

“I have not seen such overt discrimination ever in my life,”

In response to the blatant discrimination, the Engineering Professor sent the following response to the registrar of the university.

I am unable to associate myself with any religion-based exclusionary practice, and therefore will not submit my assessment of ████████ research career and accomplishments.

We can now reveal that the university which was not named in the original post is UET Lahore as the Job Application form on the University’s website has clauses which are identical to the ones mentioned in the original blog post.

The clauses in the application ask the applicant to declare the following:

DECLARATION :

I solemnly declare that I believe that Hazrat Muhammad (peace and
blessing of Allah be upon him) is the last Prophet of Allah and there is and
was no prophet after him.
I have firm faith in Islam and I am not the follower of any such person who claims to be a prophet or religions reformer after Hazrat Muhammad (Peace and Blessing of Allah be upon
him).
I do not belong to Qadiani Group or Lahori Group nor I am called Ahmadi.
uet.edu.pk export sites UETWebPortal admission admissioninfo Prospectus Forms _F I.pdfThe discriminatory policy not only applies to faculty candidates but also to students who wish to apply for bachelor degree courses at the University. In the admission application form the students are also asked to sign a similar declaration.

In addition, application forms of BZU Mutan, UET Taxila and Fatima Jinnah College all contain similar declarations.

In 1974 Pakistan officially declared Ahmadis as non-Muslim and since then Ahmadis have faced severe persecution. They are legally forbidden to call themselves Muslims or their houses of worship mosques. An Ahmadi can be jailed for three years for merely saying Salam (Islamic greeting) to other Muslims or doing anything that can give an impression that he is posing as a Muslim.

The post UET Lahore prohibits faculty applications from Ahmadis appeared first on I Stand With Ahmadis.

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 father Asif Shahzad was one of the employees — all Ahmadis, a minority group who are legally declared non-Muslims in Pakistan for their belief in a prophet after Mohammad — and that night the mob took him away.

“I begged them for the life of my wife and children and they freed them only after taking me to burn in the factory’s boiler,” he told AFP this week from where his family are hiding.

“It was my good luck that some kind-hearted Muslims helped me to escape,” he said.

His wife Hafsa said she had almost accepted him dead.

“I never wanted to leave him but he said that he would join us if he survived, and I must save mine and our daughters’ lives,” the 24-year-old told AFP tearfully.

Along with other Ahmadi families fleeing Jhelum that night, Hafsa managed to escape in a car her husband had arranged before he was torn away by the mob.

The driver, she said, was Muslim. “(He) treated me and the other ladies… as his daughters,” she said, navigating them through the mob to safety.

– ‘Hated for our religion’ –

Hardline Islamic scholars denounce Ahmadis as heretics, describing their belief in a prophet after Mohammad as blasphemy — a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan, where even unproven allegations stir mob lynchings and violence.

The largest Ahmadi community in the world is in Pakistan, where they number about 500,000, and followers are frequently the target of blasphemy allegations by hardliners tacitly supported by what the community says are discriminatory laws.

Legislation framed in 1974 and 1984 under pressure from hardliners, bans Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslims and practising the rituals of Islam.

Even voicing the Muslim greeting “Peace be upon you” could see an Ahmadi thrown in prison for three years.

“Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan face daily harassment, intimidation and persecution on the basis of their religion,” Dennis Jong, the co-chair of a European Parliament body on religious tolerance, said in a press release this week slamming the factory attack.

The attacks, he said, “show the continued lack of protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms offered by the Pakistani government to the Ahmadis”.

In July 2014, an mob, in echoes of the attack in Jhelum, burnt three Ahmadis alive and torched their homes in another eastern city, Gujranwala in Punjab province.

“Locals hated us for our religion,” said Mubashira Jarri Allah, who was caught up in the violence.

“(They) torched our house after a false allegation of blasphemy. I lost my mother, two nieces and my unborn child,” she said. She was eight months pregnant at the time.

In May, tensions rose in the district of Chakwal, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital Islamabad, when the minarets and dome of an Ahmadi place of worship were demolished after a court ruled that it looked too much like a Muslim mosque.

– Friends into foes –

Officials at the Jamat-e-Ahmadiya, an umbrella organisation of Ahmadi groups, say the state itself sponsors their persecution.

“We don’t even vote in elections because if we declare ourselves Muslims, we will be prosecuted,” said Saleem ud Din, a spokesman for Jamat-e-Ahmaidya.

The state, for its part, says Ahmadis — like all minorities in Pakistan — are “constitutionally protected”.

“When legislation was formed about the Ahmadis, the law was passed after complete debate in the national assembly,” Sardar Muhammad Yousaf, federal religious affairs minister, told AFP.

“The Ahmadis were given full chance to raise their point of view… If the Ahmadi community has some concerns and fears, they must come and discuss that with us and we will address them.”

In Jhelum on November 20, the Ahmadi families believed they would be shown no mercy.

Witnesses said hundreds of people — mostly young men and followers of local Muslim clerics who rallied them with loudspeakers — torched the chipboard factory, which was owned by an Ahmadi.

They also burnt several houses and ransacked an Ahmadi place of worship.

Eighteen Ahmadi families are believed to have fled that night.

“Even the best friends turned into the worst foes,” said Asif Shahzad.

The post Pakistan’s Ahmadis battle mob and state for identity appeared first on I Stand With Ahmadis.

On receiving the order a few days before Eid, the DPO sought guidance from the inspector general of Punjab police. The DPO has yet to receive a response from the office of the IGP.

In the petition submitted on September 12, Nasir Mahmood, a Faisal Town resident, had submitted that he had read in an online newspaper published by the community that sacrificial animals would be slaughtered on the Eid day at Chenabnagar. He said that the Constitution did not allow the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to sacrifice animals on Eid ul Azha. He had requested the court to direct Chiniot police to prevent the community from sacrificing animals.

ahmadiyya_eid_sacrifice2Saleemudin, a Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya spokesperson, lamented that it had become very difficult for community members to sacrifice animals on Eidul Azha. He said he had been receiving reports for several years about use of police force by sectarian groups to prevent community members from performing the ritual. He said that instead of arranging security for community members who wanted to sacrifice animals on Eid, the police were preventing them from doing so.

Saleemuddin referred to an incident from last year in Sabzazar area. He said that a few days before Eid Hanjarwal police had raided the house of an Ahmadiyya family and taken into custody a male member. He said the man was released after the family submitted a written undertaking assuring the police that they would not slaughter an animal on the Eid day. He said similar incidents had been reported by community members in Sant Nagar and Township in 2013.

Similar incidents were reported this year from Sant Nagar, Township, North Cantonment, Mustafa Town and Johar Town. Male member from Ahmadiyya Muslim families and their sacrificial animals were reportedly detained by the police. They were released after they submitted a written assurance that they would not slaughter any animal during Eid days.

Speaking to the Media, North Cantonment DSP Mansoor said he did it to prevent unrest in the area.

The post Pakistan court seeks ban on Eid sacrifice by Ahmadiyya Muslims appeared first on I Stand With Ahmadis.