Kabul, June 27 (IANS) The continued persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan represents a persistent violation of fundamental human rights and international legal commitments. It undermines religious freedom, personal security, political participation, equality before the law, and the right to live with dignity, a report has stated.
The report argued that addressing these concerns requires repealing discriminatory laws, ensuring accountability for violence, safeguarding places of worship and burial sites, and guaranteeing Ahmadis equal protection under the law.
“The persecution of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan is a sustained human rights crisis rooted in discriminatory law, social hostility, and weak state protection. Recent reports of police pressure around Ahmadi funeral rites in Badin are not isolated events but part of a broader pattern in which the community faces restrictions on worship, burial, speech, voting, and physical security,” a report in the ‘Afghan Diaspora Network’ detailed.
“Pakistan’s treatment of Ahmadis is shaped by laws that formally exclude them from equal citizenship. Human Rights Watch notes that Pakistan declared Ahmadis non-Muslim in 1974 and later amended its penal code in 1984 to criminalise core aspects of their faith, including publicly declaring themselves Muslim, using Islamic religious language, or referring to their places of worship as mosques. These laws do not merely regulate conduct, but they target identity and belief itself,” it added.
The report cited Amnesty International, which stated that the legal framework has been used to prevent Ahmadis from practising their religion, while exposing them to “arbitrary arrest and criminal prosecution”.
Ahmadis in Pakistan, it said, have long endured recurring violence by non-state actors, with state institutions failing to protect them.
Referring to the July 2024 finding of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the report documented a “grave rise in extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, attacks on places of worship, and restrictions on peaceful assembly and association”. It noted repeated attacks on Ahmadi cemeteries and worship sites, highlighting that even the deceased were not spared from abuse.
The report alleges that Pakistani authorities have at times yielded to mob pressure by arresting or detaining Ahmadis instead of protecting them from threats.
“In such cases, law enforcement does not function as a shield for vulnerable citizens but becomes part of the coercive environment. This is a serious failure of due diligence because states have a duty not only to refrain from abuse but also to prevent foreseeable harm by private actors,” it stressed.
Highlighting the widespread atrocities against Ahmadis by Pakistani authorities, the report said, “Pakistan’s treatment of Ahmadis violates several core international human rights norms. The most direct breach is Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to manifest one’s religion in worship, observance, and practice. Criminalising Ahmadi religious expression is incompatible with this right.”
–IANS
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