Over 100 activists of banned outfits released in Punjab

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According to reliable sources the Punjab government has released 112 activists of banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) during past few weeks.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The News | Inyternational
By Waseem Abbasi | May 22, 2013

ISLAMABAD: Over a hundred activists of banned sectarian organizations, who were arrested by the former PML-N government as a part of crackdown against these outfits after deadly bombing in Quetta that killed over 180 members of Hazara community in first two months of this year, have been released.

According to reliable sources the Punjab government has released 112 activists of banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) during past few weeks. These activists had been arrested by former Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif led government from across the province after the deadly incidents in Quetta, targeting minority Hazara community.

The operation had been launched after strong calls for crackdown against Punjab based militants from federal government and civil society. The incumbent Chief Minister Najam Sethi was also a very strong proponent of the crackdown.

UK: Only UN can curb religious violence in Pakistan: Lord Avebury

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... [T]he stability of Pakistan has become vital to the peace of the region, with the withdrawal of allied forces from Afghanistan.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | UK Desk
Source/Credit: Lib Dem Lords
By Tim Gordon | May 22, 2013

Today Lord Avebury will lead a debate in the Lords on curbing religious violence in Pakistan. The tide of destruction is on such a scale that the UN Security Council now has to tackle it, he says.

The international community needs to pay attention to the upsurge in religious violence and hatred in Pakistan.

The country will be the largest recipient of UK aid in the world when it gets  £446m in 2014-15. They also receive billions from the US in military and economic aid. But 30,000 civilians have been killed in religious and political assassinations and massacres since 2001.  All that money hasn’t reduced the level of political and religious mayhem.

At the same time the stability of Pakistan has become vital to the peace of the region, with the withdrawal of allied forces from Afghanistan.

The agenda of the Sunni extremists in Pakistan and their brothers in al-Qaeda and its many imitators across the Islamic world is to eliminate other varieties of Islam as well as the unbelievers.

But their main target has always been the Shia as they brazenly acknowledge, taking credit for the atrocities they commit. They say  that the Shia are infidels, that they should be labeled as non-Muslims under the law, and that they are ‘worthy to be killed’.

USA: Ahmadiyya Khalifa makes historic first visit to Southern California

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The Khalifa’s Friday sermon on May 10th was broadcast live from the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino, and all over the world, tens of millions of Ahmadis in 202 countries listened to the Urdu broadcast or a translation in one of twelve major languages.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Baitul Hameed Mosque
By Press Release | May 21q, 2013


Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the Khalifa of Islam Ahmadiyya and the 5th successor to the Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi, visited the west coast of the U.S. from May 4th to the 15th, staying at the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino. His main purpose in coming to Southern California was to meet with local members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the denomination of Islam he has headed since April 2003 when he was elected to the lifelong position of Khalifa or spiritual leader.

His Holiness Khalifatul Masih the 5th spent the better part of a week conducting 550 private meetings with families, conversing with around 2,200 members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Most of the Ahmadis who met with His Holiness live in southern California, but a sizable portion came from central and northern California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and half a dozen other states from the mid-west to the eastern seaboard. Some members traveled from Canada and others came from as far away as the UK, Norway and Pakistan. All were eager to spend even a few minutes with their Khalifa, and all tried their best to make it for the five daily prayers, which His Holiness personally led. Having the Khalifa on the mosque premises for 12 days was an amazing blessing and a spiritually revitalizing experience for everyone, said Imam Shamshad A. Nasir, the Chino Mosque’s prayer leader and southwest regional missionary for the Ahmadiyya Community in the U.S. It was the Khalifa’s first trip to the west coast, and Ahmadis came from far and wide just to be able to meet with him for a couple of minutes and have pictures taken with him.

Pakistan: Ahmadis Face Rising Persecution, Violence

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“There is no safety for Ahmadis in Pakistan. It is because the laws against Ahmadis are not only providing a base for extremist elements of society, but also for the government of Pakistan to file cases against Ahmadis on the basis of those laws and to harass them.”

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit:  Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
By Daud Khattak and Frud Bezhan | May 22, 2013

One of the many religious minorities whose plight is documented in the latest U.S. State Department report on religious freedom is the Ahmadiyya community, or the Ahmadis.

The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim, but that is a view rejected by mainstream Islamic sects. And in Pakistan, as RFE/RL correspondents Daud Khattak and Frud Bezhan report, Ahmadis have come under assault not only from extremist religious groups but also from the government.

Pakistan’s minority Ahmadi sect has become the target of rising sectarian violence, with its burial grounds, mosques, and homes coming under assault.

Authorities have done little to stem the attacks, with the government still refusing to grant the community equal status.

Those were the findings documented by the U.S. State Department’s 2012 International Religious Freedom Report, which was released on May 20. The report said Pakistan's Ahmadis, who number between 2-4 million, are being harassed, detained, and banned from practicing their faith.

USA: Jewish Group Gives Tolerance Award to Indonesian Leader Blamed for Targeting Minorities

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“How come they did not ask the Indonesian people’s opinion before they decided to give Yudhoyono the award?”

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Jewish Daily Forward
By Josh Nathan-Kazis | May 21, 2013.

Indonesian human rights activists are protesting an American Jewish organization’s plans to give Indonesia’s president an award for religious freedom — a freedom that human rights monitors say has sharply deteriorated under his rule.

The annual award, given by Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s Appeal of Conscience Foundation, has no significant profile in the United States. But in Indonesia, Schneier’s decision to give the award to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been the subject of street protests, newspaper articles, and angry statements by major national figures.

“He has laid down the legal infrastructure of the discrimination against religious minorities,” said Andreas Harsono, a Jakarta-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, of Yudhoyono.

According to recent Human Rights Watch reports, persecution against religious minorities, including non-Sunni Muslims and Christians, has burgeoned under the current president’s leadership. A recent U.S. State Department report faulted the Indonesian government for failing to protect religious minorities.

Pakistan: State brutality makes journalism a dangerous business

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Many journalists understandably leave their countries after undergoing such an experience, but Umar decided to stay, despite being offered foreign postings.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |
Source/Credit: The Independant | UK
By The Independant | May 21, 2013

Umar Cheema was abducted and attacked - but he was determined to tell his story

When Umar Cheema was being dragged off to be tortured after investigating Pakistan’s ISI secret services, it was his son and unborn child that he worried about most.

Umar, a 32-year-old reporter for the Pakistani paper The News, had been on his way home in Islamabad at 3am during Ramadan in September 2010 when two unmarked cars nearly drove him off the road. A dozen men in commando fatigues grabbed him, accused him of running over a pedestrian and forced him into one of the vehicles. They covered his face, handcuffed him and drove him around for an hour.

“I thought of my son,” he says. “My son was two years old then. And just thinking about my son – it started weakening me. I didn’t have any idea who picked me up, who these people were, or their intentions. In such a case, you realize you are being killed. What would happen to my son? Would he grow up an orphan?”