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Glasgow:  A UK-based human rights organisation is calling on the authorities in Pakistan to release a 72-year-old doctor who was arrested for ‘posing as a Muslim’ after being secretly filmed by a patient at his surgery. Global Minorities Alliance, a Glasgow-based human rights organisation which advocates for the rights of minority communities the world over, denounced the imprisonment as a further example of Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws being used to persecute minorities and whip up religious hatred rather than seek justice in a country which is increasingly being divided by violence. Mr Masood Ahmad, a member of the Ahmadiyya community, was charged under Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadiyya blasphemy legislation after a religious leader posing as a patient attended his homeopathy clinic in Lahore and secretly recorded him reading a verse from the Quran. Mr Ahmad, who has dual Pakistani/UK nationality and previously lived in London, was arrested shortly after and is now in pri...

Twenty Ahmadiyah followers have missed work and school, remaining holed up in the Al-Misbah Mosque in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, since local officials sealed it off on April 4. The security coordinator for the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation, Deden Sudjana, said on Saturday that the Ahmadis were in good condition and would stay in the mosque until the city administration allowed the followers of the minority Muslim sect to practice their religion and remove the fence sealing the mosque. However, officials appear unlikely to honor that request. Deden said that Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi invited the Bekasi Ahmadiyah congregation members to a dialogue on April 11, which he said ended in deadlock and was attended by representatives of the Bekasi branch of the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI). The administration, according to Deden, had agreed to open the mosque only if the Ahmadis removed Islam from their congregation’s name or allowed officials to arrange all services at the mosque, includ...

KARACHI:  Tragedy struck an Ahmedi family in Nawabshah once again when the son was shot at by an unidentified man only a few years after his father was killed. The victim A*, who is a lawyer, was at his brother’s shop – taking a break from his morning work at the district courts – when a man walked up to him, opened fire and disappeared into the crowd. The incident took place at Liaquat Market Road on April 2, according to the victim’s cousin, K. “I heard a gunshot and when I reached on the spot a few people were trying to take him to the hospital in a rickshaw,” the cousin recalled. “He might have been targeted because of his religious beliefs as he had no personal enmity.” Initially, A was rushed to Civil Hospital, Nawabshah, but was later moved to Karachi. “The bullet pierced his liver and the doctors have removed the affected part in a surgery,” said MA Khan, a spokesperson for Ahmediya community, “The bleeding hasn’t stopped until now.” The doctors feel, however, ...

Recently an Ahmadi couple were denied permission to get married by the Religious Affairs Office in Indonesia’s West Java province, unless they agreed to convert to mainstream Islam. And last week, a blood donor event held by a group of Ahmadiyah in the same province was stopped by the authorities. Indonesia’s 200,000 Ahmadiyah people identify themselves as Muslim but hardline Islamic organisations have attacked them for not following mainstream Islamic practices. And in 2008, the Government announced a joint ministerial decree freezing the activities of Ahmadiyah followers. Many blame the decree for series of attacks against the Ahmadiyah. The United Nations’ Human Rights Chief has continuously urged the Indonesian government to tackle the problem. Citra Prastuti has more from Jakarta. Atep Upriyatna’s brother was recently refused permission to get married in the Religious Affairs Office in Tasikmalaya. The officials would only allow the marriage to go ahead if he converted...

LAHORE: Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday directed federal government to block all blasphemous sights and material on Google and other websites. The judge placed this order on petition filed by Jamat-e-Islami. The judge ordered federal government to file its reply by November 08. The petition was filed by JI leaders Liaqat Baloch and Farid Ahmed Paracha seeking ban on all internet sites containing blasphemous material. Meanwhile, on another petition seeking directions for federal government to take the matter to the international court of justice, the LHC issued order to federal government to submit reply within three weeks. Justice Sagheer Ahmad Qadri of LHC was hearing the case. As proceedings started in the court advocate A K Dogar, the counsel for the petitioners contended that US president Barak Obama however, strongly condemned the anti-Islam movie but also stressed upon the supremacy of the constitution that allowed all such activities and...

Physicist Mohammad Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani and the first Muslim to win a Nobel prize in science. His discoveries continue to dazzle the world as demonstrated by the verification last summer of a theory to which Salam had contributed, on Higgs boson, or the “God particle.” But in his home country, Dr. Salam is without honor. Throughout his lifetime Dr. Salam was a practicing member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, whose very existence was pronounced blasphemous by a 1974 constitutional amendment and by later criminal laws. In protest,

“Had they not left the house, the situation could have been really bad,” - investigation officer Muhammad Bux (ISLAMABAD, Pakistan) - On Friday evening, when I reached in AFP Karachi office directly from the airport, I observed some 600 extremists had attacked the St. Francis Church, old Goli mar. Earlier the house of the accused Ryan Brain Patris (boy) was ransacked and furniture was set on fire in a violent protest, this time it was not in a slum but in Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Karachi. Ryan Brain, a 15-year old Christian boy, has been accused of sending text messages containing ‘blasphemous’ content to his Muslim friends. The numbers written in FIR are 0346-278 1298 (sender) and 0302 2222 544 (receiver) The incident took place in the staff colony of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) located at the junction of University Road and Abu al Hasan Ispahani Road, Karachi. Police said that the boy was accused by the residents that he had sent text messages containing b...

ISLAMABAD: The Imam of a Mosque, Khalid Jadoon, manipulated the evidence against Rimsha Maseeh, said an eyewitness in a statement before the magistrate on Saturday. According to the eyewitness Hafiz Muhammad Zubair, he was observing Aitekaf in the mosque when he got to know about the incident of alleged burning of Quranic verses. He said that Ammad, the complainant in the case, handed over the ashes of Quranic verses to the Imam of the mosque Khalid Jadoon, who also added more verses to it. The eyewitness further said in his statement that he himself along with two more Motakif protested against the manipulation of the evidences. He said that he and other eyewitnesses had asked Khalid Jadoon to present the real evidences against Rimsha. Meanwhile, the religious scholar Tahir Ashrafi has asked the Ulema as to what kind of punishment Imams like Khalid Jadoon deserved. Read Original Post here...

ISLAMABAD — Doctors and officials are "favouring" a young Pakistani Christian girl charged with blasphemy after allegedly burning papers containing Koranic verses, the lawyer for her accuser claimed Thursday. The girl, named Rimsha, has been held since August 16 on suspicion of desecrating the Muslim holy book, an offence that can carry a life prison sentence under Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws. A medical report earlier this week said Rimsha was around 14 years old -- her age had been in dispute -- and appeared to be "uneducated" with a mental age below her true age. But after a brief hearing in the case on Thursday, which Rimsha did not attend, Rao Abdur Raheem, the lawyer representing her accuser, rejected the doctors' assessment. "The victim has admitted that she burned a chapter of the Koran," he told reporters outside court in Islamabad. "The doctors are favouring the victim and the state is also supporting her." ...