Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable chair and members of the subcommittee, first of all let me express our gratitude for this opportunity to appear before you and apprise you briefly of the unacceptable violation of human rights of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia.
I am present today not as a lobbyist but as a man of faith. It is my faith that guides me to speak against any injustices and persecution. Just recently, Pope Benedict also spoke in the UN, and he said that speaking against violations of human rights is a matter of faith.
I am going to mention some of the discrimination and instances of persecution of Ahmadis which have been recorded in Pakistan and other parts of the world. I am present today to request action from you that will stop this discrimination and persecution.
Honourable members, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community was established over 119 years ago by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, India. It's a religious community within the teachings of Islam. His core message is of peace, tolerance, and interfaith harmony. From the community's inception, its founder and its members were persecuted for their beliefs in peaceful interpretation of the teachings of Islam. For example, two of the companions of Hadhrat Ahmad, the founder of the community, were stoned to death by the Amir or king of Afghanistan. Their crime was that they believed that violent interpretation of the jihad is incorrect and that warfare for the purposes of religion is not acceptable. This persecution continued in south Asia and in parts of the Middle East.
In 1953, a major movement was organized by the extremist elements in which Ahmadi Muslims were martyred, their businesses looted, and a social boycott initiated against them. In 1974, with the help of the state of Pakistan, another major round of persecution started that led to more deaths and violations of human rights. In 1974, after those riots, the Parliament of Pakistan amended the Constitution to declare Ahmadis as “...not a Muslim for the purposes of the Constitution or law”.
In April 1984, 10 years later, the then-dictator President Zia-ul-Haq promulgated military Ordinance XX, amending sections 298-B and 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which criminalized a whole series of routine religious practices.
Mr. Chairman, you might know that Muslims greet by saying “asalaamo alaikum” or “peace be on you”. Thousands of people have been charged under this law that says they are not supposed to do that. They have been thrown in jail because they are not allowed to do that.
Ordinance XX has criminalized a whole series of routine religious practices, as I mentioned. Greetings of “asalaamo alaikum” and praying quietly in one's home--perfectly socially acceptable and peaceful acts--were criminal only when committed by an Ahmadi. The actor, not the act, was criminalized. Ordinance XX is so vague; it says that anybody who is a member of the Ahmadiyya community poses to be a Muslim and is committing a crime and can go to jail for three years.
In 1993 the Supreme Court of Pakistan not only declared Ordinance XX as constitutional, but also declared that the Ahmadiyya profession and practice of Islam, however peaceful, was akin to being like Salman Rushdie. This means that the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared Ahmadis to be blasphemous under section 295-C, the blasphemy law. Blasphemy is punishable by death, even though no such punishment exists in Islam. Therefore, simply by saying “asalaamo alaikum” and praying to God, Ahmadis are punishable by death.
In 1985, when this blasphemy law was being discussed, an international commission of jurists wrote a report that said this law would be used against Ahmadis; if they say they accept the founder of the Ahmadiyya community as a prophet, they will be committing a crime of blasphemy. The sole purpose of this law is to persecute Ahmadis.
To date, many Ahmadiyya Muslims have been martyred, businesses have been looted, property and mosques burned and demolished, admission to schools and employment denied, and graves desecrated.
Honourable members, I have presented you with a brief history only to give you a flavour of the persecution faced by Ahmadiyya Muslims. As documented by human rights non-governmental organizations, Ahmadiyya Muslims are subjected to a planned and concerted campaign of persecution in a number of countries, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. In reality, the world community has not stopped this persecution in Pakistan, and this persecution and this kind of hatred are being exported to different countries. In reality, if you understand the case of Pakistan, you'll be able to understand the cases of others, because they are just following them; those mullahs are exporting hatred from Pakistan to other countries.
As documented by human rights non-government organizations, the question we should ask is, what does this incremental persecution lead to? Despite the peaceful teaching of Islam that there is no compulsion on matters of religion, the mullahs have a twisted notion of apostasy.
Mr. Chairman, you might recall that there was a case in Afghanistan where a Muslim had accepted Christianity and he was given the death penalty. This is how the mullahs want to declare us, not only the non-Muslims, but also the apostate. Their plan is to kill us all. They want these kinds of amendments in the law and the constitution. Unfortunately, they are successful because of all these pressures.
According to these mullahs, anyone who changes his faith is an apostate deserving of death. The declared goal of the clergy--and this is being spoken very loudly in Pakistan and other jurisdictions--is to eventually declare Ahmadis as apostates and then to impose what they assert to be the sharia punishment of this crime, even though no punishment exists according to the Holy Quran.
The punishment the mullahs seek to impose is as follows. Three days are given to convert back to their religion of Islam. If not accepted, all male adult Ahmadis are to be imprisoned and later put to death. All adult women are to be imprisoned and then made into concubines. All of the assets of Ahmadis and their places of worship are to be confiscated and distributed among the general Muslim population. People ask, how is it possible in this 21st century? It was said in 1974: how can a parliament say you are not Muslim? But it happened. Then people said, in 1984, how was it possible that this would be made a criminal offence if you said you were a Muslim? It happened. Now this is the goal; they want to declare four million Ahmadis in Pakistan as apostates and they should be killed.
Mr. Chairman, these are the persecutors of Ahmadis and they are the enemies of the west. They are the ones who are against democracy. They are the ones who are against peaceful coexistence. They are the ones who are terrorists. All these terrorist organizations are our persecutors. We have a common goal to stop them. We did not stop them in Pakistan and now they are doing this in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and also in Indonesia.
Mr. Chairman, my request to the Government of Canada and to all Canadians, through you, is that we should stand up and say that enough is enough. Now you say you have democracy. Repeal those laws and restore the basic human rights of all Ahmadis and all minorities in Pakistan.
Thank you very much.