In the US, meanwhile, Ahmadi spokesmen such as Qasim Rashid, Haris Zafar and Kashif Chaudhary carry water for the same forces that oppress them in Pakistan.
After Punjab, the minarets of Ahmadis’ places of worship began to be demolished in Karachi. Today, a group of people demolished the minaret of an Ahmadi shrine in Sadar. Two weeks ago, the minaret of another Ahmadi shrine in Martin Quarters was also demolished. pic.twitter.com/X2EnUAtnVV
– Zia ur Rahman (@zalmayzia) February 2, 2023
“Ahmadi mosque vandals in Pakistan—encouraged by police,” Marco Respinti, Bitter Winter, February 6, 2023:
On January 18, 2023, three goons entered the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mosque on Martin Road in Karachi, Pakistan, and desecrated two of its minarets. The International Human Rights Committee reports, “The top of the minaret was smashed to pieces. The attackers left behind ladders and a sledgehammer. When the police arrived, they fled. This is the third desecration of an Ahmadi Muslim mosque this month.”
IHRC is a non-profit and non-governmental organization based in London that focuses on freedom of religion or belief and provides first-hand information on discrimination and persecution of Ahmadis. It indicates, “[l]Last month the police destroyed the minarets of the Ahmadiyya mosque in Bagbanpura, Gujranwala and a few days ago the 108-year-old Ahmadiyya mosque in Moti Bazar Wazirabad was desecrated by the police.”
In Pakistan, the persecution of the Ahmadiyya community boasts the sad record of being the only state-sponsored politics of bigotry against a Muslim community in a Muslim country. For the government of Muslim Pakistan, Ahmadis are actually non-Muslim heretics. That scholars may disagree is treated as irrelevant and the persecution of this group reaches a level of true sadness.
According to the IHRC report, citing information received by the agency from the deputy superintendent of local police, police officers in Adda, tehsil Gojra, district Toba Tek Singh forced Ahmadis to “demolish the minarets from their own Ahmadiyya mosques”.
The most surprising thing is that it is against the law of Pakistan, as stated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in its recommendation (PLD 2014 SC 699).
Yet, again, on February 2, 2023, vandals attacked the Ahmadiyya Hall built in 1950 in Saddar Karachi (Pakistan’s commercial district) and razed its minarets to the ground….