Ahmadi Muslims: Pakistan

Debate between Lord Spellar and Elliot Colburn

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that this issue has real implications in the UK through the importation of that hatred and rhetoric on to our shores. I will come on to that in more detail later.

As well as the ban on the publication of religious texts, cyber laws have also massively impacted the Ahmadis’ ability to learn and practise their faith, with social media sites and websites in Pakistan being banned and shut down and websites in the UK, USA and Canada being targeted via the Pakistani state in an attempt to enact Pakistan’s cyber laws.

It is not just in life that Ahmadis are targeted. Since 2021, within the last two years, more than 420 graves have been desecrated and attacked—destroyed and defaced just because they bear Koranic inscriptions. Even the grave of Pakistan’s Nobel laureate, Professor Abdus Salam, has been desecrated to remove the word “Muslim” from the epitaph, such is the state’s tacit—or at least implied—approval.

As for what the British Government have done, I want to thank the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for its engagement with the APPG when we reach out—I am sure the chair will want to go into more detail on that. I thank the Minister for being willing to meet and listen to concerns, and for reaffirming in a recent written question the UK Government’s commitment to freedom of religion and belief. I am glad that Ministers will continue to raise the issue at the highest level. It is vital that the British Government continue that work through all possible channels—with their Pakistani counterparts as well as with international partners at national and NGO level, to press not just for the relaxation of anti-Ahmadi rhetoric and legislation but its full removal from penal codes and blasphemy laws. Only then can we hope to stave off the wave of anti-Ahmadi hatred.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Is the right to the free exercise of religion not fundamental to the United Nations charter? Should we not therefore hold countries to account to protect against action by the state and the condoning of lack of enforcement? After all, there are refugee conventions as well. Should we not hold countries to account for that rather, rather than having their Governments fail to satisfy the needs of their people and therefore look for scapegoats, as has happened so often in history?

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that intervention, and I absolutely agree with him. I look forward to hearing more about that later in the debate. He makes the point very well indeed.

It is clear that there are still huge issues for ordinary Ahmadi Muslims. What are the Government doing and what is the FCDO doing in partnership with the Home Office, as has been mentioned, to better protect and assist Ahmadis who are fleeing persecution and violence? As I have already noted, Carshalton and Wallington is home to many Ahmadi Muslims, as is the London borough of Merton next door.

In summing up, I want to underline why I believe the Government are right to pursue recourse for the Ahmadi community. They should go much further because the Pakistani Government and the widespread anti-Ahmadi violence is giving oxygen to those in other countries far beyond Pakistan’s own borders. The authorities’ fervent discrimination encourages anti-Ahmadi sentiment elsewhere and, as has already been said in interventions, here in the United Kingdom. In 2023 alone, we have already seen anti-Ahmadi extremism take root in other countries. In January in Burkina Faso, nine Ahmadi Muslims were brutally killed one by one after being taken from a mosque near Dori and asked to renounce their faith. They were shot dead when they refused.

In March in Bangladesh, an anti-Ahmadi extremist mob attacked the Ahmadi Muslim annual convention. The fanatics torched the homes of Ahmadi Muslims in Ahmednagar. One Ahmadi, Jahid Hasan, was killed during the attack and over 70 were injured. In Algeria, too, Ahmadis are facing ongoing discrimination. They are being denied the right to practise their faith and being targeted by the authorities. There is at least one Ahmadi prisoner of conscience serving a three-year prison sentence for practising his Ahmadi beliefs.

Alarmingly, such extremism has also reached the United Kingdom. One incredibly shocking incident took place in Glasgow in March 2016 when a shopkeeper, Asad Shah, was murdered—stabbed to death—simply because of his faith. The murderer was said to be inspired by Mumtaz Qadri of Pakistan, the bodyguard who murdered Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, who supported a review of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. As one Ahmadi human rights group notes, that is an incredibly worrisome reminder of the effect of anti-Ahmadi feelings being left unchecked across borders.