Ahmadiyya Community

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Let me start by apologising for any words that I may pronounce incorrectly. No insult is intended, and I stand to be corrected on my pronunciation. For someone with a name like Siobhain McDonagh, that is quite a thing.

Britain’s Ahmadiyya Muslims work hard and contribute greatly to this country. Their belief in peace and religious tolerance is an example to us all, and is to be expected from a community whose motto is, “Love for all and hatred for none.” Their fifth spiritual head, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, lives in the United Kingdom, and their headquarters are in south London. Indeed, one of the world’s biggest Ahmadi mosques is in Morden. It has capacity for 10,000 people, which means that I have many Ahmadi constituents, as do many neighbouring seats. I am pleased to say that we now have the backing of enough parliamentarians to start up an all-party parliamentary group for the Ahmadiyyan community, and we will hold our first ever meeting in the next few weeks.

In my experience, my Ahmadi constituents are well-educated, cultured and have a sophisticated and peace-loving approach. I am therefore delighted to be granted this opportunity to talk about the Ahmadiyyan community. I understand that this is the first ever parliamentary debate specifically to discuss the Ahmadiyya faith, and it is a great honour to be leading it. However, I am extremely sorry to bring this community’s concerns to the House at this particular time. The circumstances that led me to ask for a debate are extremely sad. On 28 May, nearly 100 Ahmadiyya Muslim worshippers were brutally murdered in two separate attacks in Lahore. However, what makes the story especially poignant is not just the fact that the Ahmadi are so peaceful but that their murderers were also Muslim. What I hope to do today is to examine why the attacks took place, then ask whether there is anything that we in Britain and the wider community can do to prevent such atrocities happening again in the future. Finally, I want to assess what the implications are for Britain of how the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan is treated and what we can do about it.

To begin, I need to say a few words of introduction about the Ahmadiyyans. Despite the fact that they have translated the holy Koran into more than 60 languages, span 195 countries and have more than 15,000 mosques and a membership exceeding tens of millions, theirs is a faith that is little known outside their community. The Ahmadiyya Muslim community was founded in 1889 and arose out of the belief that the long-awaited Messiah had come in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. Ahmad claimed to be the metaphorical second coming whose advent was foretold by Mohammed. Obviously, that contradicts the view of mainstream Muslims who believe that Mohammed is the last prophet. Nevertheless, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is a very peaceful religion. They believe that there are parallels between Ahmad and Jesus, as God sent both to end religious wars, contend bloodshed and bring peace. For instance, they reject terrorism in any form. Ahmad declared that jihad by the sword had no place in Islam. Instead, he wanted his followers to wage a bloodless, intellectual jihad of the pen to defend Islam.

In a similar vein, Ahmadis believe that theirs is the only Islamic organisation to endorse a separation of mosque and state and to champion the empowerment and education of women. Ahmad also warned his followers not to engage in irrational interpretations of the Koran or to misapply Islamic law. In Britain today, we regard such attributes as modern and tolerant. However, those values are not shared by some other Muslim traditions, particularly those with a more fundamentalist viewpoint. For such fundamentalists, belief in a false prophet is heretical enough, but for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community also to follow teachings that fundamentalists believe are wrong is adding insult to injury. Consequently, Ahmadis have long faced persecution. Their first martyr was killed in custody in 1901, and it is estimated that there have been about 200 deaths in total. Of course, religious disagreements have cost countless lives over the years throughout the world. Religions have a long and very unhappy history of attacking each other for worshipping the wrong prophet, even much closer to home than in Pakistan.

I am a Catholic and we are as guilty as anyone. A Catholic pope promised heaven to mediaeval thugs who took part in murderous crusades against followers of a prophet whom they believed was false—Mohammed. That period of history continues to haunt us. This country is not immune to using discrimination against religions we have not liked, with Catholics on this occasion often being the victims. It is only a few years ago that I helped to change the law to allow former Catholic priests to become MPs. Although that law was a throwback to a much earlier time, there are, even in our more recent history, examples of discrimination of which we should not be proud, particularly in Northern Ireland. It is hard therefore to stand here and lecture other countries about their practices, and we need to remain humble. The fact that religions have been persecuting each other for centuries does not make it right, especially in Pakistan where extreme groups such as the Taliban are already very active in creating a lot of volatility.

We are lucky in this country in that, on the whole, our religions can carry on side by side without conflict, respecting each other’s right to worship. In Pakistan, most mainstream Muslims are horrified that anything could happen to their fellow countrymen just because they have a different religion. They are as shocked as we are by attacks such as those in Lahore. However, discrimination is an everyday reality for many Ahmadis living in Pakistan, and it is embedded in the Pakistani constitution.

Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, may have said that the country should be a secular state in which all were equal and religion was no business of the state, but today’s Ahmadis do not enjoy equality. Pakistan was created in 1947. In 1948, Major Dr Mahmood Ahmed was lynched by a mob at Quetta. In 1950, Ahmadis were murdered in Charsadda, Okara, Rawalpindi and Mansehra. By 1974, riots and killings, attacks on mosques, assaults, arson and looting were widespread, and the organs of the state were not neutral. The police arrested victims and not perpetrators. In September 1974, Prime Minister Bhutto amended the constitution and declared that Ahmadis were officially non-Muslim. That was followed in the 1980s by measures introduced by Zia ul-Haq’s Government to Islamicise Pakistan’s laws.

In 1984, Ordinance 20 significantly restricted Ahmadi freedom of religion or expression, threatening up to three years in jail for any Ahmadi who, for example, called themselves a Muslim. Since then, thousands of Ahmadis have been arrested. In 1989 and again in 2008, the entire 50,000 population of the Rabwah was charged with practising Islamic worship. Ahmadis are prevented from holding public meetings and are not even able to vote or to register to vote because registering to vote would require them to deny their faith. Ahmadis are barred from entry to public office except at the lowest level. In order to claim to be a Muslim on the Pakistani passport, they are forced to sign a declaration that says:

“I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be an imposter.”

Persecution by the state is at times systematic. My fear is that such discrimination helps to feed the ideology of groups such as the Taliban and offers them a justification for some of their worst excesses. It does not legitimise what they do, but it might make them feel, wrongly, that they have some kind of legitimacy. Even if there was no violence, it makes Ahmadis feel threatened. Therefore, the Pakistan constitution poses a problem, as it gives some perverse encouragement to extremists and belittles the Ahmadi community.

Non-state persecution of Ahmadis is very worrying and appears to be growing. According to Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, Ahmadis face the worst treatment of anyone in Pakistan. The media there are often virulently anti-Ahmadi, broadcasting phrases such as, “Ahmadis deserve to die.” In particular, the Khatme Nabuwwat movement carries out regular activities to oppose Ahmadi Muslims. It calls for the banning of Ahmadiyyat and for the killing of Ahmadis. It incites attacks against Ahmadis in speech and broadcast, and is credited with introducing the widely used phrase, “wajibul qatl” which means “those who deserve to be killed”.

In the past decade, there has been an increasing number of murders and attacks of Ahmadis, and an increase in the number of pre-planned and targeted attacks on Ahmadi mosques by Islamist militants. As we know, those attacks culminated in the Lahore attacks, when two mosques were stormed in a well-planned assault that lasted for about four hours. At one stage, more than 1,000 worshippers were trapped in the Darul Zikr mosque, trying to escape militants armed with guns and grenades. The Baitun Noor mosque was also stormed in a co-ordinated attack. The multiple suicide attacks by the Punjabi Taliban took place slowly, with terrorists methodically throwing hand-grenades among their hostages and climbing the minarets to fire at them from above. When the attackers started to run out of ammunition, they began detonating their explosive vests. Although the police came, they arrived late—even after the media arrived—and the only attackers who were caught were captured by unarmed Ahmadis.

The loss of life and the prolonged and bloody siege prompted widespread condemnation and global media coverage, and it is the reason why we have asked for this debate today. Many people have been in touch with me about the outrage in Lahore. Shortly after the murders, I spoke personally with Rafiq Hayat, the head of the UK’s Ahmadi community. I wanted him to know that I was very concerned about what had happened and I wanted to see if I could do anything more to help.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

In my constituency, the attacks in Lahore in May sent a shockwave through the local Ahmadi community. However, I was very impressed that, despite that sense of shock, several months later the community displayed its altruistic and inclusive nature when it invited representatives of many different faiths in my constituency—Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim—to come together for a celebration at the end of Ramadan. Is that not a great example of the way forward and of how we can include all communities together, with respect for all different faiths and religions?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman and, as I have been arguing, such inclusiveness is the hallmark of the Ahmadi faith.

We thought that it was important that Britain send a strong message to Pakistan after the attacks in Lahore, saying that we were appalled by what had happened and that more must be done to support Ahmadi worshippers in that country. At the time of the attacks in Lahore, we were concerned that the British Government should highlight both Pakistan’s duty to protect Ahmadis and the poor treatment that Ahmadis receive in Pakistan. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) said when he was my party’s foreign affairs spokesperson:

“It is when the international community has taken its eye off the ball in Pakistan that instability has increased…Internally, Pakistan has a duty to protect minority groups and needs the support of its allies to do so.”

Rafiq Hayat told me that he agreed with that sentiment and I hope that the Minister can join us in expressing the Government’s views to the Pakistan Government in his speech later in the debate.

I am concerned that the discrimination against Ahmadis that is embedded in the Pakistani constitution can be construed by militants as giving them legitimacy. The Pakistani Government are already facing many difficulties with al-Qaeda and other militant groups, and the British Government need to work hard to convince them to help to fight global Islamic terrorism. As the June issue of Terrorism Monitor notes:

“As the Pakistani Taliban are trying to spread their war on the Pakistani state, they are likely to continue to target minorities like the Ahmadis in their efforts to create instability.”

If we do not persuade mainstream politicians in Pakistan to stand up for the Ahmadi Muslim community, we risk further Islamicist militancy. Moreover, if the militancy continues in Pakistan, it not only threatens Ahmadis but the whole international community. After all, any increase in Islamicist activities also affects us here in the UK, so it is in our own interests for the Government to seek to persuade Pakistan’s Government to show more tolerance to the Ahmadi Muslim community.

I therefore urge the Minister to ask his colleagues to raise this matter with Pakistani Ministers in the course of their regular meetings and to keep the new all-party group informed of any progress. The truth is that the Pakistani extremists’ hatred of Ahmadis is already being exported. In fact, it is here in the UK today.

Last week, south London local newspapers carried front page articles about discrimination against and intimidation of Britain’s Ahmadi community. The police are appealing for information about inflammatory leaflets that have been distributed across south London, apparently by Khatme Nabuwwat, as part of a targeted ideological campaign, and they have said that an investigation into alleged hate crimes is ongoing. They have also said that a teenage Ahmadi girl gave them a statement, claiming that a leaflet that was written in Urdu said:

“Kill a Qadiyani and doors to heaven will open to you”.

Another KN leaflet, entitled “Deception of the Qadiyani”, was recently displayed in the window of the Sabina Hair and Cosmetic shop in Mitcham road, Tooting. When the local Guardian newspaper confronted staff at the shop to ask why they had put up the leaflet, a worker said:

“These people are not Muslims. I did it myself. They don’t believe that prophet Mohammed is the last prophet.”

Many Ahmadi shopkeepers are worried about the future of their businesses after clerics demanded a boycott of their shops. Imam Suliman Gani, of the Tooting Islamic Centre, apparently pleaded with the owner of the Lahore halal meat shop in Tooting not to sell his business to an Ahmadi man, saying:

“Since the Qadiyanis are routinely deceptive about their religion, there was a potential risk of Muslims being offered meat that wasn’t necessarily halal.”

Yet another leaflet that was posted on the wall of the Streatham mosque called for a boycott of the Lahore halal meat store.

The discrimination is increasing. An Ahmadi butcher who came to London in 2001 after fleeing Pakistan has just won an employment tribunal after being sacked by the owner of the Haji halal meat shop in upper Tooting. The owner, Azizur Rahman, had put pressure on his employee to convert to the Sunni Muslim faith. Apparently, Mr Rahman said that pressure was placed on him

“by the head of the Sunni sect who had helped Mr Rahman to gain admission for his daughters to a single sex school for girls.”

Mr Rahman also claimed that he had been influenced by a conference hosted by KN at the Tooting Islamic centre in March, where worshippers were ordered to boycott Ahmadi-run shops. During that conference, the KN’s Abdul Rehman Bawa said:

“I don’t know why our sisters or mothers are talking with these Qadiyani and making friendships...Don’t make friends with them...They are trying to deceive you, they are trying to convert you from Islam to Qadiyanism.”

According to the local Guardian newspaper, the owner of one Tooting halal butchers shop said that his trade had virtually halved in three months, and claimed:

“Some people refuse to come here just because I am Ahmadi. They use words against me like ‘Kafir’, which means I am not Muslim. I’ve lived here for 13 years and lots of people know me in Tooting, but this situation has become so much worse now.”

Furthermore, the Tooting Islamic centre was at the centre of another controversy, when an election hustings in April was disrupted by anti-Ahmadi protests. The Tory candidate was mistaken by a group of fundamentalists for the Liberal Democrat candidate, who is an Ahmadi, and he had to be locked into a room for his own safety.

I appreciate that not everything that appears in the newspapers is the whole truth and that the real story about anti-Ahmadi activities in this country may be more complicated and untypical. I also do not want to focus on Tooting any more than anywhere else, because I have lived in the Tooting area all my life and there is nowhere else in the world that I would prefer to live. My own experience is that the vast majority of mainstream Muslims are wonderful people and respect their local communities in peace.

We are still a long, long way from a Lahore-style attack happening in south London, but the emergence of anti-Ahmadi activity is a great concern. I ask the Minister to address the issue of how groups originating in Pakistan are encouraging illegal discrimination and inciting hatred in this country, and to raise it with colleagues at the Home Office and other agencies, including the police. None of us wants to see the Pakistani attacks repeated anywhere else. The Pakistani Taliban and groups such as KN have no place in a tolerant society and Ministers must exploit all this country’s diplomatic skills to work with the Pakistani Government.

In the UK, most of the time, people from different religions live side by side, even though we each believe that the other worships a false prophet. I include the vast majority of the mainstream Muslim community in that. Muslims are among the most peaceful, tolerant and understanding people in our community, and I say that as a south London MP with a very diverse constituency. However, for the sake of Ahmadis here and in Pakistan we must work towards a greater understanding of the Ahmadi Muslim community.

I hope that the Minister can make a commitment today to raising our concerns with his colleagues in the Home Office and the Foreign Office, with the police, with the Pakistani Government and with the Commonwealth. I also hope that our new all-party group will contribute towards a greater understanding of Ahmadis, because our aim is for the whole world to share and respect the Ahmadi slogan, “Love for all and hatred for none”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

I was going to say that ministerial engagements prevented him from running; but it was a good occasion and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, which I reciprocate. Although properly partisan we are able, we hope, to put such things to one side when we need to. This is one of those occasions.

In foreign policy there are many areas in which a change in Government makes little difference to what are conceived to be British interests. As to human rights and related matters I think the House can be assured that the view of the House, the Government and the country is reflected in Government. There may be nuances from time to time, but the things that we hold valuable are shared between us. The House will find the Minister and the Opposition speaking together in our condemnation of the attacks that are the subject of the debate and in our concerns about what can be done in the future.

Human rights and the treatment of minorities are obviously of major concern to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden in seeking the debate, and they are important to us all. She made a powerful and at times distressing case when she discussed circumstances affecting her constituents, and events in Pakistan. Her concerns for her constituents were echoed by the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and by other hon. Members who spoke.

The United Kingdom Government are concerned about the ongoing discrimination against the Ahmadi Muslim community in Pakistan and around the world. I am grateful for the opportunity to talk to hon. Members about it. We welcome the news about the all-party group and will keep in touch with that. The hon. Lady and her fellow officers will know that they need only make contact with us and we shall respond. She recognises, through the establishment of the group, the importance of the community to many hon. Members in the House of Commons who have relevant constituency interests. I will certainly draw the Home Secretary’s attention to the remarks have been made today concerning events that take place in the UK. I will move on to the matters affecting home affairs later, but there is no doubt that the matter has resonance both for our foreign relations responsibilities and for what happens in the UK.

I would like to put our relationship with Pakistan in perspective before dealing with the hon. Lady’s specific points, because it is important, and the right hon. Member for Warley referred to that, too. The Government are committed to a long-term, productive and friendly partnership with Pakistan. Our two countries share many strong ties: our history, the deep familial roots in our 1 million-strong British Pakistani diaspora, extensive business links and close cultural connections.

As we have heard, Pakistan is currently dealing with major domestic challenges. The recent devastating floods have caused an immense amount of damage and misery for more than 20 million people—misery on a scale that is difficult to contemplate in the UK, as the area affected is the size of our country. It is one of the worst disasters the world has ever seen. The UK has been at the forefront of the international response to the crisis, committing £134 million for urgent humanitarian relief and to help people rebuild their lives.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Several Members have mentioned the amount of money that the British population have contributed to the relief effort in Pakistan, but we should also put on the record the work of the Ahmadis’ own charity, Humanity First, in raising funds and providing services in Pakistan during the floods.

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Lady anticipated my next point, which is about the voluntary contributions, but I would not have mentioned that charity specifically, so I thank her for mentioning it. In addition to what the Government have spent, as the right hon. Member for Warley has said, the response from the community across the UK generally, whether or not they have relationships with Pakistan, has been remarkable— £60 million from different communities up and down the country—and those with family connections have been especially involved. We will continue to do that work. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the European Union, and it is important that we work closely with it. Recently, my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister attended a European summit at which they took the lead in pressing the European Community to do still more to improve trade agreements to enable the Pakistani Government not only to get over the immediate hurdle of the floods, but to look forward to re-establishing their economy and to have the right infrastructure to be able to do so. The EU was able to take our lead and produce more trade concessions, which will give significant assistance to Pakistan in the future.

Pakistan is also suffering from the scourge of terrorism. More than 3,000 Pakistanis died last year as a result of terrorist attacks. Those attacks and the groups that perpetrate them pose a grave threat to Pakistan and to the stability of the region and beyond, including the UK. I would like to repeat the words of the Prime Minister when he paid tribute in August to the resilience of the people in Pakistan in facing that threat. We are committed to working with Pakistan to defeat this threat. It threatens both our countries.

Human rights are at the core of our foreign policy. We raise our concerns about human rights wherever and whenever they occur, without compromise and will continue to do so. As the Foreign Secretary made clear in a recent speech, we will improve and strengthen the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on human rights. That will be underpinned by British values and by our support for democratic freedoms, universal human rights and the rule of law. That approach will be based on realism; we will never overlook human rights abuses and will always strive for progress, but we will be practical in our approach and flexible about what might work best in different contexts, which is only sensible.

The multiplicity of links between the UK and Pakistan means that we engage with each other on all subjects—counter-terrorism, security policy, immigration, trade, development, education, the rule of law and human rights. As I have outlined, that last subject is critical to the conduct of UK foreign policy. It is as relevant to our relationship with Pakistan as it is to our relations with the rest of the world. We do not shirk from our responsibilities in highlighting our concerns about human rights, including to our friends.

Pakistan has made important progress in improving human rights. The ratification of the international covenant on civil and political rights and the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment is an important step in enshrining inherent rights in law, although we hope that the Government will look to remove or redraft the current reservations that they have lodged against both treaties. It is important that those instruments are fully implemented to help to ensure the human rights of all Pakistanis.

However, Pakistan continues to face significant challenges in those areas, and we remain committed to working with the Government of Pakistan to address them. One of the most important challenges is discrimination against, and persecution of, those of a particular religious belief, whether Christians or Sikhs, as is sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. It is vital that the Government of Pakistan uphold the fundamental rights of all Pakistani citizens, regardless of their faith or belief. Pakistan can only benefit if all its citizens are able to play a central role in society. We regularly reinforce that point for our colleagues in the Government of Pakistan at all levels, and they have now established a Ministry for Minorities, which has active leadership and has brought about some positive changes. A remaining critical challenge, as has been mentioned today, is the reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation to ensure that it is properly implemented. Misuse of those laws is the basis for much of the discrimination suffered by religious groups in Pakistan, as the hon. Lady made clear.