UA: 191/14 Index: ASA 33/011/2014 Pakistan Date: 30 July 2014
URGENT ACTION
AHMADIYYA COMMUNITY ATTACKED, THREE KILLED
A
mob burned down the homes of a small Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan’s
Punjab province on 27 July, after a resident was accused of blasphemy.
Two children and their grandmother died of smoke inhalation and several
others were seriously injured.
On the evening of 27 July, a
local Muslim man accused a man from the Ahmadiyya religious community in
Gujranwala district of posting blasphemous content on his Facebook
page. The Ahmadiyya are a small religious community who consider
themselves Muslim, but are regarded as heretics by many Muslims in
Pakistan and suffer frequent violent attacks and officially-sanctioned
discrimination.
A group of Muslim residents went to the man’s home
and a scuffle broke out with some of the Ahmadi residents, during which
the group was shot at. After two members of the group suffered gunshot
wounds, a mob of over 100 people gathered outside the house and attacked
it and other homes belonging to members of the local Ahmadiyya
community. According to eyewitnesses, some members of the group set fire
to houses. Many of the Ahmadi residents fled the scene, but some were
too afraid to leave their homes. Bushara Bibi and her grandchildren,
eight-month-old Kainat and seven-year-old Hira, both girls, died of
smoke inhalation; a woman from the community suffered a miscarriage due
to smoke inhalation.
The Ahmadiyya have accused the police of
failing to protect them from the crowd, and the local ambulance service
was unable to reach people stuck in their burning homes for fear of
being attacked by the crowd. Law enforcement officials said over 100
people visited the local police station soon afterwards and demanded
that the Ahmadi man accused of blasphemy be charged, while police said
they planned to bring charges against 420 people, naming 20 of them, for
their involvement in the attack on the Ahmadiyya community.
Ahmadis
in Gujranwala are fearful of further attacks and say they have no
confidence in the police’s ability to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Local police have registered a First Information Report, an important
initial step in the criminal justice process in Pakistan, but no one is
known to have been arrested for the violence or killings. Amnesty
International has documented numerous instances in Pakistan of public
pressure leading to blasphemy charges being brought against members of
minority religious communities, resulting in further violence against
them. The Pakistani authorities have a poor record of investigating such
violence and prosecuting those responsible.
Please write immediately in English, Urdu or your own language:
Urging
the authorities to investigate the 27 July attack on the Ahmadiyya
community in Gujranwala, which led to the deaths of Hira, Kainat, and
Bushara Bibi and bring those responsible to justice in fair trials
without recourse to the death penalty;
Calling on them to ensure
no charges of blasphemy are brought against members of the Ahmadiyya
community in Gujranwala or any other religious minority and guarantee
the community’s safety across all of Pakistan;
Expressing concern
that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws violate the rights to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion and freedom of expression, and are used
maliciously to settle personal disputes, and urging the authorities to
amend or abolish them.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 10 SEPTEMBER 2014 TO:
�
Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif
Prime Minister House, Pakistan Secretariat, Constitution Avenue,
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: +92 51 9220404
Email: pmmediaoffice@gmail.com
Salutation: Dear Prime Minister
Chief Minister, Punjab
Mian Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif
Chief Minister’s Office
7, Club Road, GOR I
Lahore, Pakistan
Fax: +92 42 99204301
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CMShehbaz
Salutation: Dear Chief Minister Sharif
�
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Salutation Salutation
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
�
URGENT ACTION
AHMADIYYA COMMUNITY ATTACKED, THREE KILLED
ADditional Information
The
Ahmadiyya are among the most persecuted religious communities in
Pakistan. At least three Ahmadis have been killed in Pakistan this year
already, two of them in Punjab. Dozens of other members of the community
complain of facing routine harassment because of their religious
beliefs. The Ahmadiyya are a small religious minority that consider
themselves Muslim but are regarded as heretics by most Muslims in
Pakistan. They were declared non-Muslims by a Constitutional Amendment
in 1974. In the 1980s the Pakistani government made it a crime for the
Ahmadiyya to publicly preach or claim they are Muslim, an offence
carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or death under the
blasphemy laws.
Under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, “offences
relating to religion” are a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of
life imprison for defiling the Quran and death for derogatory remarks
against the Prophet Muhammad. Those accused of blasphemy risk harassment
and other abuse from private citizens and law enforcement officials.
Pakistan’s
blasphemy laws have fostered a climate of frequent religiously
motivated violence, in which religious minorities and Muslims alike are
targeted. These laws, which are formulated vaguely and arbitrarily
enforced by the police and judiciary are often used to make unfounded
malicious accusations to settle personal scores in land and business
disputes. Pakistan has never executed anyone for the crime of blasphemy.
However people held in prison on blasphemy charges have been killed by
fellow detainees or prison officers. Even outside prison, people accused
of blasphemy have been killed by vigilante mobs. High-level public
officials who have spoken out against the blasphemy laws have themselves
been assassinated
Articles 18 and 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights state that everyone has the right to freedom
of thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression. International
human rights law provides that any limitations placed on these freedoms
should be only such as are prescribed by law as well as being necessary
and proportionate for, among other things, the protection of the rights
and freedoms of others. The blasphemy laws do not meet this threshold.
The
UN Human Rights Committee, the expert body that oversees the
implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), noted in its General Comment No. 34 that “Prohibitions
of displays of lack of respect for a religion or other belief system,
including blasphemy laws, are incompatible with the [ICCPR],” except in
specific circumstances where individuals are advocating “national,
racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to
discrimination, hostility or violence”. Additionally the Committee said,
“it would be impermissible for any such laws to discriminate in favour
of or against one or certain religions or belief systems”.
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