Persecution of Ahmadis

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(David Rutley.)

I am an Ahmadi—an Ahmadi Muslim. Ahmadis are a peace-loving community, whose motto is “Love for all, hatred for none”. At the core of Islam is a belief that the only true way to serve the Lord is to serve and love his creation. It is for this reason that Ahmadis devote themselves to serving the cause of justice and humanity everywhere. Sadly, however, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is an object of hate and suffers vicious persecution around the world. The epicentre of this hatred is Pakistan.

In the light of what the hon. Member has just said, is he aware that, only yesterday, another Ahmadi—Dr Tahir Ahmad—was murdered in Lahore, Pakistan by a teenager? Does he regard it as frightening that the most radicalised and anti-Ahmadi of the community in Pakistan tend to be the young?

I thank the hon. Lady. The tragic news of Dr Tahir and his murder was on Friday evening. A gunman came to their home and shot at him and his family. He sadly died immediately. His father, I understand, is still in a critical condition, fighting for his life. Other members of the family sustained gunshot injuries. I understand they are believed to be making it through. But this is simply a sad testament to the environment of hate and intolerance that is being preached in Pakistan.

This is what I was saying: the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is an object of hate and suffers vicious persecution around the world, but the epicentre of this hatred is Pakistan, where Ahmadis are the only religious community to be targeted by the state on the basis of their faith.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Maybe in a moment or two—I will just make a little progress, if I may.

In 1974, the Government of Pakistan kowtowed to the extremist hate-mongers that characterise a perverted form of Islam we now sadly see in so many corners of the world, when Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto shamefully amended the Pakistan constitution to declare Ahmadis non-Muslims. It is a tragic irony that many of the preachers of prejudice from Jama’at-E-Islami are the political heirs of the exact same people who fought tooth and nail against the great Jinnah in his struggle to establish the state of Pakistan, wherein all Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and others were promised the right to freedom.

Since then, increasingly more draconian measures have been inflicted on the Ahmadiyya community, including the promulgation of Ordinance XX in 1984 under the brutal dictator General Zia. Under that ordinance, it is punishable with three-year imprisonment, an unlimited fine and even the death penalty for Ahmadis simply to call themselves Muslim, or to call their mosques a mosque. As a consequence, Hadrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the 4th Caliph, was forced to leave Pakistan. Today, Ordinance XX is used to persecute minorities in Pakistan, including Christians and Hindus. Pakistan suffers the great ignominy of having codified and granted constitutional legitimacy to religious discrimination and persecution.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He touches on the nub of my intervention. Does he not agree that the real tragedy in Pakistan is that it is the very constitution and laws of Pakistan, particularly the blasphemy laws, that are so often the basis for the persecution of the Ahmadis and indeed other religious minorities, when, in any country, these should be the cornerstone of the protection of fundamental rights such as freedom of religion and belief?

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, with which I agree entirely. Her points are incredibly well made. The great tragedy is that Pakistan was set up initially with a beautiful vision of a country that celebrated diversity and pluralism. Jinnah and the architects of Pakistan saw difference as the gold and silver threads that would weave into the tapestry of the state and make it stronger, not weaker. Jinnah’s lieutenant was Chaudhry Muhammad Zafarullah, with whom I grew up and had a very close relationship. He has been declared a non-Muslim. He was Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister, the President of the UN General Assembly and the President of the International Court of Justice. The state was built by great jurists who were great lovers of freedom and justice and that legacy has been shamefully discarded.

This persecution and that loss of the legacy that could have been are just as evident, sadly, in Pakistan’s civil society. Ahmadis are openly declared “wajibul qatl”, which means “deserving to be killed”, in the Pakistani media and by religious and political leaders. The recent successive murders of four Ahmadis in Peshawar is the evil evidence of just how impossible it is for Ahmadis simply to live and worship as they please. Those murdered include Mr Mairaj Ahmad on 13 August, Mr Tahir Ahmad Naseem on 29 July, Professor Naeem Ud Din Khattack on 5 October and Mr Mahboob Ahmad Khan on 8 November. All four men were murdered in the same city on account of their belief. As the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned, last Friday, 31-year-old Dr Tahir Ahmad was murdered at his home when a gunman shot at him and his family.

Horrifyingly, the vile abuse and persecution suffered by the Ahmadiyya Jamaat is not confined to those who are alive. Some 39 Ahmadi bodies have been disinterred from what should have been their final resting place, and 70 Ahmadi Muslims have been denied burial in communal cemeteries. This year, in July, dozens of Ahmadi graves were desecrated and their gravestones destroyed by Pakistani state law enforcement officials in Gujranwala district. Heartbreakingly, members of the Ahmadiyya community are spared no respite from persecution either in life or death. How is it possible that these atrocities occur in a country whose leaders answer when questioned that their constitution provides its citizens with the right to freedom of religion and belief?

I commend my friend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this Adjournment debate. He is making a powerful speech. I am shocked not only by the deaths and murders he describes, but by the fact that the Ahmadi people are denied the right to call themselves Muslims and to call their place of worship a mosque, and that they are denied the vote. Does he agree that this is a shocking suppression and persecution of a people?

The right of people everywhere to live, work and worship as they choose is the most fundamental and universal right that we have. It makes no sense, either to an individual or to a state, to inhibit, stamp on or impede that right, because that means that the very blossom and flower of the state and of the children of the state is trampled on. We in this venerable place should not think, “Why would they do such a thing?” because what is happening is of no purpose and of no sense—it is senseless and deeply upsetting because of that.

Freedom of religious belief, as the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and other values that we in the United Kingdom hold dear, such as tolerance and celebration of pluralism, are not just ideals to be debated in this House, discussed in lecture halls or written about by academics; they have, as we have discussed, very real consequences for the lives of people everywhere.

My own family understand this only too well. I could place on the record the numerous attacks against my immediate family, my larger family and myself. For example, my first cousin’s Syrian husband, Dr Mousallam Al-Droubi, left Damascus and was worshipping at an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore in May 2010 when gunmen stormed in, massacred 87 supplicants around him and left him and over 120 other worshippers with grave injuries, all on account of their belief. Their crime? To worship as Muslims.

Pakistan is the world’s leading exporter of hate across the globe, which it fabricates on an industrial scale. This dangerous extremism and religiously inspired violence has been broadcast, transmitted and normalised in communities around the world, who ape this hideous behaviour.

For example, anti-Ahmadi hate speech has been broadcast through television and radio in the United Kingdom. Channel 44, an Urdu language current affairs satellite channel, was fined £45,000 by Ofcom for airing two episodes of a discussion programme which featured a participant making serious and unsubstantiated claims against the Ahmadiyya community. That was not the first such case. In 2013, Takbeer TV, a free-to-air Islamic channel, was fined £25,000 after broadcasting statements describing Ahmadis as having “monstrous intentions” and being “lying monsters”.

There is a direct connection and correlation between that sort of hate speech and violence perpetrated against members of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat. Freedom of speech certainly is a vital pillar of our way of life, but incitement to murder and violence is not, and never has been, freedom of speech. Hatred preached in Pakistan does indeed result in violence on the streets of the UK and around the world.

I congratulate the hon. Member on bringing this important issue into the public demain. He mentioned the large community who are established here, but will he also mention the huge contribution that they make in the United Kingdom particularly in charitable work and also in community work? Quite apart from their peaceful message, they play a very valuable and active role, working hard in the community.

I think it is well known that the Ahmadi community—wherever they stay and live, whether they are persecuted or otherwise, whether they are abused or celebrated—always come to be among the vanguard of the most loyal citizens, playing a full role in the country that they call home.

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. The UK has been a welcoming home for the Ahmadiyya community. Indeed, many have settled in my constituency because of its proximity to the Baitul Futuh mosque in the constituency of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK needs to continue to play a leading role in providing refuge and a safe haven for Ahmadis fleeing persecution across the world?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For Ahmadis and so many others, the United Kingdom has long been a beacon of hope and safety, and we should continue to provide this support and offer Ahmadis escaping religious persecution a route to safety. Sadly, Pakistan is not a lone perpetrator in the persecution of Ahmadis. There are many countries that maintain and enforce discriminatory laws against Ahmadis. The United Kingdom is a staunch friend of Pakistan. Ending the persecution of Ahmadis will serve to strengthen Pakistan and allow all those who truly love it to be active participants in their country’s life and future, fulfilling the dream of Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-i-Azam, who famously said the following words at the very moment of Pakistan’s birth:

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan.”

As my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, there are a number of powerful tools at our disposal that I urge him to employ to serve all the citizens of Pakistan, irrespective of their belief. The first is the establishment of a structured engagement at a senior level by the Foreign Office with Pakistan on the persecution and discrimination facing the Ahmadi Jamaat. The second is the employment of the Magnitsky-style sanctions established earlier in the year against preachers, politicians and others who incite and orchestrate violence and hatred against minorities, and the refusal of their entry into our country. The third is that the establishment of criteria when it comes to the protection and freedoms of all to live, work and worship as they choose in Pakistan should be tied to any future trade that Pakistan seeks with the United Kingdom.

I will be listening intently to my hon. Friend’s response as to whether Her Majesty’s Government are willing to consider employing such measures in the name of universal freedom and justice for all. In helping Pakistan to right the wrongs of persecution against Ahmadis, minorities such as Christians and Hindus, who also suffer great persecution and wrongs against them, will be protected. If we are to realise the vision of global Britain, we must be the ones to lead in defence of those innocents persecuted wherever they may dwell, and to champion and encourage others to follow suit.

It is a real pleasure to respond to this debate. I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) for securing it, and for his passionate, thoughtful and considered speech. I pay tribute to his work on freedom of religion and belief, including in promoting and protecting the rights of Ahmadi Muslims, and his work as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. I am also grateful for the contributions and interventions of other hon. Members.

I thank the APPG for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community for its recent report. On 21 July, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who is Minister for South Asia, spoke at the launch event for the report, and expressed the UK Government’s deep concerns about discrimination and violence against the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, including in Pakistan. Today we have heard of the appalling discrimination suffered by Ahmadi Muslims in many countries. Hon. Members have mentioned Pakistan in particular, but, as we have heard, the UK is not immune from such religious intolerance—I think particularly of the horrendous case of the gentleman in Glasgow. That is why this Government work tirelessly to promote and defend the rights of people of all faiths and none around the world. People must be able to practise their faith and express their beliefs without fear or discrimination. I will address some of the specific issues raised by my hon. Friend.