Pakistan: once again Ahmadiyya Minority Muslims are being oppressed by religious extremists who reject their religious freedom rights. In this case, an elderly British Ahmadiyya Muslim man, Masud Ahmad, is being oppressed and was arrested using the broad and oppressive blasphemy laws, used by extremists to reject freedom and target individuals. Responsible for Equality And Liberty calls for the Pakistan courts to drop all charges against Masud Ahmad, and to end the oppressive use of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. See reports by the Daily Mail and by the Independent.

The Daily Mail reports: “An elderly British man faces up to three years in a Pakistani prison after he was tricked into reading the Koran in public. Masud Ahmad, 72, belongs to the minority Ahmadiyya sect, who under Pakistani law are banned from calling themselves Muslim, with Amnesty International saying he was deliberately tricked into reading the holy book in Lahore by figures linked to a right-wing religious group… it is believed Mr Ahmad was secretly filmed reading from the Koran in November last year by two men posing as patients at the homeopathy clinic he ran in Lahore. Amnesty International say he was maliciously targeted because of his religion. Every year dozens of Ahmadi Muslims are charged with breaching Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws simply for practicing Islam, while they and other minority groups are also at risk of sectarian violence. Speaking to The Independent, Mr Ahmad’s son Abbas, 39, said: ‘We are concerned he will never see his nine grandchildren but we are concerned with his life. We know what happens [in] these sort of cases.’ Abbas Ahmad said his father had been released on bail ahead of a trial and is currently in secure accommodation.”