If you are a regular reader of this particular strand then I don’t need to reiterate just how bad it is for minorities and especially religious minorities in Pakistan. Suffice to say that life for minorities is not good in a country that is to be quite frank a Sunni Islam dictatorship.
However, the Pakistani government is not content with harassing religious minorities who actually have the misfortune to live in Pakistan, now they are going after those religious minorities which the Pakistani government considers as ‘blasphemers’ who live outside of Pakistan. According to the Reclaim the Net website, the Pakistani government is trying to harass members of the relatively peaceful Ahmediyya movement who are American citizens. They are trying to prosecute American Ahmediyya for ‘blasphemy’, which although will not fly in the US courts, would endanger any Ahmediyya who travel to or through those Islamic countries that are aligned with Pakistan.
Reclaim the Net said:
| Pakistan is threatening to prosecute non-Pakistanis in foreign countries for breaking its blasphemy laws online. The country, which is no stranger to censorship, seems to be copying China, which also tries to prosecute foreigners found guilty of criticizing the Chinese communist party.
The decision seems to be focused on Ahmadis, an Islamic sect whose beliefs are considered blasphemous in Pakistan. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) sent a legal notice to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA demanding that it shuts down its website, trueislam.com, or get charged with blasphemy, a crime that carries a ten-year prison sentence. The Pakistan laws consider Ahmadiyya illegal and adherents are charged with blasphemy. However, the website trueislam.com is run by a US-based organization. So the legal notice is the government’s way of saying that the Pakistan Blasphemy Laws can apply to non-Pakistanis and beyond the Pakistan territory. Several people have blasted the Pakistan government over the legal notice the PTA sent the organization behind trueislam.com. On January 14, the House Foreign Affairs Committee tweeted that it was “very concerning to see Pakistan using attempts to apply its controversial cybercrime laws —used to stifle expression within PK—to repress Americans’ freedoms of speech and worship well outside of Pakistan’s own borders.” |
Whilst I make no secret of my dislike of Islam as an ideology, but recognise that there are many Muslims who are decent individuals in spite of Islam, it’s also quite plain that the Ahmediyya have done their utmost to turn the sows ear of Islam into somewhat of a silk purse. The Ahmediyya are one of the few branches of Islam that are tolerant of those of differing belief and which has not to my knowledge been involved in any sort of jihad activity. They’ve tried to take what little good there is in Islam and work with that and for that they are vilified and hated by the Pakistani government which is in thrall to Sunni religious interests. It says a lot about the Pakistani government that they hate one of the few branches of Islam that are relatively peaceful and which, along with some Ismaili sects, respect both humanity and justice.
