From the BlogBucket: “Ahmadis Attacked”

Friday’s attacks against two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore elicited troubling responses from government officials, journalists, and society members.  Perhaps some of the most lucid responses to Friday’s atrocities can be found in the Pakistani blogosphere.  Here are some of my favorites:

Mourners in Lahore. Photo AFP.

Frayed Ends of Sanity by Nadeem Paracha (Dawn Blog)

In my eyes the companies who claim to represent the decent, ‘family-oriented’ and peaceful ‘modern’ sections of the educated urbanites carry an equal amount of blame as do the channels that let hate-mongers run amok in the studios just to jack up their ratings.

We All Have Blood on Our Hands by Tazeen (A Reluctant Mind)

Every identity card and passport holder in Pakistan – including me – who filled out the form declaring themselves true apostles of the faith have denounced the basic citizenship rights of Ahmadis/Qadiyanis. Do we all have blood on our hands? I hang my head in utter shame and say, yes we all have their blood on our hands.

Our Collective Shame by Huma Imtiaz (The World Has Stopped Spinning)

About Today/ Main Baghi Hoon by Saba Imtiaz (Erase and Rewind)

Hanging My Head in Shame (Kala Kawa)

Jinnah Considered Ahmadis Muslims by Yasser Latif Hamdani (Pak Tea House)

Targeting Ahmadis by Kalsoom Lakhani (CHUP Blog)

We Are All Ahmadi by Manan Ahmed (Chapati Mystery)

Beastly attacks, laws against Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya

Mourners embrace after the May 28th attack at two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, Pakistan

Pakistan’s Ahmadis have long born state discrimination and the opprobrious treatment of their fellow country(wo)men, but two attacks at separate Ahmadi mosques in Lahore on May 28th, which killed at least 82 and injured 107 others, were an unprecedented display of the extent of unrelenting malice and disregard for the minority sect.  The attacks were carried out by men with firearms, two of whom also had suicide vests, during Friday prayer at mosques in Model Town and Garhi Shahu in Lahore.

Police and rescuers at the scene of one of two Ahmadi mosques attacked on May 28th

Though today’s attacks have been the most barbaric against Pakistani Ahmadis to date, a cursory look at Pakistan’s history of oppressing Ahmadi Muslims, as well as its other religious minorities, reveals why and how such carnage can transpire, and without justice for the victims.  See below for additional resources on Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya.

Additional Resources on the Ahmadiyya

“The Ahmadiyya Jama’at: A Persecuted Sect” by Dr. Simon Ross Valentine for the University of Bradford Pakistan Security Research Unit, Brief Number 35, November 23, 2008.

Conscience and Coercion: Ahmadi Muslims and Orthodoxy in Pakistan, by Antonio R. Gualteri, Guernica, 1989.

“Who Are the Ahmadi?” BBC News, May 28th, 2010.