Fourth incident in the last six months of violent desecration of Muslim Ahmadi graves in Pakistan
The Ahmadiyya Community is again denouncing a new desecration of Ahmadi graves in Pakistan. The organisation issued an official statement deploring the fourth such incident in the last six months in Pakistani territory, specifically in the district of Gujranwala. It also denounced the attitude of the Pakistani government and its police.
The official note of the Ahmadiyya Community is reproduced below:
We regret to inform you that the Government and police forces of Pakistan have once again been involved in such degrading acts as the desecration of graves of Ahmadi Muslims in that country.
Government-sponsored persecution of Ahmadis is endemic, and the lives of Ahmadis have become a living hell as they are denied their basic civic and human rights. The Government and its officials do not leave the Ahmadis alone even after they are buried and do not hesitate to violate the sanctity of the dead.
The IHRC has been informed that a few days before the Eid festival, on the night of 6-7 July, two different graveyards in Talwandi Khajurwali locality, Gujranwala district, were raided by the police, accompanied by other individuals, desecrating 53 Ahmadi graves.
By perpetrating this terrible act, the police officers of Gujranwala district have once again taken the lead in the desecration of Ahmadi graves. This is the fourth such incident in Gujranwala and is part of a growing list of recent grave desecrations by the Punjab Police. The persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan is therefore not limited to the living, but those who have passed away are not safe in their graves either.
This illegal and immoral act carried out by the Gujranwala Police against the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan not only violates basic human rights, but further darkens the image of Pakistan in the eyes of the International Community. These are acts of unacceptable violence and criminal in nature.
On 13 July 2021, UN human rights experts expressed their deep concern at the lack of attention to the serious human rights violations perpetrated against the Ahmadiyya Community around the world, and called on the international community to redouble its efforts to end the ongoing persecution of the Ahmadis.
We strongly urge our authorities and Spanish civil society to demand that the Government of Pakistan fulfil its responsibility to provide effective protection and freedom of religious practice to the Ahmadis, and that the perpetrators of these heinous acts be brought to justice in order to bring Pakistan's laws and practices into conformity with international standards, as set out in Articles 20, 2 and 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 25 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
