Pakistan: Persecution of Ahmadis must end as authorities attempt shutdown of US website

Pakistan: Persecution of Ahmadis must end as authorities attempt shutdown of US website

The Pakistani authorities must end their ongoing persecution of the Ahmadiyya religious minority, which is now extending across borders, said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the ICJ, following an attempt by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to shut down the website of the Ahmadis’ US-based community.

On 24 December 2020, the PTA sent a legal notice to the administrators of trueislam.com, stating that the site was in violation of Pakistan’s Constitution, and warning they could be charged with blasphemy – a charge potentially carrying the death penalty – for referring to themselves as Muslims. The site’s administrators have also been threatened with a fine of 500 million PKR (US$3.1 million) if they fail to take the website down.

The trueislam.com website provides general information about Ahmadi history and beliefs, details the work carried out by the Ahmadi community in the US, including blood drives and veterans’ support, and features interviews with prominent community members such as the actor Mahershala Ali.

“Ahmadis in Pakistan have long been the target of systematic attacks, and successive Pakistani governments have failed to respect, protect and promote their human rights, forcing many to flee to other countries. The PTA’s efforts to close down their US website shows that even then, a life free from discrimination can be out of reach,” said Samira Hamidi, Deputy Regional Director at Amnesty International.

“Digitally policing Ahmadis on what they can or can’t preach, no matter where they are, is a flagrant violation of Pakistan’s legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which the country is a state party. We urge the PTA to desist from its targeted campaign against Ahmadis and to ensure that everyone in Pakistan is able to express themselves and profess their religion freely, without fear of reprisals or discrimination.”

According to a PTA press release on 22 January 2021, access to trueislam.com has now been blocked in Pakistan. Amnesty International has been shown an email sent by the head of the PTA on 27 December 2020 to various servers in the country, instructing them to remove access to the website, along with three others related to the Ahmadi community.

“Pakistan has an obligation to protect the rights to freedom of expression and religion online every bit as much as in places of worship or in public spaces. Far from facilitating such protection, the PTA is extending its long arm to violate the rights of persons well beyond Pakistan’s own borders,” said Ian Seiderman, ICJ Legal and Policy Director.

The administrators of the website told Amnesty International that prior to receiving the notice, they received emails from various sources filled with hate speech.

“I was suddenly inundated with hate-filled messages from extremists on my email.  And then a few days later, on December 24, the PTA emailed me a notice threatening criminal prosecution and fines for blasphemy and giving 24 hours to remove the trueislam.com website,” said Amjad Mahmood Khan, a US-based Ahmadi lawyer who was targeted.

“It’s obvious the PTA seeks to prosecute US citizens operating a US-based website.  This is an unprecedented act to extend the reach of Pakistan’s abominable blasphemy laws to US citizens, and it’s a new frontier in persecution for Ahmadis worldwide,” Khan said.

The legal notice to trueislam.com is part of a broader pattern of state overreach by the PTA in recent months, which has included issuing notices to Google and Wikipedia to remove “sacrilegious content”.

“The attempt to extend Pakistan’s persecution of Ahmadis to other jurisdictions is a dangerous escalation. The Pakistani government should end its policing of Ahmadi speech outside the country and focus on providing an enabling environment for free speech, expression, and freedom of religion inside Pakistan,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Background

The Pakistani penal code explicitly discriminates against religious minorities and targets Ahmadis by prohibiting them from “indirectly or directly posing as a Muslim.” Ahmadis are banned from declaring or propagating their faith publicly, building mosques, or making the Muslim call for prayer. For more information on the persecution of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan, see here.

On 25 December 2020, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority issued a press release saying that Google and Wikipedia had been issued notices. On 28 December 2020, the Lahore High Court Chief Justice Qasim Khan ordered the Federal Investigative Agency to issue notices to Google, stating that shutting down websites was not enough.

For more information about the law on blasphemy in Pakistan, see here.

Contact

Reema Omer, ICJ’s Senior International Legal Advisor (South Asia), reema.omer(a)icj.org

Malaysia: High Court ruling on Sisters in Islam threatens rights to freedom of expression and of religion or belief

Malaysia: High Court ruling on Sisters in Islam threatens rights to freedom of expression and of religion or belief

ICJ expressed concern over the decision given on 27 August 2019 by the Malaysian High Court that a fatwa issued against the women’s organization, Sisters in Islam, should be referred to the Syariah Court.

The High Court used as a basis Article 121 (1A) of the Federal Constitution, which states that secular courts do not have jurisdiction over matters pertaining to Islam.

The ICJ called on the Malaysian authorities to ensure that custom, tradition, and religion should not be used as a justification to undermine human rights, including women’s human rights.

In 2014, the Selangor Fatwa Council issued a fatwa declaring the Sisters in Islam a “deviant organization.” For many years, Sisters in Islam has been promoting more egalitarian interpretations of Islamic laws with the aim of ending discrimination against women and achieving equality in the Muslim family.

“For women to fully exercise their religious freedom, they must be able to retain or adopt the religion of their choice, and they must be able to continue belonging to this religion without being discriminated against within the religion,” said Emerlynne Gil, ICJ’s Senior International Legal Adviser.

The ICJ stressed that under international law, States have an obligation to protect people who are prevented from exercising their religious freedom by private actors, such as their own religious communities.

“The Malaysian government, including the judiciary, has the obligation to protect groups like Sisters in Islam when they face persecution from within their religious communities for propounding alternative views about their religion,” said Emerlynne Gil.

Furthermore, the ICJ had previously underscored in a 2019 briefing paper on the challenges to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Malaysia, the tensions emerging from jurisdictional disputes between civil courts, which apply federal and state laws, and Syariah courts, which apply Islamic laws.

In 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, in reviewing the performance of Malaysia, voiced its own concern over “the existence of a parallel legal system of civil law and multiple versions of Syariah law, which have not been harmonized in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).” The CEDAW Committee concluded that this “leads to a gap in the protection of women against discrimination, including on the basis of their religion.

Contact:

Emerlynne Gil, Senior International Legal Advisor, ICJ, e: emerlynne.gil(a)icj.org

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