Journeys to democracy

Note: The TNS article referenced in the first line of the blogpost below is no longer available on the web. Here is the report I did for InterPress Service on the same issue, titled: Pakistan’s Ahmadis: Faced with death or exile

I recently wrote ‘Poison in the body politic’, published in The News on Sunday, on the persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan, the hate-speech against them in public spaces and the impunity their attackers enjoy. One of the people I spoke to was Farooq Kahloun, an Ahmadi leader and successful businessman in Karachi who had to leave everything behind in Pakistan and take political asylum in the USA after a murderous attempt on his life that killed his son Saad Farooq two years ago. Four bullets lodged in Kahloun’s body are a permanent reminder of the attack (details below) — and of the poison in Pakistan’s body politic, the menace of takfirism.  Continue reading →

Filed under: Blasphemy Laws, Human rights, Media | Tagged: #ArrestAbdulAziz, #ReclaimYourMosque, Aamir Liaquat, Abdul Aziz, Ahmadis, Lal Masjid, Pakistan, Red Mosque, Taliban | 6 Comments »