Ahmadiyya Times: “The government and local administration has violated the article 20 of constitution of Pakistan after stopping Ahmadis from congregating for Eid prayers. The article 20 ensures every citizen of its right to freely perform its religious duties.”

Ahmadiyya Ewan-e Tawheed has been closed by authorities and vandalized by area Islamist extremists mobs. Photo: Al Ufaq.

Ahmadis in Rawalpindi could not offer their Eid prayers yesterday as the local district administration moved in at the extremists’ demand and kept the community from their place of worship.

Whatever little rights they have been left with under the ‘mutilated’ Pakistani constitution, the community members say, they were deprived from their right to worship at their own place by the district authorities.

According to the community’s spokesperson, Saleem ud Din, there has been false propaganda and baseless accusations about the Ahmadiyya place of worship and its location.

“As a result the Ahmadis were deprived from their fundamental right to worship at the premises,” Sleem ud Din said in a press release issued by Jama’at Ahmadiyya Pakistan. “The sad part of this whole episode is that the local administration seems to be concerned only about the demands of miscreants.”

The authorities always pressurise Ahmadis for compromise, the trend indicates, instead of protecting their right to perform their religious duties that are guaranteed by the constitution and the international convents that Pakistan has agree to.

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