Sunnis consider Ahmadis heretics, and thus lawfully killed under Islamic law. For years now we have called attention to the persecution of Ahmadis by Sunni Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia. There has been little international attention given to this ongoing low-level persecution, because, after all, it isn’t an outbreak of “Islamophobia” — now that would be news. Even worse, Ahmadi spokesmen in the West such as Qasim Rashid and Harris Zafar eagerly cooperate with the same forces that persecute them in those two countries, and vilify and libel those of us who have spoken out for the Ahmadis all these years. Do they think they will win better treatment for their people if they collaborate with their oppressors?
“UPDATE 1-American doctor shot dead in Pakistan in suspected sectarian attack,” by Katherine Houreld, Reuters, May 26, 2014:
May 26 (Reuters) – An American volunteer cardiologist was shot dead in Pakistan on Monday, a member of his minority Ahmadi community said, the latest attack on a group which says it is Muslim but whose religion is rejected by the state.
Mehdi Ali had taken his five-year-old son and a cousin to a graveyard in Punjab province at dawn to pray when he was shot, said Salim ud Din, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community.
“He came here just one or two days ago to work at our heart hospital, to serve humanity and for his country,” Din said. “Two persons came on motorbikes. They shot 11 bullets in him.”
Ali was born in Pakistan but moved abroad in 1996. He had returned to do voluntary work at a state-of-the-art heart hospital built by the Ahmadi community in the eastern town of Rabwah.
Ali, 51, moved to Columbus, Ohio, in the United States, where he founded an Ahmadi centre and raised funds for medical charities in Pakistan, Din said.
He is survived by a wife and three young sons, Din said.
The U.S. embassy said it was providing consular assistance but declined to give further details.
“We express our deepest condolences to his family and friends,” the embassy spokeswoman said.
The Ahmadis believe there was a Prophet after Mohammed. Pakistani law says they are not Muslims, although Ahmadis insist that they are.
Ahmadis have often been jailed or lynched for blasphemy for things such as offering Islamic prayers or reading the Koran.
Ali’s killing follows the fatal shooting of a 65-year-old Ahmadi man last week. A teenage gunman killed Khalil Ahmad in police custody after the grandfather was arrested on blasphemy charges for objecting to stickers denouncing his religion.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan and cases against both religious minorities and Muslims are rising.
Some mullahs promise that killing Ahmadis earns a place in heaven and give out leaflets listing their home addresses. Few attacks are ever solved even when the victims can identify their attackers….