Islamabad, Pakistan – Amir Mahmood remembers a meeting between his Ahmadi community and senior Pakistani government officials last September. He cannot forget how the community, long a victim of persecution in the country, saw a decrease in attacks on their graves and shrines in the days following that meeting.
But that respite did not last.
As the world's fifth most populous nation prepares to vote on February 8, its Ahmadi community of half a million people will boycott the election, after a rise in attacks on its members, institutions and even burial sites in the previous weeks. to the vote. . For many Ahmadis, like Mahmood, the brief decline in attacks after the September meeting was a test of what could happen, if the country's leaders wanted it.
“What the decrease in attacks told us is that if the State wishes, it can easily control the violence against us, but unfortunately, the impression we have is that some government is not clear-minded about its actions or is not willing to help”. he said.
It's a sentiment fueled by decades of entrenched discrimination, including in the electoral system. And it has led the community to boycott the elections. In a statement last week, community leaders announced their “disassociation” from the vote. “Although the elections are ostensibly being held under a joint electorate, there is, however, a separate voter list prepared only for Ahmadi citizens due to their faith,” said a statement issued by an organization representing the community on Wednesday.
“This discriminatory treatment based on religion is a deliberate attempt to deprive Ahmadi citizens of the electoral process for all purposes and therefore deny them their right to vote,” he added.
While the community has been avoiding participating in elections for almost four decades, the latest boycott announcement came after three different incidents of desecration of Ahmadi graves in the last two weeks, in different cities in Punjab province.
Mahmood, also a community spokesperson, said the data showed there were attacks last year against 42 Ahmadi places of worship throughout the country, as well as the desecration of more than 100 graves in the state of Punjab alone. In 2022, at least 14 mosques and 197 graves belonging to the community were also desecrated last year, according to community statistics. At least three members of the community were shot dead in 2022, allegedly due to their religious affiliation.
“No sense of belonging”
The Ahmadi sect considers itself Muslim. But they were declared “non-Muslims” in 1974 according to Pakistan's constitution. In the decades since the 1970s, hundreds of attacks, including murders and desecrations of its religious sites and cemeteries, have been reported in Pakistan.
Members of the community actively participated in the electoral process up to and including the 1977 elections, before the then army chief, General Zia ul-Haq, imposed martial law.
The military strongman passed a ruling in 1984 that restricted the community from practicing Islamic rituals or publicly displaying any symbols that identify them as Muslim, including building minarets or domes on mosques, or publicly writing verses from the Koran.
In the elections held in 1985, he introduced separate voter lists for the different religious groups in the country, after which the community began to boycott the polls. The separate voter list system lasted until the 1997 elections, after which it was unified again for the 2002 elections under the military government of General Pervez Musharraf.
According to the revised joint list, all Pakistanis, regardless of religious affiliation, were combined into a single voter list, except Ahmadis. Instead, they were included in a separate “supplementary” list, where they are identified as “Qadianis,” a term that refers to the city in Indian Punjab where the Ahmadi tradition took root. The community considers the term derogatory.
“If there can be a voter list that includes the rest of Pakistan's citizens, regardless of caste, ethnicity and faith, what stops them from adding Ahmadis to that list? Why single us out? -Mahmood asked.
Other community members say discrimination on electoral lists is in line with the prejudices they face in everyday life.
“I moved to Pakistan two decades ago from the UK after getting married,” Fatima*, a 47-year-old housewife, told Al Jazeera. “I'm human, of course. I also get very frustrated because I am a citizen of Pakistan and I want to be able to vote,” she said.
“I have voted in the UK in the past when I was young, and it has really given me this feeling of pride and achievement, of being able to contribute in some way to my country. But in Pakistan that sense of belonging has been stolen from me because of my faith,” he added.
Akbar*, a 22-year-old student from Islamabad, says that while he is politically aware and would have liked to vote if there was a unified voter list, candidates from major parties often resorted to inflammatory comments against his community.
“It is something that is very commonly seen in Pakistani election campaigns that intolerance against our community is very evident. Candidates use inflammatory comments to get votes and at the same time put our lives at risk,” he tells Al Jazeera.
“There is a clear sense of alienation in the community. If all the major parties think along those lines, how can we even think about voting, especially when the list wants us to renounce our faith and call ourselves non-Muslims? Akbar added.
'Limited influence'
Political analyst Tahir Mehdi said that for Pakistan's religious conservatives, the decision to have Ahmadis declared non-Muslims through the 1974 constitutional amendment remains a significant achievement.
“This is an issue on which there will be no compromise and they want to protect this victory at any cost,” he said.
Mehdi added that because the community's population in Pakistan is relatively small, it is not an important enough constituency to attract parties. “Their lack of numbers means a limited way to influence poll results, so it leaves no incentive for the state, or even political parties, to change their policies.”
Fatima, the housewife, said that the persecution against the community goes far beyond attacks or separation from the voter list.
“We have so many restrictions and limitations in our daily lives. Something as simple as ordering something online, the seller will refuse to deliver it the moment he sees the name of Rabwah city as the delivery address,” he said. Rabwah is a small town in the province of Punjab, located approximately 177 kilometers (110 mi) west of Lahore. The city is home to about 80,000 people, and more than 90 percent of the population belongs to the Ahmadi community. The government officially changed the name of the city to Chenab Nagar in the late 1990s, but the name did not stick.
“I have experienced this myself several times, that a salesman would point to my city and say that if you live in Chenab Nagar, you must be a Qadiani. [a derogatory term for Ahmadis]and they flatly refuse to comply,” he said.
However, he said, that has not weakened his spirit or his faith.
“We are not going to give up our faith. We will never give it up, even if that means not being able to vote. The State is trying to control us, but it does not succeed,” he stated.
That is also why Akbar, the student from Islamabad, refuses to participate in the elections.
“Just by participating in a system like this, you feel like you're supporting something that's working to eliminate you. It would be a betrayal for me and my community to participate in this double-apartheid system. [voter’s] list that stands out for my faith.”
*Names changed to protect people.
