The continued violence and hatred directed against innocent Ahmadis across Punjab are a matter of grave concern. The attack on Mr. Hamid is not an isolated incident. In recent days, a disturbing series of incidents targeting Ahmadis has further heightened fears for their safety.
In his Friday Sermon today, His Holiness announced the martyrdom of 65-year-old Mirza Safdar Mahmood. He was shot dead by an unidentified assailant in Pakistan on the 2nd of September while travelling from his workplace to the local Ahmadiyya Muslim mosque in Mandi Bahauddin, Punjab, for the evening prayers. Mr Mahmood died at the scene after the assailant fired three shots from behind and then fled.
Paying tribute to the deceased, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said that the martyr was a distinguished Ahmadi in his area and worked as a mechanic in his own workshop. He was honest, principled, and averse to falsehood. He was regular in his prayers and regular in donating to charity. Mr Mahmood would at times provide his services for free or charge a lower rate for people whose cars had broken down while on a journey.
He leaves behind his wife and two sons.
Pakistan: The killing of Ahmadi community official Mirza Safdar Mahmood in Mandi Bahauddin underscores the grave risks faced by Ahmadis amid continued anti-Ahmadi violence and hostility.
Authorities must ensure a prompt, impartial investigation.
See our latest incident report:
Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband : how much longer will Britain remain silent?
For three years the father of my two sons, and Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has been brutally penalised by his political opponents, in a personal vendetta by Army Chief, Asim Munir, which according to the UN, amounts to torture and which is now taking a potentially fatal toll on his physical and mental health.
He has endured 3 years of solitary confinement. For nearly ten months now his family has been denied contact with him. He has been deprived of the most basic human contact, denied access to books, lawyers and doctors.
The international human-rights standards are unequivocal. Under the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, solitary confinement lasting more than 15 consecutive days is prohibited and amounts to torture.
He has endured this treatment not for 15 days, but for three years.
Pakistan’s own Supreme Court has now intervened: ordering comprehensive medical treatment, access to his personal doctor, regular family visits and twice-weekly calls with his sons.
Yet those orders are being defied.
This is no longer simply a Pakistani political matter. It is a human-rights emergency.
He has deep and lifelong ties to Britain. He studied at Oxford University, captained Oxford University cricket and spent years playing county cricket in England. His relationship with this country stretches back more than half a century. His charitable activities were internationally recognised, and include building the only free cancer hospital in Pakistan as well as a university.
His sons, my two boys, Sulaiman and Kasim, are British citizens. They have been forced to watch their father’s health decline from thousands of miles away, prevented from visiting him, denied visas, publicly threatened by government officials with arrest themselves, and even denied court-mandated regular phone calls.
I have repeatedly appealed to the UK government to intervene. Purported attempts at back channelling have evidently failed. The previous Foreign Secretary @DavidLammy informed me in writing that Britain would not intervene if my sons, British citizens, are arrested when they travel to Pakistan to visit their father.
@FCDOGovUK: Britain must now speak out publicly and unequivocally. Demand that Pakistan comply with its own Supreme Court; restore Imran Khan’s medical access, his right to see his family, end his prolonged isolation and uphold his fundamental human rights.
Pakistan is a Commonwealth country. Britain has a long and proud tradition of standing against arbitrary detention, inhumane treatment and the denial of fundamental rights. Those principles mean very little if we invoke them only selectively and neglect them when inconvenient.
This an appeal to the new Burnham government to please now do the right thing.
BREAKING NEWS: 22 Former international cricket captains have once again written a letter to Pakistan PM over the treatment for Imran Khan. They first wrote a similar letter in February and this one comes after Pak allegedly didn’t completely comply with SC directions.
They have laid down 3 demands:
1. That the medical board directed by the Supreme Court — including Mr Khan's own doctors — be permitted to complete a full and independent assessment of his health, particularly the reported loss of vision in his right eye.
2. That the weekly family visits reinstated by the Court be honoured without interruption or administrative delay.
3. That whatever the outcome of that medical assessment, the treatment recommended by it be provided without delay.
Three Indians - Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar are among the 22 former captains.
#ImranKhan
"The Foreign Office needs to be much more robust" in helping former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, says Lord Goldsmith.
"It’s really grubby, really quite shocking and deeply distressing".
@adamboultonTABB | @ZacGoldsmith
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#ProphetMuhammad ﷺ taught that authority vested in rulers is not their private property but a national trust that must be discharged with absolute justice and that government should be carried out in consultation with the people. #LifeOfMuhammad ﷺ
#ProphetMuhammad ﷺ admonished the people to realise that the power to choose their rulers was a gift from God and therefore it should be carefully invested in those who fully deserve it. #LifeOfMuhammad ﷺ
Islam forbids aggression but urges us to fight if failure to fight jeopardises peace and promotes war. This is the teaching on which peace can ultimately be built and this is the teaching on which the #ProphetMuhammad ﷺ based his practice. #LifeOfMuhammad ﷺ