“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is a motto often quoted and always misattributed. It is very appropriate for the present situation of Pakistan
by Marco Respinti
Freedom of speech is intangible, and the first reason for this is because freedom of speech is originally rooted, as all the other political liberties, in the most fundamental liberty of them all: religious liberty. Defenders of liberty should always remain loyal to this commandment. The litmus test is of course when we confront opinions that we despise. Enter here a second reason for the intangibility of freedom of speech. If all are granted the liberty to publicly pronounce even the most horrible words, those despicable words may be always rebuked by others. A third reason for the intangibility of freedom of speech is that, until it remains a mere speech, even the nastier speech is inoffensive. Real problems arise in fact only when utterances incite to actions and bad words are intended to cause evil deeds, curtailing or denying the liberty of other human beings, or even harming and murdering them. Law enforcement should come in here and, while always upholding the right of all to speak freely, hate speech inciting directly or indirectly to violence, which is a crime, must be punished.
Of course, it is quite difficult to intercept the exact moment when a nasty opinion turns into a criminal act. Also, the border between prevention and pre-judging someone’s intentions can be very narrow. This is why vigilance should be always performed as the first moral and political duty on all sides, and the so-called civil society, including media and opinion makers, have a great role to play as watchdogs of the real state of a country.
These considerations are all the more important in Pakistan now that two more innocent persons have been killed for their beliefs in the exact moment when speech, that should be tolerated as an expression of sacrosanct human liberty until it remains only speech, turned to incitement to crime, because vigilance on all sides was not performed and the alarm launched, since a very long time, by civil society, including media and opinion makers, went unheard.
On June 1, 2024, two members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at (AMJ) (“jama’at” meaning “community”) were shot dead in the Saddullapur area of the Phalia Police Circle of Mandi Bahauddin, a city in Pakistani Punjab.
Ghulam Sarwar, 64, the father of six, was returning from prayers in an Ahmadi mosque and Rahat Ahmad Bajwah, 30, a cook and the father of two, was heading to the market. Some details (like the age of the victims) differ in different journalistic sources, but the authoritative Pakistani newspaper “Dawn” seems to have the most accurate story. The two Ahmadis were killed within twenty minutes from each other. The police immediately arrested a suspect, Ali Raza, 19, who, “Dawn” reports, “confessed to killing the two members of the minority community.” The arrested man was a Sunni Muslim, “a student of a religious seminary in the same locality as its teachers were involved in hate speech campaigns against their community,” which also spread through social media.
As the Ahmadi community of Mandi Bahauddin spokesperson, Aamir Mahmood, told “Dawn”, “a hate campaign had been launched for the last few weeks ahead of Eidul Azha,” on June 16. This is the Feast of Sacrifice, the second of the two main Islamic holidays honoring the willingness of patriarch Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, at God’s command. Or course, the smearing campaign was aimed at preventing Ahmadis to celebrate that important occurrence, based on the argument that Ahmadis are not true Muslim but mere imposters.
In a press release on June 9, the London-based International Human Rights Committee mentioned the threats to slaughter the Ahmadis if they would try to perform the Islamic Rituals, recently pronounced by Sunni clerics tied to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, an extremist party. “We want all the authorities to take notice of this matter,” the quoted slandering announcement went, “that if any Qadiani dog [Qadiani being the epithet used against Ahmadis out of their holy city in Qadian, Indian Punjab] offered any sacrifice of the animal, or if they used any Islamic Ritual, the Sign of Allah that is the animal of the sacrifice, if they sacrifice that, then we will slaughter the Qadiani dog instead. First of all, we would like to request you about this, that the homes of all the Qadianis should be kept on notice. If we receive any such news, then the next call would be such in nature, all the authorities should take action, otherwise we will take action. We will let them know that the progeny of Muhammad-e-Arabi (P B U H), ‘the prophet to whom Allah gave the revelation in the Quran,’ has now arrived in the field.”
As reported in “Dawn,” Mahmood added that “the religious seminary” attended by the killer, “belonged” to Jama’at Ahle Sunnat. This is a religious organization that in Pakistan represents the conservative international Barelvi movement. Mahmood also described the head teacher of the religious seminary attended by the killer as “continuously propagating against” Ahmadis’ “religion and hurling threats of dire consequences.”
The murder of Ghulam Sarwar and Rahat Ahmad Bajwa was another sad incident, which should put us all in alarm. It also serves as a classic example of the need to be always vigilant and carefully distinguish between free speech, of whatever nature, and a mandate for murder given by ideologues to men of action dressed to kill. Of course, propaganda based on lies may be covered by the right to free speech too, but it is here that defenders of liberty, who must be always totally loyal to this commandment and allow all kind of freedom of speech, should start considering the fact that free speech can tolerate everything except incitements to violence and hate speech based on lies and evil‒because rarely lies and evil are satisfied to remain just in the realm of ideas and opinions.
In fact, on March 4, 2024, just a few weeks before the lethal incident in Mandi Bahauddin, Pakistan had witnessed the assassination of another Ahmadi leader. The president of the AMJ in Hasilpur city of Bahawalpur District, Tahir Iqbal, 54, was shot dead as well. It is evident that, from Hasilpur city to Mandi Bahauddin, vigilance was not performed, the alarms launched by the civil society were ignored and the thin, delicate boundary between free speech, vitriolic as it may be, and criminal incitement to violence was trespassed. The right moment to act without infringing the right to free speech, but preventing violence-inciting hate speech, went lost, and three innocents were slaughtered.
