The Chinese Embassy hosted and celebrated leaders of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a party that supports death penalty for blasphemy and persecution of the Ahmadis.
by Massimo Introvigne
Perhaps it is all part of “wolf warrior diplomacy,” but this time the wolf howled to defend radical Islam. Pictures are emerging in Pakistan and on social media of a strange dinner hosted at the end of August by the Chinese Embassy in Rawalpindi.
The guests who were dined (but presumably not wined) included leaders of the Deobandi Islamic party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which is well-known for its support of the death penalty for those guilty of blasphemy and of a harsher repression of the Ahmadiyya religious minority.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s leaders hosted by the Chinese Embassy included Maulana Rashid-ul-Haq Sami and Fazal Ali Haqqani. They were accompanied by Qibla Ayaz, the chairman of the official Council of Islamic Ideology, and by other Islamic leaders one of whom, Muhammad Israr, is known for his more moderate views, while others, such as Asif Luqman Qazi, represent the oldest movement of Pakistan’s political Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami. They were offered a presentation of how China protects religious liberty and Western “slander” about it should not be believed.
Just for being dressed as the Pakistani guests appear in the picture, however, not to mention the beards, Uyghurs in Xinjiang would be accused of “extremism,” “terrorism,” and “upholding feudal superstitions”—and arrested.
Why is China supporting Islamic radicalism in Pakistan? The answer is that the CCP regime, all over the world, protects its allies against any “international interference in their domestic affairs,” by upholding the theory that human rights are not “universal” and the Western view does not apply to China or Pakistan.
The message of the dinner in Islamabad is that China is firmly committed to Pakistan’s right to maintain the death penalty for blasphemers, discriminate against religious minorities, and persecute the Ahmadis. In exchange, China asks Pakistan, which has perfectly delivered so far, to support its persecution of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang—although Pakistanis should regard them as their Sunni brothers—and keep silent on the CCP’s daily violations of human rights.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
