Criminalising Eid: When Worship Is Outlawed and Faith Becomes Evidence of a Crime
Pakistan escalates anti-Ahmadi persecution with forced affidavits, bans on sacrifice, and nationwide orders to silence prayers
A New Phase in the Persecution of Ahmadis.
As the sacred days of Eid al-Adha approach, Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) terrorist have launched a coordinated effort to deny Ahmadi Muslims the right to worship, sacrifice, or even gather in prayer. Across the country, members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community are being summoned by police and coerced into signing “surety bonds”—legal declarations promising not to perform any Islamic rituals in public.
These documents warn that any act of worship—from offering Eid prayers to sacrificing an animal—will be treated as a criminal offence, punishable by arrest and prosecution. The bonds go further still: even planning, encouraging, or being present at such rituals is grounds for legal action. Families are effectively being told: stay silent on Eid, or face the consequences together.
The Legal Machinery of Oppression
This crackdown is not limited to local law enforcement—it is being orchestrated and legitimised by Pakistan’s most powerful legal institutions.
Two formal letters—issued by the Lahore High Court Bar Association and the Karachi Bar Association—have called on provincial and federal authorities to enforce a nationwide ban on all Eid-related religious activity by Ahmadis.
Both letters accuse the community of violating Article 260(3) of Pakistan’s Constitution and demand criminal charges under the country’s notorious blasphemy laws—sections 298B and 298C of the Pakistan Penal Code. The letters describe Ahmadi worship as “incitement,” claim it threatens public peace, and frame it as a “non-bailable crime.”
Worship Treated as Subversion
These are not isolated opinions—they are official bar association letters, issued on institutional letterhead, invoking Supreme Court precedent and instructing police to act with force. They declare that Ahmadis must be prevented from offering Eid prayers, delivering sermons, or performing Qurbani—an act sacred to Muslims worldwide and integral to Eid al-Adha.
What is sacred for most, is now criminal for Ahmadis.
This is not law. This is religious apartheid—a state-led effort to erase the Ahmadi identity from all public religious life.
From Criminalisation to Erasure
Ahmadis in Pakistan are already banned from calling their mosques “mosques,” from writing “Bismillah,” from saying “Assalamu Alaikum.” Now, even the act of silent sacrifice is being weaponised against them.
This latest campaign transforms one of Islam’s holiest days into a moment of fear and repression for Ahmadis. What should be a time of worship and community is being turned into a trap—where rituals become evidence, and faith becomes a crime.
A Coordinated Campaign of Silence
This is not a rogue policy or a regional excess. It is a nationwide, legally sanctioned, state-orchestrated campaign—combining police power with judicial approval to suppress an entire community’s freedom of belief.
The message is chillingly clear: Ahmadis must not pray, must not worship, must not be seen.
And as this unfolds under the watch of the world, silence from the international community will not be neutrality. It will be complicity.
ENDS
