Showing posts with label ordeal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ordeal. Show all posts

Friday, 25 April 2014

Blasphemy accused speaks of ordeal must visit

and BBC Newsnight


 Masud Ahmad and his granddaughter


 Masud Ahmad is now living with his family in Glasgow A British man jailed for "posing as a Muslim", has spoken for the first time since returning to the UK.



Masud Ahmad, 73, was arrested in Pakistan in November under blasphemy laws but fled while on bail.


The 73-year-old is part of the minority Ahmadiyya sect, who are considered heretics in Pakistan.


They were declared non-Muslim in 1974 by the Pakistan government because of their belief in a subservient prophet after Muhammad.

Members of the Ahmadiyya community helped Mr Ahmad flee Pakistan after he was granted bail at a third attempt


One of the restrictions on their religious freedom is that they cannot publicly recite the Koran.


Late last year, a young man posing as a patient visited Mr Ahmad at his homeopathy clinic in Lahore, before asking questions about religion.


"I have no business talking about religious beliefs when I am working, I am only here to help people. But he kept pushing the topic into matters about Islam", Mr Ahmad said.


The man then used a mobile phone to secretly film Mr Ahmad reading the Koran and called the police to have him arrested.


Educated in Britain, Mr Ahmad first came to the UK in the 1960s, where he set up his own watch repair business, before returning to Pakistan in 1982.


The grandfather-of-nine, now living with his children in Glasgow, was placed in a jail with other prisoners also charged under the country's blasphemy law.

Masud Ahmad and his granddaughter Mr Ahmad's granddaughter Madiha said she had also encountered religious discrimination

He said: "It was a small cell, 8ft by about 12ft and within it a toilet. We had to sleep on the floor. The temperature was almost minus one degree in the night."


About 400 people protested outside the police station in which Mr Ahmad was being held, demanding to see him.

Small suitcase

He said: "They were shouting and chanting, 'let us kill him, let us kill him'. But I wasn't scared."

Continue reading the main story An Islamic sect founded in India in 1889, Ahmadi Muslims believe their own founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908, was a prophetThis contradicts traditional Muslims who believe the last prophet was the Prophet Muhammad, who died in 632 Most Ahmadi followers live in the Indian sub-continentAhmadis have been the subject of sectarian attacks and persecution in Pakistan and elsewhereIn May 2010, more than 90 people were killed after an attack on two Ahmadi mosques in the city of LahoreIn 1974 the Pakistani government declared the sect non-MuslimAhmadi Muslims are led by their fifth Caliph, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, who is based in Southfields, west LondonMembers of the Ahmadiyya community helped Mr Ahmad flee the country after he was granted bail at a third attempt.


It is understood no travel restrictions were put in place by police and as a dual Pakistani-British national, he was able to return to the UK.


Escaping the country quickly meant he was only able to take one small suitcase and the prayer hat he was wearing when arrested.


"I'm still a wanted man in Pakistan as I was only given bail. Ahmadis are treated like animals, I can't go back. The Mullahs (religious clerics) are grinding their teeth, wondering how I could escape them," he said.


"Ahmadis can be jailed for up to three years in Pakistan for referring to their faith as Islam, preaching or "outraging the religious feelings of Muslims."


The country has a history of taking claims of blasphemy particularly seriously.


Last month, a Christian road sweeper was sentenced to death after being convicted of using derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad in a row with a Muslim friend.


In 2011, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was killed after being shot by one of his bodyguards.

Many were angered by the 66-year-old's defence of Asia Bibbi, a Christian woman sentenced to death under the country's blasphemy law.


As a result of such incidents, Mr Ahmad's 20-year-old granddaughter, Madiha, was concerned about how her grandfather had been coping in prison.


She said: "He'd been recovering from cancer, he's 73 years old. A jail like that is no place for someone like him to be. We were over here and so didn't know how he was."


The university student said she had also suffered discrimination in Pakistan because of her religious beliefs, but believed that things would one day change.


"They are going to pay for this, of course they are. Because they are just doing bad to people who have done nothing to them. We have never said one word of hatred to them," she said.


Having returned to the UK after 32 years, Mr Ahmad is now trying to establish a new life for himself in Scotland.


"Glasgow's nice. The weather's sometimes hard to get used to - it rains, then it's sunny, then it rains again. But it is a very nice place", he said.


"Pakistan is my motherland and you will always love your mother. But I have a freedom here which is very essential. I love my country but I can't go back. If I go back, I will be put in prison or murdered."


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Sunday, 20 April 2014

Mother tells ordeal of Lion ParkSnapshot: Sushmita Sen walks the ramp with daughter Renee, looks awe-striking must visit

20 April 2014 last updated at 01:59 driver of Helen Clements talks about the moment, her car in advised fire: "We could not see the Lions to the happiness"

A mother told of their family fortune had, after her car caught fire in the Lions cabin in a Safari Park.

Helen Clements and her two children were about 100 meters away from the lion, when the car overheated and started smoking.

Rangers rescued the trio and no visitors or animals at Longleat Safari Park were injured.

Mrs. Clements said: "it would have in the flamingos or the camels, but no, it had to go to the lion enclosure."

She was on her first visit to the Wiltshire-Safari Park with son George, nine, and 12-year-old daughter Charlie when unfolding the drama on Friday afternoon.

Although the experience said "pretty scary" Mrs Clements, of Kingswood, Gloucestershire, now the funny page could look.

Helen Clements and her children Charlie (c) and George (r)Helen Clements, pictured with daughter Charlie and his son George, praised the Rangers for their help

She initially thought that steam out of the car came and stopped when it stopped in the inside of the compartment.

"" "Then basically we thought:" it's not steam, smoke that is actually "," she told BBC News.

"It has been getting fatter and fatter, and of course come at us, and then we saw the flames."

They sound their Horn, and both she and George opened their doors, before Rangers ran towards them.

'Dilemma'

"" "Unfortunately, they were shouting:" get back in the car, not the car,"she added.

"It was what a situation -? You get out of the car, because you are on fire? "And they say you back in the car, so that was the dilemma."

Her son got out of the car and ran, but Ms. Clements recalled him.

Within moments, a ranger in a vehicle and she and the children had before, threats to security inside jumped upwards pulled.

Mrs. Clements said the Rangers have been "fantastic".

They and their children not the Lions at the time see how were other cars in front of them, she added.

"I can laugh about it now, as it is only a car and we all are sure," Ms Clements said. "You laugh at the funny side.

"But -why the lion enclosure?"

Asked if she had any plans for other day trips over Easter, she joked: "I don't think anybody would want to come."

Car fire at Longleat The fire was extinguished after the Lions out of the housing Lions at Longleat eyewitness George Lear said the Lions "not her eyes of fire and smoke" Car fire in the lion enclosure at Longleat Rangers had to move the lions from the housing while the rescue has taken place

Kevin Ashley, said of the Safari Park, the lions have been cleaned, from which the housing and the Park was closed.

He added that the fire was extinguished quickly and had violated no animals.

Visitors George Lear said: "the Lions kept their distance only and was not her eyes of fire and smoke."

"The Rangers were pushing them back, but they were reluctant on the way, as she looked interested."

He added that the air was filled with black smoke, after the car was engulfed by flames.

Also, Gabrielle Owen, of Newport, who said that it could have been a "terrible story" was in the cabin.

She praised the Rangers, described it as a "blazingly fast in dealing with the incident".


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