London, England - Pakistan has refused to issue visas to human rights researchers for a fact finding mission arranged through Britain's Parliamentary Human Rights Group to investigate the condition of the Ahmadi community in the country, the Group's Vice-Chair said.
The mission was to have investigated the protection available in Pakistan for members of the Ahmadi community, a religious sect that recently rose to international attention following the October 2005 massacre of the worshipers in a mosque near Mandi Behauddin in Pakistan's Punjab province.
Lord Avebury, Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, wrote to the Pakistan High Commission here on December 22, 2005 informing the High Commissioner of the visit, and asked for the visas to be issued for February 3-12.
No reply to Lord Avebury's letter has been received, yet on January 31, 2006, the Pakistani Interior Minister told the British High Commission in Islamabad that it was not appropriate for visas to be issued in the first ten days of the month of Muharram ( first month of the Hijri Calendar).
While no alternative dates for the visit have been suggested by the Pakistani authorities, the group intends to resubmit their application later this month.
The objective of the mission was to have been to establish the reality, for an Ahmadi asylum seeker, of the availability of protection in Rabwah town of Pakistan's Punjab (where 95% of the population are Ahmadi) and involved the interviewing of a wide range of sources including the Pakistan authorities.
Members of the Ahmadi community consider themselves Muslims but do not accept that Muhammad was the last prophet. The Ahmadi sect are rejected by the majority of Muslims as 'heretics' - and particularly so in Pakistan, where they are refused civil rights and persecuted unless they forswear their allegiance.
The outcome of the mission was to have been a short report that would provide independent, sourced and up to date information concerning the current situation in Rabwah so as to assist the Courts in Britain when considering asylum appeals submitted by Pakistani Ahmadis.
The members of the mission were to have been immigration practitioners Frances Allen and Michael Ellman and Senior Research Officer at the Immigration Advisory Service Dr Jonathan Ensor.