Rabwah Times Publisher Receiving Death Threats!

RABWAH, PAKISTAN -- Publisher of the Pakistani-based Rabwah Times, a small online news publication founded in 2008 to highlight the plight the Islamic sect of Ahmadiyya, is today reporting its publisher, 21-year-old Ehsan A Rehan, has been receiving threatening phone calls calling on him to stop publishing stories against Khatm e Nabuwat.

"Since the foundation of the Rabwah Times, I have frequently received death threats from hard-line clerics of organizations such as Khatm e Nabuwat," said Rehan.

According to Rabwah Times publisher, Ahmadiyya community members are being persecuted for their faith. With Pakistan's political climate and elections coming up, he argued, it would be interesting to see where the main political candidates stand on religious freedom.

In Pakistan Ahmadis and Christians alike are often falsely accused and charged under the controversial blasphemy laws.

Rehan added "Just a few weeks back an Ahmadi student was expelled from COMSATS, an educational institution in Lahore and there was a media blackout regarding the incidence,"

"Extremist organizations like Khatm e Nabuwat organize and hold demonstrations against Ahmadis and call for the death of "infidels" or blasphemers all under the presence of the police," said Rehan.

Rabwah TImes is a one-of-a-kind a small online news publication founded in 2008 in the town of Rabwah, when Rehan was a teenager to highlight the plight of his town's community of Ahmadiyya, a sect within Islam.

According to Rehan, the Ahmadis are considered heretics and worthy to be killed by the mainstream Muslims and have been declared non-Muslim under Pakistani Law and regularly persecuted under the controversial blasphemy and anti-ahmadiyya laws.

Rabwah Times, which has a readership of over 400,000 per month and over 7,000 subscribers on social media sites in a town 65,000 started out as a community project involving volunteer writers, Rabwah Times is aimed at fighting back the religious persecution faced by the Ahmadiyya community of Rabwah and Pakistan.