UK Birmingham council ″endorsed Muslim sectarianism″ against Ahmadis

Birmingham education authorities buckled to pressure from sectarian hardliners and blocked a Muslim sect from being represented on an interfaith council, it is claimed.

Members of Birmingham's Ahmadiyya Muslim Community were told that in order to be represented on the city's Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) they would have to agree not to identify themselves as Muslims, after a threatened walkout from other Muslim members of the committee.

They have faced decades of violent persecution in Pakistan and elsewhere, while in Glasgow an Ahmadi shopkeeper was recently stabbed to death by an Islamic extremist who claimed his victim had "disrespected the Prophet [Muhammad]."

Fareed Ahmad, a member of the Ahmadiyya National Executive Committee, said the Labour-led council had failed to defend religious tolerance.

"SACRE is there to promote inclusion and respect of different faiths and to give in to such pressure undermines what SACRE stands for," he said.    (International Business Times)

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