Policies For The Rights Of Citizens And Immigrants Critical

His Holiness, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the World Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, has urged governments to implement sensible and fair policies that keep in mind the rights and requirements of citizens and migrants alike.

A statement issued in Accra quoted His Holiness, who is also the Fifth Khalifa as delivering an address on the second day of the 43rd Annual Convention (Jalsa Salana) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Germany about the world's immigration crisis.

He said society should not shy away from issues that were leading to divisions but should seek to tackle root causes that were underpinning such tensions.

The Spiritual Leader said wherever there was mass immigration, the authorities should ensure that the rights of the indigenous people were not affected, indicating that immigrants should seek to enter employment as soon as possible.

He commended the German government's decision to consider a new policy whereby asylum seekers would be required to do a year's community service upon settling in Germany.

His Holiness said such a scheme would 'instil a belief that it is the duty of each person to serve their society and to help the members of the community.'

Speaking about a sense of fear gripping Germany and other Western nations due to immigration, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said, 'Many local people are afraid that their societies are changing beyond comprehension and they feel that their nation's resources are being disproportionately utilised in favour of immigrants.'

He said, sadly, a recent report suggested that immigrants committed a high proportion of rapes or attempted rapes in one Western country, adding that 'Given this, let me make it categorically clear that any Muslim, who violates the honour of a woman or abuses her in any way is acting entirely against Islam's teachings.'

'Islam considers such behaviour as evil and has mandated exceptionally strong punishments for those guilty of such immoral and reprehensible crimes,' he added.

On security concerns related to mass immigration, the Ahmadi Leader said such issues should be directly confronted and debated rationally so that solutions alleviating the fears of existing citizens were addressed.

He said refugees should consider themselves 'indebted' to their host nations and its people and the way to repay the favour was that 'they should seek to contribute to the society as soon as possible', even if the only job they could get was basic labour work.

He said, 'Society should not reject genuine refugees, who are suffering through no fault of their own and also they should not cast aside innocent people, who only want the opportunity to live in peace and who desire to be good citizens and follow the laws of the land in which they live.'

He said instead, 'we should be there to give a helping hand to those, whose lives have been broken, who have been tormented and who are utterly helpless, vulnerable and defenceless. Let us prove our humanity. Let us show our compassion. Let us be there to shoulder the burdens of those who are in desperate need.'

In terms of security issues resulting from immigration, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said, 'Wherever, there is large scale migration it inevitably leads to security issues. Indeed, it has been proven that hidden amongst the genuine refugees are immigrants, who have the potential to cause great harm.'

He said this was something, he had warned about in the past that each case should be carefully analysed to ensure that extremists or criminals posing as refugees were not allowed to enter.

He said the safety of the citizens of a country was a 'paramount objective' of a government and advised that where there was any suspicion about an immigrant, authorities should monitor them until they were satisfied that they no longer posed a threat.