Pakistani activist devotes his career to Muslim minority rights
Ehsan Rehan, 26, now lives in Washington, D.C., meeting with U.S. policymakers and international visitors.
When Ehsan Rehan was still in high school, he founded Rabwah Times, a digital magazine about religious freedom and minority rights in Pakistan.
Rehan, 26, is Ahmadi, a minority sect of Islam that many other Muslims consider to be heretics. The Ahmadiyya community believes that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who lived from 1835 to 1908, was the messiah and mahdi (Arabic for “guided one”). Ahmad taught respect for different beliefs and an end to interreligious violence.
A majority of the estimated 10 million Ahmadis in the world reside in Pakistan under daily threat of persecution that has grown dramatically in the last decade. They are banned from worshiping at mainstream mosques or reading the Qur’an in public. In the last several years, hundreds have been killed at their mosques and homes, sometimes by vigilante mobs.
