The peaceful followers of the AROPL have been harassed, discriminated, and beaten in Muslim countries but also in Thailand and Sweden. Why?
by Massimo Introvigne and Karolina Maria Kotkowska, with Rosita Šorytė
Article 5 of 5. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, and article 4.
She is a nice, well-educated young woman with an infectious smile and a human right activist, who works for a large international NGO and advocates for the rights of several minorities, not just her own. She belongs to the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a Shia-derivative new religion not to be confused with another different persecuted group, the Ahmadiyya community that has its worst problems in Pakistan. She has stories of persecution to tell about Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Algeria. But what she has still problems in explaining is why her group was harassed and compelled to leave Sweden, a story she experienced firsthand.
That the AROPL devotees are persecuted in Muslim countries is tragic but, unfortunately, predictable. As we have seen in this series, they teach that all religions, including Islam, although originally admirable, have been corrupted and are today “99% wrong.” They insist that the real Kaaba is not in the Mecca (but in Petra, Jordan), that fixed times for prayer are not necessary, that Ramadan is in December, headscarves are not mandatory from women, alcohol can be freely if moderately drunk, LGBTQ people should not be judged or persecuted, and all prophets made mistakes. In short, they believe that we have entered a seventh and final covenant between the humankind and God, where the teachings and jurisprudence of the sixth covenant, stipulated with Muhammad, are no longer in force. Their movement was born in a Shiite context, yet they teach that the present Shia leadership in both Iraq and Iran is made up of “non-working scholars” who lead believers astray with false doctrines.
For much less, people are executed in several Islamic countries, and the situation only got worse when the AROPL’s sacred text, “The Goal of the Wise,” was released in 2022, with all the claims mainline Islam regards as heretic presented boldly and explicitly. In Iran, the AROPL is regarded as a “deviant religion” and is accused of “denigrating Islam,” an offense punishable with the death penalty. The government has even produced a slanderous documentary about them, and dozens of devotees have been arrested. Some were taken to the notorious Evin Prison, and two were forcibly sent to mental institutions.
There are similar problems in Iraq and Azerbaijan, but the situation is not better in countries with a Sunni majority. In Malaysia, the main problem was the AROPL’s support of the movement for LGBTQ rights. In fact, the AROPL was the only religious group brave enough to organize a public protest in solidarity with the repressed LGBTQ community in Malaysia. It happened in Kuala Lumpur in July 2023. Eight AROPL devotees were arrested and badly mistreated by the police, as two of them who had escaped to the UK told us during our visit to their community in the UK.
In Algeria, the local AROPL community, where twenty-two persons lived communally, was raided. Three members were imprisoned and fifteen put under house arrest. The women were falsely and ridiculously accused of prostitution. Eighteen members were charged with “denigrating Islam.” In 2022, three received one-year prison sentences, while the remaining defendants were sentenced to six months in prison. The AROPL case in Algeria, however, also proves that international protests on behalf of religious liberty are not always in vain. After international human rights watchdogs publicly complained, charges were dropped, although AROPL believers in Algeria remain under a fatwa declaring them heretic and are not allowed to gather or worship together.
We started our series with the dramatic story of 104 AROPL refugees—women, men, children, elderly devotees—blocked and beaten by the Turkish police at the Kapikule border with Bulgaria that they were trying to cross to seek asylum in the European Union. They were put under threat of being deported to their countries of origin, where they would have been at risk of being arrested, tortured, and even killed. The fact that Türkiye itself considers the AROPL members heretic, particularly because of their theory that even prophets committed mistakes, certainly played a role in the incident.
Here again an international mobilization saved them. Thanks in particular to Willy Fautré of Human Rights Without Frontiers, who also mobilized the United Nations ECOSOC-accredited NGO CAP-Liberté de conscience and its President, Thierry Valle—both work closely with “Bitter Winter”—the case was picked up by some Western media. More importantly, on July 4, 2023, three United Nations Special Rapporteurs, together with other United Nations officials, published a joint statement where they stated that the AROPL refugees faced serious risks if deported and that the obligation not to send back asylum seekers to countries where they may be persecuted or killed is “absolute and non-derogable.” The Rapporteurs were Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Felipe González Morales, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants; and Fernand de Varennes, Special Rapporteur on minority issues. Priya Gopalan, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, also signed the statement.
Less understandable is why the AROPL was harassed in Sweden, where some seventy members, including the leader of the religion, had settled in a farm called Bergslagsgården in Sävsjön near Hällefors, after they had spent some time in Germany. Between 2019 and 2022 a series of raids and inspections under various pretexts targeted the community. Some AROPL devotees were British citizens, but after Brexit they were denied a residence permit. The police raids instilled fear in the peaceful community, and the businesses they legally operated were disrupted. The police authorities explicitly said that the aim of their action was to get rid of the AROPL, a result they eventually achieved as by 2023 all members had left Sweden.
Why this happened in a country generally respectful of religious liberty remains somewhat mysterious. As all religions, the AROPL does have disgruntled ex-members and the word “cult” was used by the police and the media. It is possible that the usual anti-cult organizations were at work, but there is no evidence that this was the case. Iraqi immigrants to Sweden who adhere to a conservative brand of Islam and other Islamic radicals certainly bad-mouthed the AROPL, but the local police are not supposed to crack down on heretics.
Unless they received false information from foreign countries, perhaps the police were just concerned about possible trouble between the AROPL and Muslim fundamentalists in Sweden. They believed the easiest solution was to compel the AROPL believers to leave the country. However, this would hardly be compatible with Sweden’s human rights tradition. In democratic countries, those persecuted by radicals who accuse them of heresy should be protected, not harassed by the police.
Another strange story happened in Thailand. AROPL believer Hadee Laepankaeo, his wife Sunee Satanga, and their daughter Nadia were among the 104 blocked when they tried to cross the border from Türkiye into Bulgaria. They are now in Poland. Since, as we have seen in the previous article in this series, the AROPL believes in a Divine Just State and proclaims that the allegiance should be ultimately directed to God and his vicegerent only, in Thailand its members are accused of lèse-majesté and of denying the authority of the King. The fact that before joining the AROPL Laepankaeo was politically active in a movement criticizing the prerogatives and power of the King of Thailand probably played against him as well.
As reported by Human Rights Without Frontiers through “The European Times,” on December 30, 2022, after he had given a speech promoting the newly released “The Goal of the Wise,” Laepankaeo was taken outside of his home by security agents and beaten, resulting in injuries including the loss of a tooth. He was subsequently detained for two days, and on January 23, 2023, escaped to Türkiye. Thirteen other members who had remained in Thailand were arrested while participating in a peaceful march of protest in Had Yai, Songkhla Province, South Thailand, on May 14, 2023. While the strict application of lèse-majesté laws offers the legal ground to persecute the AROPL in Thailand, in fact conservative Shia clerics are those who incite the government to crack down on the group.
It is not surprising that a religion that makes claims mainline Islam regards as heretic and openly criticizes the Islamic authorities and scholars is persecuted in Muslim countries, although one would expect a different treatment in Sweden and perhaps in Thailand as well. However, the recent story of the AROPL is one of persecution but also of resilience. All those we interviewed are not giving up. The AROPL mostly spreads its religion through the Internet with state-of-the-art equipment. They also have among their members professional journalists. In the Turkish case, they were dispatched to where the incident was happening and were able to report firsthand. News and images were then distributed through the satellite TV, YouTube, and social media channels of the AROPL, which reached a global audience. Human rights organizations and, as we have seen, the United Nations themselves, were also able to help.
As scholars, it is not our mandate to decide whether the AROPL’s religious claims are true or false. The study of religion is guided by what academics call methodological agnosticism. We believe, however, that irrespective of any theological issue scholars can and should take a firm stand for human rights and freedom of religion or belief. The AROPL believers are entitled to present their beliefs, like everybody else, in a free marketplace of ideas. Their persecution and discrimination should immediately cease.
