Source: signalscv.com | Amer Aziz

Amer Aziz is a resident of Santa Clarita and a member of The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and The Muslim Writers Guild of America.

A Pew research study found that, as of 2012, as many as 198 countries and territories around the world imposed restrictions on religious minorities, thereby increasing related social hostilities.

The United States government recently launched the Ahmadiyya Muslim Caucus chaired by veteran Republican Congressman Frank Wolf.

The caucus will strive to secure religious freedom for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which suffers from severe persecution in some Muslim countries.

Ahmadi Muslims number around 20,000 in America and tens of millions globally — a fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world.

President Obama, in his annual National Prayer Breakfast, mentioned the plight of Ahmadi Muslims. Last year Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also chose an Ahmadiyya center in the Toronto area as the venue to announce the launch of the office of the Ambassador of Religious Freedom.

So why the urgency for religious freedom? And why Ahmadi Muslims to symbolize the plight?

A Pew research study found that, as of 2012, as many as 198 countries and territories around the world imposed restrictions on religious minorities, thereby increasing related social hostilities.

Twenty-nine percent of these nations had high or very high levels of restrictions; 64 percent of the world’s population resides in these countries.

And the trend is worsening. In 2010, the Taliban massacred 86 Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.

Despite pressure from human rights groups, the …read more at signalscv.com

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