Source: ahmadiyyatimes.blogspot.in

Forty years ago in the month of September the government of a country played God and snatched away the rights of a group of citizens with the stroke of a pen. The country is Pakistan and the group is the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

On September 7, 1974, the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, submitted to the pressure of the orthodox clergy and put into effect the constitutional amendment which declared the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as ‘non-Muslims’. The decision made by Bhutto was broadcast on Pakistan radio. The announcement came as an utter shock for the Ahmadi Muslims who lived in Pakistan. They asked questions such as, “How could a parliament decide about our faith?” Until the morning of the declaration the Ahmadis were considered as Muslims and treated as equal citizens of the country. While Christians or Hindus considered themselves not belonging to the Islamic faith, the Ahmadi Muslims were thrown out of the pale of Islam through legislation and not out of their own profession.

Now fast forward to the year 1984. Pakistan is under the rule of the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq. In order to garner the support of the religious extremists and following in the footsteps of Bhutto, he promulgated the famous anti-Ahmadiyya Ordinance XX. This ordinance directly infringed upon the religious rights of a minority sect. Now the Ahmadi Muslims were forbidden to profess their faith either verbally or in writing. The law thus passed would criminalize an Ahmadi Muslim for simply saying the Islamic greeting, “Assalamu Alaikum” or by reciting from the Qur’an the …read more at ahmadiyyatimes.blogspot.in