We, at FOSA, as humble students of the contemporary politics of the world observe the following:
- That, Today’s sovereign states exercise great power over their people and that a state can, on its volition, use this power to make life miserable for individuals and groups existing in that society.
- That, Humans, being social animals, live in groups. That as members of any group—be that group religious, linguistic, ethnic, or of any other defining nature—grow, subgroups among them start forming.
- That, Groups or subgroups of people have the fundamental right to define and call themselves in any way they wish to be defined and called.
- That, Decisions made by the state formulate trends that start prevailing in the society, and many a times in shapes and forms not conceived by the state.
- That, When a state starts interfering in the definition of groups of its people, no matter how well-meaning that interference is, it paves way for discrimination against some groups thus affected.
- That, A state prospers when all its citizens enjoy the basic human rights, and when there is minimum interference, by the state, in the private affairs of its people.
- That, In the year Nineteen Hundred Seventy Four the state of Pakistan interfered in the private matters of its citizenry by declaring one group of people, the Ahmadiyya—whose members called themselves Muslims--to be non-Muslim.
- That, The above-mentioned act of the state of Pakistan, because it highlighted the existence and beliefs of Ahmadis, is, in spirit, akin to Nazi Germany’s compulsion on Jews to wear David Star, or, in the first decade of the last century, the Southern states of the US’s arrangement to have separate public facilities for the Blacks, or, the Taliban government of Afghanistan’s decree for non-Muslims to identify themselves by wearing yellow ribbons.
- That, Just as the aforementioned acts of the Nazi Germany, the Southern states of the US, and the Taliban government, although ostensibly proclaimed to benefit the targeted community, were indeed morally decrepit, the year Nineteen Hundred Seventy Four proclamation of the state of Pakistan, about the Ahmadis, is also fundamentally flawed.
- That, The aforementioned act of expelling a group from the folds of a religion even by a state that associates itself with that religion appears mala fide because in that instance the state of Pakistan maliciously singled out one group and didn’t make exclusion or inclusion decisions of this nature about the multitude of others sects and groups that exist within that religion.
- That, The declaration of Ahamadis as non-Muslims by the state of Pakistan has resulted in institutionalized and pubic discrimination against them and, as recounted today and reported by various human rights organizations, has caused them great suffering.
The observation of the above makes it incumbent upon FOSA and other human rights organizations to press on the state of Pakistan to:
- Make a policy decision not to interfere in the matters related to the beliefs of its people, and to acknowledge its grave mistake in such an act of interference in the year Nineteen Hundred Seventy Four by repealing the law that describes Ahmadis as non-Muslims, and to leave such matters to the decision of the religious leaders.
- Apologize to the members of the Ahmaddiyya community at large for the hardship caused by the State of Pakistan’s irresponsible act in the year Nineteen Hundred Seventy Four.
