As this blog has demonstrated many times before in this ‘Now that’s why Pakistan is a shithole’ strand, life for Pakistan’s non-Muslims or heterodox Muslims, is pretty appalling. Those who the majority Sunni Muslim government and culture consider as beyond the pale, suffer greatly from violence, negative discrimination and exclusion. It would not be too far fetched to say that non-Muslims in Pakistan live a form of half life where they are not really even considered by some Pakistanis as being fully human.
As I have said before, things are bad for religious minorities in Pakistan and they are about to get a whole lot worse. In particular things are about to get much more challenging for the Ahmadi population of Pakistan. The Ahmadiyya, probably one of the few branches of Islam that can be considered to be genuinely peaceful, are treated like dirt in Pakistan. They are not considered by the Pakistani government to be fully Muslim and they are banned from calling themselves Muslim.
Life for Ahmadiyya in Pakistan is pretty grim but new moves by more orthodox Muslims to stop the lifting of some of the restrictions on Ahmadiyya may well expose this community to even more danger than they are in at present. As part of the campaign to keep draconian restrictions on the Ahmadiyya a court case was brought. The result of this court case has been that the citizen database operated by Pakistan must provide information about every Pakistani that has changed their religion. This is a move fairly and squarely aimed at the Ahmadiyya.
I dread to think what sort of slaughter will end up occurring when thousands of violent angry Sunni Muslims find out which of their friends, family and neighbours may have registered support for the Ahmadiyya. I can well imagine that there will be Ahmadiyya murdered over the information once it is released and available to the public.
Everything about those who chose to leave Islam for either Ahmadi Islam or for some other non Muslim faith is likely to be released and the court has even ordered that travel records for those who changed religion be examined. Orthodox Muslims involved in this case have described the Ahmadiyya as being ‘dangerous ‘ and ‘in need of punishment’ a comment that bodes ill for the future for Pakistan’s Ahmadis.
As someone who has observed for a while now the way that Islam has turned Pakistan from potential power house into a basket-case, I thought that I had seen the depths of the depravity with which Pakistan’s Muslims treat their non Muslim neighbours and fellow citizens. Sadly it seems that I was wrong and things can get worse for Pakistan’s religious minorities, much much worse.
