The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community launched its report last month on the denial of freedom of religion and the human rights violations of Ahmadi Muslims and other religious communities in Pakistan.

The report highlights the fact that Ahmadi Muslims are the only community to be denied the right to vote on grounds of faith, despite Pakistan being a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which affirms the complete freedom of religion or belief.

Such denial of civil rights is a far cry from the vision of Muhammad Ali Jinnah the founding father of Pakistan. Jinnah’s Pakistan was one where every citizen would enjoy equal treatment and was accorded full human rights.

The APPG report points to voter registration Form ‘A’ of the Pakistan Election Commission for the gross violation of human rights.

The form states that if a voter claims to be a Muslim, he or she must not be associated with the Qadiani [a derogatory name for Ahmadis] Group nor call him/herself an Ahmadi. As such, Ahmadi Muslims the only community in Pakistan to be featured on separate electoral lists, as has been acknowledged by several EU electoral observer missions to Pakistan, including in 2018.

To make matters worse, the separate electoral list of Ahmadis — including their names and addresses — are published during election periods and are freely available. In the hostile anti-Ahmadi climate, this poses a grave security risk as it provides extremists with information on the residential addresses of all Ahmadi Muslims in their locality.

Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair of the APPG said:

“It is shocking that in contradiction of article two of the ICCPR, the Ahmadi Muslims continue to be discriminated against as, unlike other religious groups, Ahmadi Muslims are registered on a separate electoral register list. This report comes at a time when there has been an escalation of violence against Ahmadi Muslims and other religious communities in Pakistan. Our report is a wake up call to the international community to challenge gross injustice against a peaceful community. Pakistan claims to be a democratic country yet its own laws deny Ahmadi Muslims their right to vote – this must change.”