Why ahmadis cant vote

In , however, a year after the infamous Ordinance XX of , which we discussed in the previous articles as a statute institutionalizing the persecution of the Ahmadis, the military dictator General Zia ul-Haq decided that, if and when elections will be held, citizens will be divided in two separate electoral lists.

This was bad enough for Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs, but put Ahmadis in an impossible situation. It is a tenet of their religion that they are Muslims, and should publicly confess so, lest they commit the sin of disowning their faith. If they say they are not Muslims, they violate a basic principle of their faith, something they believe in conscience they cannot do.

Nor can the Ahmadis simply declare themselves as Muslims, hoping that whoever is managing the electoral process in their polling station would not know them as Ahmadis.

To prevent this, the law request the voters to show personal ID. Pakistani ID shows whether a person is Muslim or non-Muslim. The United States repeatedly protested the Pakistani election law, and finally in another military president, Pervez Musharraf, eliminated the separate electoral colleges for Muslims and non-Muslims, and went back to the joint electoral college that existed before Alas, that was not to be.

This means that lists of Ahmadi voters continue to be compiled, and to be registered in these lists and vote the Ahmadis should publicly declare that they are not Muslims, something they are not prepared to do for reasons of conscience. To further discourage Ahmadis from voting, these lists are made public, meaning that those who are not known as Ahmadis, if they decide to register themselves as non-Muslims and vote, will become known as members of a despised religion and exposed to discrimination and persecution.

The decision went as far as to suggest that legislation should be enacted compelling Ahmadis to add a word identifying themselves as members of the religion to their last names. These did not remain idle words, although Siddiqui was later in the year removed from his position after a speech in which he attacked Pakistani intelligence service ISI and his fellow judges. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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Skip to navigation Skip to content. Discover Membership. Editions Quartz. More from Quartz About Quartz. Follow Quartz. These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects. By Peter Gottschalk, Wesleyan University. Published August 9, Last updated on August 29, This article is more than 2 years old. Sign me up. The people in the town are predominantly Ahmadi Muslims and are refrained from contesting in the elections due to what they call are discriminatory laws.

The law targets minority sect and places Ahmadis on a separate voter registration list categorising them as non-Muslim. Community leaders say this violates their right to religious self-identify as Muslim. Ahmad has not voted since. Masood Ahmad Khalid, who last cast a ballot in , remembers missing his bus and having to walk a long distance to the nearest polling station.

APAC Updated.