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FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND AHMADIYYA
Last
month in May, 2008 twenty three students were expelled from Punjab Medical
College, Faisalabad, Pakistan and their sole crime was that they belonged
to Ahmadiyya community. Those places that are centers of learning and
where higher values should be taught, such type of discriminatory
treatment is indeed deplorable. Everyone has a right to express his or her
opinion and the choice of following religion or ideology of his own liking
without any external pressure. State on its part should treat everyone on
equal basis without giving any regard to the financial, ideological or
religious position of its citizen, but alas this is not the case in our
country where not only the political leaders but also the religious
leaders are following the unjust path of discrimination. I strongly
condemn the discriminatory treatment of the Ahmadi students of Punjab
Medical College.
Having
said the above, I would also like to raise a few questions for the elders
and intellectuals of this new religion of Ahmadiyyat whose slogan is "Love
for all, hatred for none". Do they not themselves do the same? Do they
themselves not treat people discriminately and have they not destroyed the
lives of people just because they dared to exercise their right of
expressing dissent?
Those
Ahmadi upholders of freedom of expression who cry foul when they see any
discriminatory treatment anywhere, should they not focus their attention
to their own religious organization first, where members are not even
allowed to eat, dress or choose their life partners.
Please
read the Canadian Ahmadiyya Gazette of March-April, 2008 and see for
yourself that can any Ahmadi express his or her opinion without first
getting it cleared from his or her religious scholars. No boy or girl of
this religion can choose his or her life partner of own liking and if they
do, they along with their families will be banished from their religious
community. Is it in any way less deplorable act than the expulsion of
twenty three students of Punjab Medical College? The members of Ahmadiyya
community, even if they cannot afford to put bread in the mouth of their
children are required to pay subscription/charity money to their religious
organization. Even when they are subsisting on welfare money, they are
supposed to pay out the amount they owe to their organization first and
then they try to go on and put the bread in mouth of their children. Isn't
this extortion; pure and naked?
If any member questions any leader, mullah or Khalifa in
the organization asking for explanation then isn't that member targeted
and held under observation. If someone goes further and speaks truth out
of desperation, then one cannot imagine the treatment that he or she along
with his or her progeny will be subjected to. He will be instantly accused
of hate crime, and if a person holding such thoughts dies, he will even be
remembered with intense hate in his death. Such are the norms of the
people who think that there should not be any discrimination. Indeed there
should not be any discrimination and all the Muslims should not subject
Ahmadis with discriminatory treatment because this is against the
fundamental human rights
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