So mainstream Pakistani media is reporting that His Excellency, President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari was received by Lord Tariq Ahmed who is of Pakistani origin. The News especially seems to have made a big deal about the fact that it is the first time a peer of Pakistani origin has received a president on behalf of the Queen.
What our media omitted is that Lord Ahmed is an Ahmadi, a community that is terribly persecuted, abused and humiliated by the state and society in Pakistan. A diplomat once asked me if the discrimination against Ahmadis is a popular discrimination. It is a populist discrimination I told him. It is a denial of human rights and individual freedoms. You may amount to nothing in life, you may be a soulless and corrupt human being but so long as you are an officially sanctioned "Muslim" in Pakistan, you have a copyright on Islam and using that copyright you can justify anything done against Ahmadis.
Shame!
