It was the evening of 6th of January 2019, I was watching PTV news with one of my friends in Wimbledon and his family. The newscaster was reporting that Mr Zulfiqar Bukhari, who is usually called Zulfi Bukhari, had addressed the members of Khatam-e-Nabuwwat in the Golra Sharif area of Pakistan. In his speech, the adviser to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, said that there was no place for the Qadianis (a derogatory name for the Ahmadiyya community) in Pakistan.

This news was broadcasted on 06/01/2019 between 8pm – 10 pm GMT on Pakistan Television news channels which is a state-run television channel of Pakistan and the speaker of that hate speech was a British citizen by birth. This news depicts the intensity of hate towards the minorities found in the minds of the new Sunni ruling party of Pakistan.

Mr Zulfi Bukhari runs his business in London with full freedom but in Pakistan he wants to make the lives of minorities even more miserable. In non-Muslim countries, these men campaign for equal rights but in Pakistan they want to crush all minorities. He is one of the closest friends of Imran Khan who is the current Prime Minister of Pakistan and leader of the leading political party, Pakistan Tahrik’e’Insaf. His speech could put the lives of the Ahmadiyya community in even more danger because it could prove to be a clear signal for the extremist groups that they are free to act against minorities.

Now, the situation is that this hate crime occurred outside the UK so by law the British government might not be able to take any action, but on the other hand this hate speech by a British Citizen could put the lives of the Ahmadiyya community of UK as well as of other countries in more danger. These kind of hate speeches are quite common in Pakistani society by the majority Muslims against the minorities because of government support behind it.

During the 20th century when Adolf Hitler was delivering these kinds of speeches, the result came in the form of the Holocaust where millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis. When Mr Zulfi Bukhari was saying that there was no place for the Qadianis in Pakistan, he did not mention what he thinks about the future of more than one million Ahmadiyya community members who live in Pakistan. Whether this Sunni ruling party is planning to deport all Ahmadis to other countries or they are planning to kill all Ahmadis?

The current situation in Pakistan is that members of the Ahmadiyya community are being forced to change their faith or be prepared to face strict restrictions against them. They are being denied their basic rights and blocked from getting higher ranks in civil or military services. It is not happening only with Ahmadis; similarly, Hindu girls are being abducted in the rural areas of Sindh to marry Sunni Muslims, while the only available job for Christians is to clean toilets.

There is urgent need for international powers to take immediate action for the protection of minorities in Pakistan who are being engulfed by the fundamentalist Sunnis.