The Ahmadyyia religious group was founded in 1889 by Prophet Mirza Ghulam Ahmed and now has more than ten million followers throughout the world, with four million in Pakistan [Petrén G., H. Cull, J. McBride and D. Ravindran, Pakistan: Human Rights After Martial Law, (Geneva: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1986), p. 103; Degenhardt H.W. Revolutionary and Dissident Movements, (London: Longman, 1988), p. 266.]. The Ahmadis do not consider Mohammed as the last of the prophets, constituting a major contradiction with one of the fundamental principles of Muslim Orthodoxy [ The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, vol.25, (Chicago et al: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1989), p. 383-384.].

The "Lahori Group" is the result of further schism by a group of dissidents who founded their own sect after the death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed in 1908 [ Petrén et al., ibid, p. 105.]. The Lahori Group does not accept Ahmed as their prophet, but believe in the Jehad (Holy War) and in the death of Christ [Ibid.]. The Lahori Group is considered more modern and liberal than the Ahmadyyia sect, which closely follows the 19th century teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed [ Gualtieri A. Conscience and Coercion: Ahmadi Muslims and Orthodoxy in Pakistan, (Montréal: Guernica, 1989), p. 104.].

The Ahmadiyya headquarters is located in the city of Rabwah, although the government does not allow believers to held their annual meetings there, forcing the Ahmadis to meet outside Pakistan [ Petrén et al., ibid, p. 115.]. Most families in Rabwah are Ahmadi and the city contains at least two Ahmadi mosques and one Orthodox mosque [ Telephone conversation with a scholar expert on the Ahmadis, Department of religious sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, 27 November 1989.].

At the end of May 1974, a group of students belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami (a fundamentalist movement hostile to the Ahmadis) provoked riots at the Rabwah train stations and in other cities of Pakistan; the 1974 anti-Ahmadi riots resulted in the death of 27 Ahmadis and the destruction of Ahmadi mosques, stores and houses [ Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, The Plight of Ahmadi Muslims, (Toronto: AMA, 1987), p. 7; "Shops Set on Fire in Pakistan", The Daily Telegraph (London U.K.), 31 May 1974; "Sectarian Violence Flares in Pakistan", The Times (London U.K.), 31 May 1974. These two articles are reprinted in: Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, Persecution of Ahmadi Muslims and their Response, (Surrey, U.K.: AMA), p. 8; Ashworth G. World Minorities, vol.I, (Sunbury (UK): Quartermaine, 1979), p. 8.].

Following the May 1984 violence, the government of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of the current Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, declared the Ahmadis to be a "Non-Muslim minority" [ Petrén et al., ibid, p. 104.]. Special restrictive provisions for the Ahmadis were further enacted by General Zia in 1984, when Ordinance XX decreed the Quadiani Group (named after Mirza Ghulam Ahmed's birth place), the Lahori Group and the Ahmadis to conduct "anti-islamic" activities, (that is, to declare themselves Muslims, to refer orally or in a written manner to the Prophet Mohammed or to his wife, to enter a mosque, etc.) [ Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, "Ordinance No. XX of 1984", The Gazette of Pakistan, (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 26 April 1984), p. 8.]. The sanctions imposed on Ahmadis range from several years' imprisonment to a range of fines [ Ibid.].

Since 1984, the Ahmadis have been victims of diverse forms of harassment (legalized by Ordinance XX), including the right to proclaim themselves Muslim (they do not accept their classification as "Non-Muslims" and consider themselves only as members of a Muslim sect) and to practice Islamic rituals [Andreassen B.A. et A. Eide, eds. Human Rights in Developing Countries 1987/1988, (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1988), p. 240.]. The Ahmadis are obliged to declare themselves non-Muslims in order to exert their right to vote and to bury their dead in segregated cemeteries, which have been desecrated in the past [Petrén G. et al., ibid.]. Fifteen Ahmadis were condemned to five years in prison in Mardan in 1986 because they had written sacred words on their business receipts [ Ibid.]. In March 1986, 26 Ahmadis where arrested for wearing a religious insignia called "kalima" [ Ibid.]. Some Ahmadis of Karachi were assassinated in 1986 [ Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, ibid, p.13.]. Students registering for university were refused access to post-secondary studies when they indicated that their religion was "Islam (Ahmadi)" instead of "Non-Muslim" [ Petrén et al., ibid, p. 105.]. The use of the Muslim greeting "Assalam-o-Alaikum" is deemed to be blasphemous if said by so-called "Non-Muslims", and has led to the arrest of numerous Ahmadis [ Petrén et al., ibid, p. 107.]. Ahmadis are in general excluded from government positions [ Degenhardt, ibid.].

Under the administration of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the legal and political conditions of Ahmadis have further deteriorated [ Hyman A. "No Great Change in Human Rights", Index on Censorship, 10/89, p. 24-26.]. Recent incidents in Nankana Sahib and Chak Sikandar in April and June 1989, demonstrate the fact that social relations between Orthodox Muslims in Pakistan, influenced by increasing influence of fundamentalism in that country, have worsened since the Salman Rushdie affair in early 1989, and the Ahmadis, to be deemed increasingly heretical [ Petrén et al., ibid, p. 103.]. On 12 April 1989, Nankana Saheb Ahmadi mosque and forty Ahmadi houses were burned to the ground by armed individuals [Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam (Ontario), New Spate of Violence in Pakistan, (Toronto: AMI, 1989), p. 2. See also, for corroboration, a fax sent by the Canadian Embassy in Islamabad through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada to the IRBDC in Ottawa, dated 10 August 1989.]. The Pakistan Times of Lahore, although considered to be "pro-government", also reported the Nankana Sahib incident [ Reprinted in: International Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, The Situation of Ahmadi Muslims: After the Dawn of Democracy in Pakistan, (London: IAMI, 1989), p. 21; The Pakistan Times is qualified "pro-gouvernemental" in: Observatoire de l'information, L'information dans le monde, (Paris: Seuil, 1989), p. 425.]. On 16 June 1989, at least three Ahmadis were killed and numerous houses burned in Chak Sikandar [International Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, ibid, p. 9-10.]. An article from New Life and a publication of the "Pakistan Human Rights Commission" are attached for more details regarding the Nankana Sahib and Chak Sikandar incidents [ "New Wave of Violence Greets Ahmadiyyas", New Life, 21 April 1989. This article is reprinted in: Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, 1989, ibid, p. 86; Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 1989, Riot and Arson: Nankana Sahib, 12 April 1989, Lahore: HRCP.].