Mahzarnama (The Memorandum) — Page 2
2 Mahzarnama attribute himself to whichever religion he chooses, and no one in the world, nor any organization or Assembly can deprive him of this basic human right. The U. N. Charter of Rights, in the context of guaranteeing basic human rights, also accepts this right of every human being to attribute himself to the religion of his choice. Similarly, Section 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan also accepts this basic right of every citizen of Pakistan. So therefore, this matter should be decided upon as a matter of principle as to whether or not this Committee is constitutionally entitled to deliberate upon the aforesaid resolutions? Human nature and conscience, too, do not empower any Assembly to deprive any individual or sect, of the right to choose to attribute himself to a particular religion; because in that case this right will have to be granted to every Assembly in the world. Some of the numerous untoward outcomes that will flow from the universal acceptance of this principle will, for instance, include the following: (a) Every Assembly in the world will have a virtual mandate to declare certain Christian sects to be non-Christian, and certain Hindu sects to be non-Hindu, etc. (b) Every sect of every religion in every country will have the right to demand from their National Assembly to deliberate upon the demand to declare certain designated sects as non-Christian, non-Hindu, non-Muslim, and so on. (c) If recent anti-Ahmadi sectarian riots may be sought to justify the present scrutiny under which the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at is being held, then one will have to necessarily consider all the sectarian riots that have occurred in Pakistan so far, or can conceivably occur, to lead to the same kind of scrutiny as is being presently conducted.