Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Religious Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan - MN and Others (Ahmadis – Country Conditions – Risk) Pakistan CG [2012] UKUT 00389 (IAC)

by Katia Bianchini

Question(s) at stake

Whether members of the Ahmadi sect could be at risk of religion-based persecution in Pakistan, and whether specific appellants would face persecution in Pakistan as a result of their affiliation to the Ahmadi sect.

Outcome of the ruling

The Upper Tribunal Country Guidance case of MN and Others (Ahmadis - Country Conditions - Risk) Pakistan v the Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] held that Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadi laws are discriminatory laws that violate the fundamental human right to religious expression. Therefore, any person who can show that they engage in behaviour(s) contrary to the anti-Ahmadi laws is a person entitled to international protection. This need for protection applies equally to men and women: there appears to be no reason to believe that women, as a group and compared to men, face particular or additional risks arising out of the aforementioned laws. Furthermore, even if an Ahmadi person has been found to be unlikely to engage in prohibited behaviour, and therefore unlikely to be “at real risk” of persecution “on return to Pakistan, fact-finders may in certain cases” still “need to consider whether that person would be reasonably likely to be targeted by non-state actors” by reason of their prominent social or business status. (p. 10) After consideration of the Country Guidance, four of the five joint appeals were allowed: one was dismissed.

Country:

United Kingdom

Official citation

MN and Others (Ahmadis – Country Conditions – Risk) Pakistan CG [2012] UKUT 00389 (IAC)

Topic(s)

Keywords:

Grounds/Reasons of persecution Refugee status Religion or belief Asylum seeker

Tag(s):

Ahmadi Religious minorities Pakistan

Bibliographic information

Bianchini, Katia (2024): Religious Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan - MN and Others (Ahmadis – Country Conditions – Risk) Pakistan CG [2012] UKUT 00389 (IAC), Department of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany, CUREDI013UK008, https://www.doi.org/10.48509/CUREDI013UK008.

About the authors

Katia Bianchini (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department Law and Anthropology, Germany) ORCID logo

Katia Bianchini is a Research Fellow of the Law and Anthropology Department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. She holds a law degree from the University of Pavia (Italy), an LL.M. in Comparative Laws from the University of San Diego (California, USA), and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of York (UK). Her doctoral thesis provided an empirical and legal analysis of how the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is implemented in ten EU states. She has also worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen). Before engaging in research, she practised immigration and refugee law for ten years in the UK and the USA.

Bianchini has published in the field of refugee law, statelessness, and the rule of law in the context of sea migration. Her current research builds on her expertise in human rights and Italian law and looks at the treatment of deceased sea migrants in the South of Italy.