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Just as the spokesmen of the anti-Ahmadiyya organisations are now misrepresenting the outcome of the Jassiem vs. Nazim and the MJC case, similarly at the conclusion of the previous, entirely separate 1982-85 case, misleading statements were issued to the press by the Pakistani religious and legal advisors to the MJC. We quote below a news-report of the time from the well-known Urdu daily Jang:

'The former head of the Pakistan Constitution Commission and the leader of the Pakistani delegation which went to South Africa last year in pursuance of the court case between Qadianis and the Muslim Judicial Council there, Maulana Zafar Ahmad Ansari, has said that no non-Muslim court has the right to give a judgment as to whether a person is Muslim or not. He was commenting on the South African Supreme Court judgment according to which Justice Williamson declared Qadianis to be Muslims. Maulana Ansari said that this judge is a Jew, and it was because of his being a Jew that the Muslim Judicial Council boycotted the court proceedings, and had said that no non-Muslim court had the right to decide on religious affairs of the Muslims. He said that, by the unilateral verdict of this Jewish judge, the Qadianis and the Ahmadis would not become Muslims. . . . He said that, in view of the special relations of the Qadianis with Israel and the Jews, what else could be expected from this Jewish judge except that he would declare Qadianis to be Muslims."

(Daily Jang, London edition, 2 December 1985, front page)

At least three points of fact in the above statement are absolutely false. (1) The party to the case against the MJC were not "Qadianis" but Lahore Ahmadis. (2) Judge Williamson was not a Jew; in fact, he was a Catholic. (3) The MJC never mentioned, at the time of withdrawing from the case, that their objection was that the judge was a Jew.