Tahir Nasser is a physician, author and regular contributor to Religion News Service.

Before leaving office, U.S. President Barack Obama commuted the jail sentence of Chelsea Manning, the American soldier convicted and imprisoned in 2013 for leaking sensitive documents to Wikileaks.

While Manning's imprisonment and release have rightly received worldwide coverage, the eight-year imprisonment of an 80-year old Pakistani man in January 2016 for selling books, has largely gone unnoticed.

On the 2 December 2015, the Punjab's Counter-Terrorism department accompanied by Pakistan's Elite Force raided a simple bookstore owned by one elderly man: Abdul Shakoor. They seized magazines, books, leaflets and newspapers.

The arrested 80-year-old and his shop assistant were then held in unknown locations and denied the right to contact their families. Their case was rushed through the courts so that no defence could be prepared; only witnesses for the prosecution, consisting armed officers who raided the bookstore, gave their testimony.

Thus, one month after arrest on the 2 January 2016, the 80-year-old Abdul Shakoor was sentenced to eight years in prison and given a 600,000-rupee fine, with Mazhar Abbas sentenced to five years in prison and given a 100,000-rupee fine.

The reason for this heinous act of state-sponsored persecution is that Abdul Shakoor is an Ahmadi Muslim, and his bookstore was selling literature from the peaceful Ahmadiyya Muslim community. This was the reason for the difference in his sentence from Mazhar Abbas - his Shia bookstore assistant; while both were sentenced to five years' imprisonment under Pakistan's anti-terrorism laws, Abdul Shakoor was sentenced to an additional three years under Pakistan's specific anti-Ahmadiyya laws - Ordinance XX, created in 1984.

The prosecution of both men is a flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Pakistan is, laughably, a signatory.

The perversity of charging an 80-year-old with terrorism offenses for selling the literature of perhaps the most peaceful Islamic community in the world seems lost on Pakistani lawmakers. The further irony is that the Qur'an - so ostensibly revered by the Pakistani government that laws must be passed to protect it - was among the goods seized and categorised as illegal material.

How perverse must a government become that, out of hatred for a minority community, they are willing to cut off their nose to spite their own face by banning the sale of their own holy books?

This is precisely how the anti-Ahmadiyya laws of Pakistan work. They prohibit Ahmadi Muslims from "posing as Muslims" either by word or deed. This makes it a criminal offence for Ahmadis in Pakistan to give the Muslim greeting of "peace be on you," call their places of worship "mosques," or refer to themselves in any way, shape or form, as Muslims.

Indeed, Pakistani passports and national identity card forms ask applications to attest that, "I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani (the founder of the Ahmadiyya community) as an imposter ... and also consider his followers ... to be non-Muslim." The effect of this statement is to undermine the civil rights of Ahmadis at an institutional level, since the passport and/or national identity card must be presented when applying for universities, jobs and for travel. Indeed, the Pakistani government has introduced a column in educational forms requiring the applicant to stipulate their religion, opening up educational institutions to Ahmadi apartheid too.

This law is really one of a kind. It does not prohibit Ahmadis from holding their beliefs, but rather criminalises the expression of Ahmadi beliefs as Islamic. The law thus excludes Ahmadis from participating in the dominant religion of the land, unlike other blasphemy laws, which usually criminalise minorities for not participating in the dominant view. No other law like it exists in the world today.

The result of the anti-Ahmadiyya law of 1984 has been a litany of tragic absurdities, too long to cite in one article. A few highlights are the prosecution of 765 Ahmadis for proclaiming the Islamic declaration of faith; 38 prosecutions for making the call to prayer; and, 447 prosecutions for "posing as Muslims."

The great irony is that this law has put Ahmadi Muslim in the best company. There have been only two communities in the history of Islam that have been institutionally and specifically forbidden from Islamic practises such as proclaiming the Muslim call to prayer, referring to themselves as Muslim, calling their places of worship mosques, praying in congregation, attending the Hajj pilgrimage and so on. The first is the community of the Prophet of Islam, persecuted for thirteen years and driven out of his home in Mecca to Medina 280 miles north, on the night of an assassination attempt. The second is the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, driven out of Pakistan in their millions for precisely the same reasons.

In Medina, the prophet of Islam became the head of a city-state, formed a coherent community of Muslims, and was able to reach out his message to the other Arab tribes, as well as to the Roman and Persian empires. In other words, his forced migration benefitted the early Muslims hugely. Similarly, the forced migration undertaken by Ahmadis has only resulted in their growing from strength to strength, and the recognition of their caliph Mirza Masroor Ahmad around the world as a powerful voice for peace and justice.

While petitions have been raised at both governmental and individual levels for the release of this innocent, 80-old gentleman and his book assistant - to which readers can put their signatures - no response has been forthcoming from the Pakistani government, yet. The hope is that with political pressure, Abdul Shakoor and Mazhar Abbas may yet be released.

Across the Western world, the power of the surveillance state and anti-terror legislation in the hands of an egomaniac like Donald Trump is feared to be the harbinger of an Orwellian dystopia. For Pakistani Ahmadi Muslims, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four found prophetic realisation that very year with the anti-Ahmadiyya laws, and has continued every year since.

Tahir Nasser is a physician, author and regular contributor to Religion News Service. His articles have appeared in The Guardian, Belfast Telegraph and elsewhere.