ALI’S FAITH MAKES PAK DIPLOMAT DELETE TWEET PRAISING ACTOR

NEW DELHI: There are several Muslim-majority countries where Mahershala Ali’s Oscar win for his role in Moonlight won’t be celebrated. That’s because he belongs to the minority Ahmadi sect.

In countries such as Malaysia and Pakistan, Ahmadis are reviled by hardline Sunni Muslim groups as heretics, apostates and even infidels. So much so that Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s envoy to the UN, deleted a tweet on Monday that noted Ali was the first Muslim actor to win an Academy Award.

The tweet was spotted by Twitter users who saved screen grabs. Ali, who was born a Christian, converted to Islam at his graduate school after the woman who would become his wife, Amatus Karim, invited him to an Ahmadi mosque. Pakistan had declared members of the Ahmadiyya sect “non-Muslims” in 1974.

from the A-list stars but from foreigners, a few of whom were not even in attendance and could communicate their sentiments only through statements. Kimmel, as if predicting that this would be the case, said early that the Oscars are watched by 225 countries “that now hate us.”