Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi deleted a tweet congratulating Mahershala Ali for his Oscar win on Monday, after she was reportedly criticised for it. The Constitution of Pakistan has declared the sect that Ali is from, Ahmadi or Ahmadiyya Muslims, to be “non-Muslims”. Ali was called “the first Muslim to receive an Academy Award”.

Ali had converted in 1999 when his wife Amatus Karim had invited him to, Hindustan Times reported. The sect follows the teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was regarded a prophet. They have often been persecuted and called “heretics” or Kafirs. Under an amendment made in Pakistan in 1984, Ahmadi Muslims could not call themselves Muslims or refer to their places of worship as mosques.

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Mahershala Ali had won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role in Moonlight, against Dev Patel for Lion, Jeff Bridges for Hell or High Water, Michael Shannon for Nocturnal Animals, and Lucas Hedges for Manchester By The Sea.

Ali was reported to be the first Muslim to win an Oscar in acting, though Muslims have won in other categories. Composer AR Rahman won for his music in Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, while Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and director Asghar Farhadi have won Academy Awards too.

Meanwhile, the United States’ state department’s official Persian-language Twitter handle also deleted a congratulatory tweet to Farhadi, an Iranian director, for his criticism against President Donald Trump’s recent immigration ban. On Monday, Farhadi had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film for The Salesman. He had boycotted the ceremony and was represented by an Iranian-American woman engineer and a former scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, The Guardian reported.

A spokesperson from the state department said, “A congratulatory tweet was posted. We later removed the post to avoid any misperception that the USG [US government] endorsed the comments made in the acceptance speech.”