Mick Hartley

A taste of life in Pakistan, via a couple of recent items from the (Catholic) AsiaNews. 

In the summer of 2009 a Muslim mob, fired up by rumours of the desecration of a Koran, attacked Christians and set fire to their houses in the town of Gojra, in Pakistan's central Punjab. Ten people died, eight burnt alive. Four churches were destroyed. From the BBC report:

Officials said the rumours which led to the unrest were false.

Minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that a Christian neighbourhood had been attacked by a mob "misled by Muslim extremists".

Mr Bhatti accused police of negligence, saying he had himself visited Gojra on Friday and asked for protection for the Christians.

Well, we know what happened to Shahbaz Bhatti.

Seventy people were subsequently put on trial for the massacre. All have now been acquitted:

According to the court, the acquittal last Tuesday was due to the absence of Christian witnesses in the courtroom and the lack of evidence against the accused.

Sources close to the Catholic Church in Lahore, on condition of anonymity, said, “Christian witnesses were under constant threats meant to force them to withdraw their accusations”.

Two of the 70 people acquitted were released the day before the sentence. The other 68 had already been released on bail some time ago.

The main complainant, Phanias Masih, had to flee Pakistan last year along with his family, fearing more violence….

However, to understand the madness and power of the extremists, it is sufficient to listen to the words of Maulana Kashmiri, a Muslim leader in Punjab.

“There are no witnesses because they [the Christians] know that they are wrong. We got justice. Even though none of us did it, Christians still deserve it [death], because they are blasphemers.”

The second story:

Ten Christian families were forced to flee from Chak 68, Arifwala, in Khanewal district, for fear of the consequences of an accusation of blasphemy. A Christian boy of eight years, Ihtesham, nicknamed "Sunny" went to buy ice in a market, and was surrounded and harassed by students of a madrassa, an Islamic religious school. They asked him to recite verses from the Koran, those every Muslim reads the so-called "Kalma", in short the statement that "there is no God but Allah …." They asked him to renounce his religion and convert to Islam.

An uncle of Sunny, Dildar Masih, seeing that his nephew was in trouble, because of the students, intervened. Sunny explained to him that they were bullying him to renounce his religion. Dildar addressed the boys, he rebuked them and told Sunny to go home. The boys told of the incident to the religious leaders at the madrasas. The latter announced that Dildar Masih had committed blasphemy, making fun of Koranic verses, and the loudspeaker of the madrasa urged all to punish the blasphemer, to set an example. A crowd gathered around Dildar where he was working and attacked him. After the incident, ten families fled from the village.

Father Rufin John, from Khanewal, told AsiaNews: "This is a common practice in the region. Many cases of forced conversions are not disclosed. In many schools it is mandatory for all to read verses from the Koran, it is in the program, and is compulsory for students of all faiths to read them. If students of faiths other than Islam do not read them, they are subject to abuse, or are thrown out of schools. "

Father Afzal Masih of Rahim Yar Khan told AsiaNews: "In Rahim Khan, the madrasa students annoy teenagers of different faiths every day. They do not allow them to play in their playgrounds, they do not want them to pass close to the madrasas, the radical school of thought is at its maximum in this region. They are taught that Christians and people of other religions may be killed if they do not accept Islam. And the authorities turn a blind eye to this problem. "

AsiaNews may not be the most impartial source here. but no one else seems to covering the fate of the beleaguered Christian minority in Pakistan. And they're not making this stuff up.