Pakistan
Muslim Mob Attacks Christians in Gujrat, Pakistan
Dozens beaten, shot at, left for dead since Sept. 8.
By Walter Smith
SARGODHA, Pakistan, September 27 (Compass Direct News) – A mob of Muslim extremists on Thursday (Sept. 23) shot at and beat dozens of Christians, including one cleared of “blasphemy” charges, in Punjab Province’s Gujrat district, Christian leaders said.
The attack on Tariq Gill, exonerated of charges of blaspheming the Quran on Sept. 3, 2009, and on his father Murad Gill, his mother and the other Christian residents was the latest of more than 10 such assaults on the Christian colony of Mohalla Kalupura, Gujrat city, since Sept. 8, the Rev. Suleman Nasri Khan and Bishop Shamas Pervaiz told Compass.
About 40 Islamists – some shooting Kalashnikovs and pistols at homes and individuals on the street, others brandishing axes and clubs – beat some of the Christians so badly that they left them for dead, Pastor Khan said. So far, 10 families have been targeted for the attacks.
On Thursday (Sept. 23) the assailants ripped the clothing off of Gill’s mother and dragged her nude through the streets, Pastor Khan said.
Among the Christians attacked on Thursday (Sept. 23) were Rashid Masih and his family, he said. The critically injured Masih and his family members, Gill and his parents, and the other injured Christians were initially rushed to Aziz Bhatti hospital in Gujrat, Pastor Khan said, and then transferred to Abdullah Hospital in nearby Lalla Musa to receive more advanced care.
“The injured Christians were under the observation of able doctors at Abdullah Hospital in Lalla Musa,” Pastor Khan told Compass by telephone.
Bishop Pervaiz, central vice chairman of the Pakistan Interfaith Peace Council, said the mob was led by two members of the National Assembly, Meer Anjum and Farasat Dar, at the behest of a powerful member of the Punjab Assembly named Sheikh Islam. The three Muslim politicians were not immediately available for comment, but the Gujrat superintendent of police investigations, identified only as Hafeez, told Christian leaders they were respectable legislators who were innocent.
Also asserting that the three Muslim politicians were behind the violence, Pastor Khan said the assailants have vowed to mount an attack on Mohalla Kalupura similar to the Islamist assault on Gojra in 2009. On Aug. 1, 2009, an Islamic mob acting on a false rumor of blaspheming the Quran and whipped into frenzy by local imams attacked the Christian colony in Gojra, burning at least seven Christians to death, injuring 19 others, looting more than 100 houses and setting fire to 50 of them. The dead included women and children.
Bishop Pervaiz said the attackers in Gujrat have threatened to kill him, Pastor Khan and Bishop Yashua John and continue to roam the streets of Mohalla Kalupura looking for Christian residents to kill.
The Lorry Adda police station house officer (SHO), inspector Riaz Qaddar, has stated publicly that “no stone would be left unturned” to apprehend the gunmen, but the Christian leaders said he has refused to act.
“The SHO flatly denied indicting the Muslim mob and especially the Muslim legislators,” said Pastor Khan, chairman of Power of God’s Healing Ministry International Pakistan and national coordinator of Jesus’ Victory Gospel Assembly of Pakistan.
Bishop Pervaiz said that besides the Christian accused of blasphemy, the attacks also may have been sparked by the election victory last year of an area Christian – who was slain a few days after taking office. Yaqoob Masih won the Tehsil Municipal Authority Gujrat election by a landslide, and a few days after he took office on Dec. 15, 2009, Muslim candidates running for the same office killed him, Bishop Pervaiz said.
He added that Lorry Adda police did not register a murder case at that time.
In the blasphemy case, Tariq Gill was falsely charged on Aug. 15, 2009 under Section 295-B of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws for desecrating the Quran, but due to the intervention of Christian leaders, influential Muslim elders and police, he was exonerated of all allegations on Sept. 3, 2009, said Bishop Pervaiz, who is also chairman of the Council of Bishops and head of the National Churches in Pakistan.
“Muslim legislators Meer Anjum, Sheikh Islam and Farasat Dar had resentment against Murad Gill’s family over this blasphemy row as well,” said Bishop Pervaiz, “and now through these assaults, which are becoming more frequent and massive, emboldened Muslims have found a way to vent their fury.”
The Christian leaders said they approached District Police Officer Afzaal Kausar about the attacks, and he sent the application for charges to Hafeez, the superintendent of police investigation in Gujrat.
“But he did not bother to watch the video we shot of the attack and shrugged off the matter,” Pastor Khan said.
He said that Hafeez told them that Anjum, Dar and Islam were respectable legislators, “and without any investigation declared them innocent.”
This afternoon Pastor Khan led a protest at the Islamabad National Press Club. He said more than 250 Christian protestors reached Islamabad despite an attempt by Inspector Qaddar of Lorry Adda police station to arrest them before they left the area.
“But the invisible hand of Almighty God helped us, and we safely made it to Islamabad,” Pastor Khan said. “Although the government has clamped a ban on all sorts of processions and demonstrations, we successfully staged the sit-in before National Press Club Islamabad.”
Saying he regretted that the demonstration had drawn little attention, he added that the protestors would remain in front of the building tonight demanding justice. The pastor said tomorrow (Sept. 28) they would protest in front of the Islamabad Parliament House.
www.compassdirect.org
Muslims Resume Building on Christian Graveyard in Pakistan
Hard-line cleric defies local officials’ order to stop construction.
By Walter Smith
SARGODHA, Pakistan, September 1 (Compass Direct News) – Muslims led by a hard-line cleric on Friday (Aug. 27) resumed building on a Christian cemetery in Mandi Bhawaldin, desecrating more graves in spite of a local government order to halt construction, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).
Radical Muslim cleric Mirza Abdul Ghani had built a mosque on the Christian graveyard off New Rasool Road in Mandi Bhawaldin after allegedly occupying the land 16 years ago, when area Christians were too intimidated to object, said Salamat Zia of APMA.
“No one could object to the construction of the mosque, as it is in the constitution of Pakistan that no religious worship place could be demolished,” said Zia. “Therefore all the Christians remained silent then.”
The cleric’s alleged desecration of more of the graveyard land around the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque began three months ago, Zia said.
“This Christian graveyard was earmarked before the Indo-Pakistan partition on Aug. 14, 1947,” Zia added, “and their forefathers were buried there.”
Zia, a local journalist and resident of the Muhalla Ghorra area in Mandi Bhawaldin, said it initially appeared that Ghani’s workers were building an addition to the mosque, as only pillars had been erected. Now Ghani’s builders have completed a basement as well as possibly some shops, with cement plaster now being applied to the new units.
On Aug. 6 Zia led a seven-member Christian delegation intending to meet with District Coordination Officer (DCO) Muhammad Amin Chaudhary, another district officer named Syed Shahbaz Hussain Naqvi and District Police Officer Dar Ali Khatak of Mandi Bhawaldin about the encroachments on the Christian graveyard and to discuss how the graves of their loved ones were being demolished and desecrated.
As DCO Chaudhary was on leave, Acting DCO Shahid Rana took their application and forwarded it to the District Officer of Revenue and Tehsil Officer of Regulations with directives to visit the site and demolish all encroachments except the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque, Zia said.
After inspecting the site, the administrative officers issued directives to stop the illegal encroachments, and for a few days the construction was halted, he said.
“But despite the stay orders of stopping construction, the Muslim men restarted construction over the Christian graves on August 27,” Zia said.
Khalid Gill, chief organizer of APMA in Punjab Province, said that Muslim leaders threatened Christians who objected to the construction.
“They threatened that in case Christians protested against the resumption of construction they would also carry out a protest rally against Christians, and Muslim clerics said Christians would be responsible for the consequences,” Gill said.
APMA has demanded that the government allocate land for a Christian graveyard equivalent to the area allegedly occupied by the Muslims.
Local Urdu-language dailies in Mandi Bhawaldin have publicized the alleged encroachment on the Christian graveyard.
www.compassdirect.org
Pakistani Taliban Kills Three Foreign Christian Aid Workers
Kidnapped relief workers had come to provide aid to victims of massive flooding.
By John Little
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, August 27 (Compass Direct News) – Authorities on Wednesday (Aug. 25) recovered the bodies of three Christian relief workers who had been kidnapped and killed by members of the Pakistani Taliban in the flood-ravaged country, area officials said.
Swat District Coordination Officer Atif-ur-Rehman told Compass that the Pakistan Army recovered the bodies of the three foreign flood-relief workers at about 7 a.m. on Wednesday. An official at the international humanitarian organization that employed the workers withheld their names and requested that the agency remain unnamed for security reasons. Military sources who withheld news of the deaths from electronic and print media to avoid panicking other relief workers granted permission to Compass to publish it in limited form.
“The foreigner aid workers have been working in Mingora and the surrounding areas,” Rehman said. “On Aug. 23 they were returning to their base at around 5:35 p.m. when a group of Taliban attacked their vehicle. They injured around five-six people and kidnapped three foreign humanitarian workers.”
Pakistan has been hit by its worst flooding in decades, with the United Nations now estimating more than 21.8 million people have been affected. Foreign aid workers are involved in relief activities across the country, including Swat district in Khyber-Paktunkhwa Province in northern Pakistan. At least 8 million people require emergency relief, with hundreds of thousands reportedly isolated from aid supplies.
An army Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) source said rangers have been deployed in Swat and other potential target areas to help provide security for relief workers.
“The Taliban had warned about attacks on foreigner aid workers and Christian organizations,” the ISPR source said. “All the international humanitarian organizations have been notified, and their security has also been increased.”
Rehman noted that the Taliban also has been trying to bring relief to flood victims.
“The Taliban are also trying to support the flood victims, and many other banned organizations have set up camps in southern Punjab to support the victims,” he said. “They intend to sympathize with the affected and gain their support.”
The president of advocacy organization Life for All, Rizwan Paul, said the bodies of the three relief workers had been sent to Islamabad under the supervision of the Pakistan Army.
“We strongly condemn the killing of the three humanitarian workers,” Paul said. “These aid workers came to support us, and we are thankful to the humanitarian organizations that came to help us in a time of need.”
Pointing to alleged discrimination against minorities in distribution of humanitarian aid, Paul added that Christians in severely flood-damaged areas in Punjab Province have been neglected. The majority of the effected Christians in Punjab are in Narowal, Shakargarh, Muzzafargarh, Rahim Yar Khan and Layyah, he said.
“The Christians living around Maralla, Narowal, and Shakargarh were shifted to the U.N.- administered camps, but they are facing problems in the camps,” he said. “There are reports that the Christians are not given tents, clean water and food. In most of the camps the Christians have totally been ignored.”
Life for All complained to U.N. agencies and the government of Pakistan regarding the discrimination, but no one has responded yet, he said.
“There have been reports from Muzzaffargarh and Layyah that the Christians are living on the damaged roads in temporary tents, as they were not allowed in the government camps,” he said.
In Sindh Province Thatta has been flooded, and around 300 Christian families who tried to move from there to Punjab were forbidden from doing so, a source said. Meteorologists are predicting more rains in coming days, with the already catastrophic flooding expected to get worse.
Kashif Mazhar, vice president of Life for All, said that in the northern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa conditions for Christians are better as there are Christian camps established, and Garrison Church in Risalpur is also providing aid to victims.
“It is discouraging to see that the Christian organizations are wholeheartedly supporting the victims regardless of the religion or race, but in most of the areas the Christians are totally ignored and not even allowed to stay,” Mazhar said.
Foreign targets are rarely attacked directly in Pakistan, despite chronic insecurity in the nuclear-armed state, which is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. On March 10, however, suspected Islamic militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the offices of a Christian relief and development organization in northwest Pakistan, killing six aid workers and wounding seven others.
The gunmen besieged the offices of international humanitarian organization World Vision near Oghi, in Mansehra district, of the North West Frontier Province. Suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan have killed more than 3,000 people since 2007. Blame has fallen on Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants bitterly opposed to the alliance with the United States.
The U.N. decided last year to relocate a limited number of its international staff from Pakistan because of security concerns. Its World Food Program office in Islamabad was attacked in October last year, with five aid workers killed in a suicide bombing.
Then on Feb. 3, a bomb attack in the NWFP district of Lower Dir killed three U.S. soldiers and five other people at the opening of a school just rebuilt with Western funding after an Islamist attack.
www.compassdirect.org
‘Blasphemy’ Threats Send Pakistani Worker, Couple into Hiding
Pretexts for filing charges of blaspheming Muhammad, Quran are easy to find.
By Walter Smith
BAHAWALNAGAR, Pakistan (Compass Direct News) – Threats of “blasphemy” charges in two provinces in Pakistan have sent a Christian cleaning worker and a young inter-faith couple into hiding.
In separate cases typical of how Pakistan’s blasphemy laws enable the predominantly Sunni Muslim society to terrorize lower-class Christians, the cleaning worker in Bahawalnagar district, Punjab Province was forced to leave his job and flee with his family, and the married couple in Karachi, Sindh Province are running from threats from the Muslim bride’s parents.
In Chishtian, Bahawalnagar district, Muslim extremists accused cleaning worker Tanvir Masih of New Christian Colony with blasphemy after they found him using a broom whose handle was covered with a pharmaceutical firm’s advertisement cards bearing a verse from the Quran in Arabic that read, “God is the best healer!”
The Muslim radicals from Ghareebabad Colony intercepted Masih as he made his way home after work on July 28 and accused him of defiling Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the Quran, by covering part of his broom handle with the drug firm’s advertisements, sources said on condition of anonymity.
Masih, the father of a 3-year-old son and another boy 2 months old, tried to explain that others had given him the cards, written mostly in English, and that he did not understand English. The extremists, who had received a call from a group of Muslims who said they had found a Christian who had covered part of his broom handle with cards bearing Allah’s name, verbally vented their anger on him, the sources said.
A representative of a pharmaceutical company confirmed to Compass that some of the medicinal advertisement cards of A-4 size carry a small Quranic verse written in Arabic, “Ho Al Shafi,” meaning “God is the best healer!”
The parties brought the matter to Masih’s employer, a physician identified only as Dr. Arshad of the privately owned Bajwa Clinic, and a district health officer, according to a local Christian clergyman. Both Arshad and the health official decided that Masih had committed no blasphemy against Muhammad, the Quran or Islam, and the Muslim extremists initially said they accepted their decision, the pastor said.
As Masih came out of the clinic, however, he found irate Muslims had thronged the road, the pastor said. Masih made a sprint for his life, he said, and since then no one has seen him or his family there. The pastor said he was certain, however, that Masih and his family were safe at an undisclosed location.
Another clergyman, the Rev. Shamshad Gill of Bahawalnagar, confirmed that Muslims attacked Tanvir Masih last month in Chishtian on accusations of defiling the Quran, and that he fled with his children.
At press time Masih and his family were still in hiding at an undisclosed location.
Ghareebabad Colony comprises more than 10,000 Muslim families, whereas its New Christian Colony enclave has only 100 Christian homes.
Angry In-Laws
In Karachi, Islamic hardliners threatened to charge a 33-year-old Christian man with blasphemy – and kill his wife for “apostasy,” or leaving Islam – after he refused to divorce the Muslim woman, the Christian man informed Compass.
In a letter to Compass, Shahbaz Javed said that since he secretly wed Mehwish Naz in a civil court in October 2008, his Muslim employer fired him from his factory job, and his wife’s relatives found out where they lived and began to threaten them unless she divorced him. The couple has a 2-month-old daughter.
One month after they married, the radical Muslim parents of Mehwish found out and began threatening to kill her.
“Her parents said it would be much better for them to kill her rather than give her hand in marriage to a Christian youth’s hand,” Javed said.
Her family appeared to have reluctantly accepted her marriage to a Christian when she assured them that she was still a Muslim, according to the letter signed by Javed and the Rev. Khadim Bhutto, a Christian rights worker for Gawahi Mission Trust (GMT).
Her parents told her to recite the Quran and offer prayers five times a day in accordance with Islamic practice, but eventually Naz began to attend church services and read the Bible, though Javed had never forced her to do so, he stated in the letter. Bhutto said her parents, Hameed Baig and Memona Naz, found out about her Bible reading and church attendance.
“Her parents warned her again that if she did not give up all this, they would file a case of apostasy against her and implicate Shahbaz Javed in a blasphemy case or kill him,” Bhutto said.
Her parents also began trying to coerce her and Javed into reciting Islamic prayers, including reciting it to their newborn, Muqadas Parveen, to “confirm” her as a Muslim, according to Javed. The couple told Compass, however, that they wanted to raise their daughter as a Christian.
Bhutto said the family was still moving from one rented home to another to avoid being kidnapped, killed or charged with apostasy and blasphemy.
www.compassdirect.org
Pakistan: Call To Pray and Help Flood Affected Across the Country
Thousands dead and 2.5 million homeless
By Ashfaq Fateh
Special to ASSIST News Service
TOBA TEK SINGH, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Massive rains and subsequent flooding in Pakistan has claimed the lives of thousands of people and left 2.5 millions homeless across the country.
People going through the flood waters in Baluchistan Province
Thousands of villages have been submerged into rivers and millions of houses, roads, bridges, as well as standing crops and livestock, have been swept away.
All of the five provinces of the country have been badly affected and the National Pakistan Disaster Management Authority and Meteorological Department have declared it, "the worst disaster in the history of Pakistan and bigger than the 2005 earthquake."
The chief ministers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab provinces, have declared the affected districts, as "calamity hit areas."
The government of Pakistan has appealed the international community, NGOs and charity groups to help Pakistan to support the relief and rehabilitation work.
The Pakistan Army and various groups have been deployed to help the government to search out and help stranded people to get to dry places.
A mother with her child after devastating rains and floods
However millions are still trapped and an acute shortage of drinking water, food has been reported. Diseases have been broken out in the affected areas and desperate people are waiting for help under the open sky.
To make matters worse, more rains and flooding has been forecast.
Pakistani Christian ministries, churches and nonprofit organizations are planning to support the affected people with relief work and by organizing prayer services for the flood-hit people.
ANS spoke to different individuals and groups about their flood relief programs.
Ahsan Sadaqat, manager for the Disaster Response program of the Ravi Foundation, a nonprofit organization which I had the privilege of founding, said that the foundation is planning to support at least 5,000 families who live along the Chenab River with rations and medication and also the foundation will be providing food for livestock. For more information on this, go to: http://sites.google.com/site/ravifoundation/massive-flood-in -pakistan
Requests have been made to international friends and organizations to support this urgent relief work.
Our organization had worked during the Pakistan earthquakes of 2005 and 2008 and it was then that we set up a Relief Donation Fund for future catastrophes, such as this one.
People have been donating eatables and clothes, but now the flooding is so massive, that without the kind support of international community, the victims cannot be helped with the necessary desperately needed aid.
"Pakistan has already been facing a severe economic crisis, and now this has been made worse since the vegetable and fruit producing areas have been affected and prices have gone sky high," said Ahsan Sadaqat.
"These price hikes have affected all the commodities of life. Therefore, there is slow turn out to donate here for the affected by the Pakistani people who are so affected by the cost of food."
Rasheed Jalal, Chairman of Living Hope Ministries Pakistan (www.living-hope.org.uk/pakistan), said, "Living Hope Ministries has been continuously praying for the flood-affected people. All the church networks and groups not just here, but also around the world, are requested to pray and contribute as much as they can to help the suffering people, including Christians and Muslims. Volunteers of Living Hope Ministries are collecting ration, clothes and other necessities of life," Rasheed Jalal said.
He added, "It is time to share the love of the Lord with suffering people."
Asma Naz, director of Bless Pakistan (www.blesspakistan.webs.com), a Christian organization, said, "We are working to glorify God in Pakistan. The organization has planned to start immediate relief work for women and children because they are the most vulnerable among the affected."
Ariel view of the flooded areas
Mr. Sadaf Saddique of Good Shepherd Ministry (www.gsmpk.org), said, "I cannot explain how strong Christian believers in their faith. Despite the series of persecutions and the killings of Christians, they have love and solidarity with their fellow countrymen. The Good Shepherd Ministries has joined other groups to support the affected people."
Mr. Akbar Masih, Director Sermon and Song Ministries Pakistan (www.sermonandsongministries.org) , said, "Stranded people in the flooding cannot be seen. Women and children are starving and crying for food and help. We have heard of the deaths of seven family members in Sialkot and we were heart broken. Our ministry has joined the prayer call."
ANS has learned that the United States government has pledged US$10 million in aid, while China, the UK, Australia and other countries, have also announced relief aid. The US had pledged to distribute over 62,000 meals via a US airlift.
Christian women, youth and children have fervently requested ANS to convey their appeals to the international Christian brothers and sisters to support suffering those Pakistan.
ANS sources have discovered that among that amongst the 2.5 million people affected by the floods, there are about 30,000 are Christians who are still waiting for emergency relief.
Source: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/08/04/teen-allowed-to-refuse-chemo.html
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