Pakistan moves to contain religious extremism
AFP (05.12.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (06.12.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Pakistan is moving to regulate thousands of religious schools and seminaries in a move aimed at curbing the spread of religious militancy, officials said.
The government is giving final touches to a draft law for the purpose, which will mark another major step to control religious extremism since President Pervez Musharraf banned two militant groups in August, they said.
Musharraf and religious parties have been at loggerheads since Pakistan joined the US-led international coalition against terrorism in September. As a wave of street protests by radical parties tapered off after the Taliban rout in Afghanistan, Musharraf last week vowed to rein in what he called the "extremist minority."
Under the proposed regulatory regime, madrassas, or religious schools, will be registered and their accounts periodically audited, sources said. Registration will be subject to prior clearance by security agencies and authorities will be empowered to close any unapproved school or seminary, they said.
Registered schools will be required to introduce teaching of modern subjects side by side with religious education in order to bring them into the mainstream of the national educational system, an interior ministry official has said.
Religious parties and groups operate around 7,000 schools countrywide with the help of financial contributions from sympathizers at home and abroad. More than half a million children and adults live and study in religious schools, thousands of them Afghans and hundreds from Arab countries.
Pakistani volunteers from various seminaries have fought in Afghanistan alongside the hardline Taliban militia.
The majority of the Taliban leadership also studied in Pakistani madrassas in southwestern Baluchistan province and North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar studied for four years in Darul-aloom Haqqania at Akora Khatak in NWFP besides Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel.
Pakistan has for years been affected by Muslim sectarian violence which claimed hundreds of lives in the past decade in attacks between militants of majority Sunni and minority Shiite communities.
Many of the assailants have taken refuge in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, among them wanted terrorist Riaz Basra, for whom a reward of five million rupees (around 83,000 dollars) has been posted.
The Taliban were frequently asked by Islamabad to extradite the criminals but they refused.
Pakistani police blame the rise in sectarian violence on what they claim is the indoctrination of youth studying in the madrassas.
"By and large they work as religious indoctrination centers, instilling extremist and sectarian beliefs into the minds of the wards," a police officer said.
"The youths participate in rallies and demonstrations, making up the street power of the radical parties that have a negligible vote bank and performed miserably in all elections held in the country," the interior ministry official said.
Earlier this year, Musharraf launched a campaign to seize unauthorised weapons in a bid to reduce violence. More than 100,000 weapons have been seized since.
Separate murders follow Bahawalpur massacre
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (03.12.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (04.12.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Five weeks after Islamic extremists gunned down 15 Pakistani Christians in a Sunday morning worship service, church leaders across Pakistan admitted that their congregations remain "tense and fearful" as Christmas approaches.
"My people are a bit afraid," Bishop John Victor Mall of the Church of Pakistan told Compass by telephone from Multan. "I would not say they have lost their faith, but they have definitely lost their confidence."
Bishop Mall said many Christians were uneasy about attending traditional Advent programs this year in his diocese, which includes the Bahawalpur congregation attacked on October 28. Normally widely attended, the Christmas celebrations are often held in the evenings after dark, he noted.
The Protestant bishop said he met last week with Multan's deputy inspector general (DIG) of police, who promised stepped-up security arrangements for all the local churches' Christmas programs this year. "But the DIG cannot put many policemen everywhere," the bishop said, "so some Christians will be afraid to come."
Threats of a "Christmas bloodbath" against Christians have proliferated in Pakistan since late October, when the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization demanded the death of two Christians in retaliation for every Muslim killed in the U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan. Christians compose less than three percent of the national population.
The Bahawalpur massacre, carried out by masked gunmen two days after the terrorist threat came out in Pakistani newspapers, was the worst single massacre of Christians in Pakistan's 54-year history. The slayers had shouted Islamic slogans while mowing down their victims, declaring their attack "just the beginning" of making Afghanistan and Pakistan the "graveyard of Christians."
"It's the unpredictability of it all," another bishop from the Punjab commented. "Anytime it can happen, anywhere," agreed a Christian layman in Karachi. "Yesterday it was Bahawalpur; tomorrow it can be Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, or anywhere."
Within a week of the Bahawalpur killings, Pakistan police authorities reported that about 120 suspects from hard-line Islamist groups had been rounded up. But so far only one man, who was accused of sending faxes on behalf of the Lashkar-e-Umar militants claiming responsibility for the massacre, has been identified by police investigators.
"We have heard that four suspects remain under arrest for possible involvement in the crime," a Lahore source reported, "but so far none have been named or charged publicly."
According to church sources, both the wife of Bahawalpur's slain minister and the new pastor just posted to replace him were told by police investigators over the weekend that an announcement of the accused culprits was pending "within two or three days."
"The authorities are always very secretive about investigations into attacks against Christians," a church leader in Lahore told Compass last week. Even if the perpetrators are known extremists, he said, "They don't want to go out of their way, to be seen to punish Muslims."
Nevertheless, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's initial handling of the Bahawalpur massacre "left no doubt of government sincerity" in declaring such acts of terrorism will not be tolerated, one bishop said. Police authorities promptly beefed up security around the nation's churches, he noted.
"But what about the individual Christians who are coming out of their houses every day to go to work?" asked M.L. Shahani, a Baptist layman and lawyer in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. "The president must take concrete steps toward confidence-building in the non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan. Without that, the Christian community will be left in the lurch."
Only nine days after the Bahawalpur massacre, another member of the city's Christian community was shot and killed at his job by suspected Islamist militants. Benjamin Bashir, 25, a member of St. Dominic's Catholic congregation, was mowed down by 19 bullets as he guarded the strategic installations at the Quetta airport on November 7. The Airport Security Force officer had been the sole provider for his mother and family since his father went blind, Bishop Francis said.
Two days later, another Catholic Christian was shot to death in Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province near the Afghan border. Married with two small children, Waheed Paul was last seen by his wife on the morning of November 9, as he went in the gates to his office. According to CRAA, an Afghan-run non-governmental organization that employed him as an accountant, he did not report for work that morning.
Although known as a devout Christian, Paul was not involved in any church ministry. "It seems clear that the cause for killing him was the fact that he was a Christian," a source said, although local Christians were mystified as to why he had been chosen as a target.
In Bahawalpur, the main sanctuary of St. Dominic's Catholic Church where the massacre took place was re-consecrated in a solemn November 15 mass led by Catholic Bishop of Multan Andrew Francis. Now back in use by both the local Catholic community and the small Protestant congregation, the prayer hall has been scrubbed of the bloodstains, fresh jute mats placed on the floor and shattered windows repaired. But the pockmarks of 142 bullets still deface its walls and altar.
All five of the Christians seriously wounded in the attack are "improving slowly," Bishop Francis said, and two of them are still hospitalized.
Mrs. Sarai Nemat Masih, the wife of a retired pastor, was flown in mid November to England, where she has undergone delicate surgery to remove some of the 12 bullets lodged in her stomach, arm and leg. The most elderly survivor, an 80-year-old man named Moses, is still being treated in Bahawalpur's Victoria Hospital, Bishop Mall said.
Khurram Shahzad recovered sufficiently from being shot in the lung to be released from a Lahore hospital to return home, although he is still confined to bed. The two others injured, six-year-old Elisheba and her father, Shamoun Masih, have also been allowed to leave the hospital care and return home.
Bishop Mall confirmed that the Pakistani government had fulfilled its pledge to pay compensation of one lakh rupees (over $1,600) to the families of the 15 Christians and one Muslim guard killed in the attack. "It's not so much," he said, "but they kept their promise."
"It has been a very long month here, after this very, very sad incident," Bishop Mall sighed. "And it is a tense time, this first Christmas afterwards. Please pray for us."
Victims in Bahawalpur: "They are martyrs"
Interview with Bishop of Diocese where massacre took place
Zenit (30.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - As soon as he learned about the massacre at the church of Bahawalpur, Bishop Andrew Francis of the Multan Diocese went immediately to the scene.
--Q: Can you describe to us what happened Sunday?
--Bishop Francis: My heart is broken; I feel very sad. The altar was perforated with bullet holes. There was blood everywhere. The killers firedat the faithful with a rain of bullets and the greater part of the bodies had six to eight bullet holes.
The Protestant pastor, who was officiating at the service, was also killed. This is, undoubtedly, an act of terrorism. Fifteen faithful were massacred inside the church; they were singing the final hymn when the terrorists opened fire. Before entering the church, they had already killed the guard who was in front of the door.
--Q: Do the Protestant faithful use the Catholic church regularly for their services?
--Bishop Francis: As the Protestant church in Pakistan does not have its own building in this area, I gave permission for the use of our church, as an act of good will among Christians. However, the fact that the victims were not Catholic does not change the matter at all -- the objective was persons of Christian faith.
--Q: What do you think of the victims?
--Bishop Francis: They are martyrs. They died witnessing to their own faith in the church during the service. It is a tragic event, but we are trying to give ourselves courage and to accept what happened with dignity.
--Q: Do you think that, as Christians, it is necessary to organize protests against the massacre?
--Bishop Francis: No. We will not try to exploit the martyrdom of these faithful to give publicity to the Church and Christianity. We buried them with dignity.
I am very keen on working for peace and reconciliation because we have to continue to live in a country in which almost 95% of the population is of the Muslim religion, more than 135 million.
My hope and my most ardent prayer are for a future of peace. I am the president of the Christian/Muslim Commission of the Council of Pakistan's Catholic Bishops, and I belong to the Pontifical Council for Dialogue.
We are in touch, 24 hours a day, with non-Christian clergy and leaders of other religions, for the purpose of creating a profound sense of tolerance, harmony and social unity.
--Q: Do you think the massacre is related to the bombing of Afghanistan?
--Bishop Francis: I have the impression -- and from what I have heard from other sources, I think we can speak of certainty -- that it is the action of a group that supports the Taliban.
--Q: Are you afraid that the continued bombing of Afghanistan might create further situations of risk for Christians?
--Bishop Francis: I do not want to engage in political considerations. In fact, when something happens in the world, we are the scapegoat.
It is always the Christian minority -- a religious minority -- that ends up suffering terribly. This is the lesson of history. These terrorists do not have a God, a religion or a conscience.
--Q: Do you think the attempts to work for peace have failed?
--Bishop Francis: Absolutely not, although the terrorists have the power to ruin it all. We will continue to journey on the path of peace and reconciliation. We forgive those who committed this act and pray for them, and will leave the doors of our church open to peace and reconciliation.
Church massacre in Pakistan
WEF Religious Liberty Commission (29.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A church service in southeast Pakistan was interrupted Sunday by armed Muslim militants who sprayed the congregation with gunfire and killed at least 15 worshipers in cold blood.
There were some 70 Protestant Christians gathered for regular Sunday morning services when six men on three motorcycles rode up to Saint Dominic's Church in Bahawalpur and pulled AK-47 assault rifles out of their bags, according to one witness. Shouting "Graveyard of Christians - Pakistan and Afghanistan!" and "This is just a start!", they killed one Muslim security guard before entering the church and shooting at random. Seven women and two children were among the dead. The victims also included the pastor of the church. Saint Dominic's is a Catholic church but a Protestant service was being held at the time of the attack.
The area has a history of tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslim extremists, and hundreds of Muslims have died in sectarian violence over the years. But Sunday's shooting is the first such attack on Christians in the region, which is near the border with India.
Christians in Pakistan had been afraid of such attacks as tension has increased greatly since the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan.
Many Muslims around the world see the American bombing campaign and "declaration of war" against Islamic terrorism as a resumption of the medieval Christian Crusades.
Throughout the Islamic world, there is a very widely held belief that the West, led by the USA, intends to contain or eradicate Islam and finish the job the Crusaders began in 1095. As a result, minority Christian populations in Islamic countries are in particular danger now, as this tragedy clearly indicates.
Pakistani Christians vow revenge for killings
Reuters (29.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Thousands of angry mourners shouted``Revenge, revenge'' on Monday at the funerals of 15 Pakistani Christians in the church where they were massacred by six men firing assault rifles a day earlier.
Their bishop tried to calm them.
``We don't believe in revenge. We don't believe in violence. We forgive the blood of our martyrs,'' Andrew Fransec, bishop of central Punjab province, told the mourners before the coffins were taken to the graveyard.
Outside the church of St. Dominic's, and around Christian monuments across Muslim Pakistan, police reinforcements had been deployed to protect the tiny minority after the worst single massacre of Christians in Pakistan's 54-year history.
Police patrolled the streets of Bahawalpur in central Punjab province, and security has been increased around the mosques, churches and temples of the city.
More than 100 activists from militant Islamic groups were detained in overnight raids in southern districts of Punjab, police sources said.
``We call on the government to ban all militant groups,'' one Christian leader demanded in an address to hundreds of mourners on the lawns in front of St. Dominic's.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he had ordered a manhunt to track down the gunmen and would address the nation on the tragedy and his policies to prevent future massacres.
``My government and law enforcement agencies will do everything possible so that whoever has committed this gruesome act will be brought to book and given exemplary punishment,'' he said late on Sunday.
Police protect places of worship
``Police reinforcements are in place throughout the country around churches and other places of worship of minorities,'' said Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, director general of the Crisis Management Cell at the Interior Ministry.
``We can deploy paramilitary troops wherever is required like in Sindh,'' he said referring to the southern province that is home to most of the Hindus and Christians who make up about three percent of Pakistan's 140 million people.
Six masked men on motorcycles drew up outside St. Dominic's on Sunday morning, shot dead one of two police guards and stroke into the church spraying the congregation with their Kalashnikovs while shouting ``Graveyard of Christians -- Pakistan and Afghanistan,'' and ``This is just a start.''
Christians have long said they feared they could become targets if unrest broke out in Muslim Pakistan over opposition to the U.S. attacks on neighboring Afghanistan's ruling Muslim Taliban militia.
At least five people were wounded, included one who was in a critical condition, local doctors said.
Thousands gathered at the church for the funeral, chanting ''The blood of our martyrs will bring about revolution,'' and ``We will not bow to oppression.''
Pakistan criticized for blasphemy law
allowing death penalty
Harsh law is open to abuse, says aid to the church in need
Zenit (29.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Sunday's attack on a Catholic church in Pakistan, which left 18 dead, highlighted the fragile situation of religious minorities in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.
The "2001 Report on Religious Liberty in the World," published by Aid to the Church in Need, an association of pontifical right, begins its chapter on Pakistan stating that there "continues to be, at the institutional level, numerous discriminations of a religious nature."
"The current president, General Pervez Musharraf, head of a junta of military men and civilians that came to power following a coup d'etat on October 12, 1999, has reintroduced Islam as the state religion," the report stated.
Once again, therefore, a distinction is made in Pakistan between Muslim citizens and "infidels," guaranteeing "privileges to the former that are not granted to religious minorities," the report said.
In the electoral system adopted in 1985, citizens elect their own political representatives according to their own religious affiliation. Of the total 217 seats in the National Assembly, 4 are allocated to Christian representatives, 4 to Hindus, and 2 to other minorities.
Given the system, Christians boycotted the administrative elections held last Dec. 31 and March 21, the Italian newspaper Avvenire reported.
During 2000, numerous protests were organized throughout the national territory, and organizations like the Justitia et Pax Commission, Caritas-Pakistan and the National Christian Action Forum collected signatures protesting the electoral law, Eglises d'Asie reported on June 16, 2000.
The most troubling issue in regard to religious liberty is the blasphemy law, according to which anyone accused by a witness of insulting Mohammed or Islam can be arrested and condemned to death.
The government considered amending the law, introducing more stringent controls, since it is easy for several people to give false testimony against an individual, accusing him of blasphemy. The local police station is responsible for recording such accusations. President Musharraf had suggested that a higher authority be established to verify accusations before proceeding with an arrest.
However, in statements published May 19, 2000, by Human Rights Without Frontiers, the Pakistani president explained that the government opted to abandon this plan, "given that experts and the people share unanimous positions," and in order to avoid people lynching the accused during investigations.
"No one can change the blasphemy law," the president said during an interview with the Financial Times last March 6.
The Ecumenical Council of Churches sent a letter to the government of Pakistan requesting the immediate revocation of this law that, in practice, serves as a pretext "to discriminate, even violently, against non-Muslim minorities present in the country."
According to Christian Evangelical Fellowship on Jan. 3, there were seven Christians in prison, accused of violating the blasphemy law. The most tragic case is that of Ayub Masih, who was accused in 1996 and condemned to death in April 1998.
"Tortured on various occasions, he is in very poor health, relegated to an isolated cell, in part because he has endured several murder attempts," Aid to the Church in Need reported.
Shafik Masih was sentenced to eight years of forced labor. He has been in prison since 1998, condemned in October 1999 for "slightly offending Islam."
In fact, L'Eglise Dans Le Monde reported in the first quarter of 2001 that, according to his defense lawyer, Masih did not offend Islam. He was simply accused following a quarrel with a neighbor over electricity. The neighbor turned the issue into a religious question.
Rasheed and Saleem Masih, two Christian brothers from the province of Punjab, were sentenced on May 11, 2000, to 35 years in prison, accused of blasphemy by a Muslim ice-cream vendor.
The vendor did not want to serve them ice-cream in the same glasses he used for Muslims, according to Aid to the Church in Need.
Muslim extremists in Pakistan also targeting NGOs
Zenit (29.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christian Churches are not the only target of Muslim fundamentalists in Pakistan.
In the wake of Sunday's deadly attack at a Catholic church, the Vatican agency Fides reported that in recent weeks Muslim fundamentalists also attacked offices of some nongovernmental organizations, and the houses and properties of social workers in various parts of the country, especially near the Afghan border.
The attackers, who were allegedly members of fundamentalist groups protesting against the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, deprived the victims and their families of valuables, including vehicles, furniture and office equipment, and threatened their lives.
Among the groups attacked in recent days were Women and Children Welfare Organization, Salik Rural Development Foundation, Swabi Welfare Organization, Human Survival Development Center, and Women Social Workers.
Religious minorities endure bloody tradition
Conflicts between Christians, Muslims span the globe
by Tim Butcher
The Daily Telegraph (29.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The slaughter of Christians by Muslims in Pakistan yesterday continued a bloody tradition in which the country's religious minorities have repeatedly borne the brunt of sectarian violence.
Most of Pakistan's Hindus were killed or driven out at the time of partition from India in 1947, leaving a few hundred thousand Christians as the largest non-Muslim group.
Remnants of communities started by Christian missionaries under British colonial rule, the Christians have learned to stick together, living in so-called colonies for protection and keeping their religion secret.
Things that might identify them as Christians, like a crucifix necklace or an obviously anglicized first name, have to be hidden, especially at times of instability.
During periods of heightened insecurity, their communities are among the first to be attacked by militant Muslims. They have been bracing themselves since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Yesterday's killings are the latest in a chain of religious violence between Christians and Muslims stretching from Nigeria to the Philippines.
The Koran may urge Muslims to honour Christians as a "People of the Book" but relations between the two faiths are at a low ebb as the conflict stirs historical animosities.
In the wild frontier region of Baluchistan, the 20,000-member Christian minority has acted like a punching bag throughout periods of turmoil.
Even before the attack in Bahawalpur, a Quetta lawyer who gave his name as "Shamoun Patrick" for fear of using his real name, said he had moved his family into a safe house inside the city after threats from Muslims.
"Where my family live in the small village of Nawa Killi, the local mosque announced attacks on Christians last week," Mr. Patrick said. "This is a serious threat and so we have all left."
He rarely leaves home now without his well-thumbed copy of the New Testament and, in private, he can be found consulting the scriptures for inspiration.
One woman who did not want her name published said Pakistan's Christian community faces persecution in every walk of life.
"The government does not make jobs available to us," she said. "We cannot open shops and the system in Pakistan is against Christians."
Muslim militants have already burned down buildings run by UN charities in Quetta, presumably because they suspected them of being connected to Washington.
Elsewhere in the world, long-standing conflicts have taken on religious undertones.
Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state, has been the scene of Asia's most bloody fighting between Christians and Muslims.
Resentment between the two groups on the Maluku islands, fuelled by years of government-sponsored Muslim immigration, boiled over in 1999. Muslim groups sent reinforcements to their co-religionists on the Christian-dominated islands. The ensuing battles left 5,000 dead.
Nearby in the Philippines, Muslim rebels in the south of the country have been fighting a separatist war since 1968. The government launched an assault on the most radical of the guerrilla groups, the Abu Sayyaf group associated with Osama bin Laden.
In Nigeria, tensions between Christians and Muslims have boiled over periodically into bloody communal riots. In Sudan, Christian and animist southerners are engaged in a guerrilla war against the Muslim government in the north.
Christians flee Pakistan city
by T.C. Malhotra
CNS News (15.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (22.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Anti -US protests have prompted some minority Christians in Quetta, Pakistan, to pack up and flee the city. They fear that rioters may follow the call of Taliban supporters to attack non-Islamic targets.
Anti-government and anti-American demonstrations in Quetta have turned violent in recent days, with a number of deaths and injuries. Some Christians in Quetta report demonstrators attacked them and threw bricks at their houses.
Muslim hardliners across Pakistan have vowed to wage a war against the "infidels" following the US-led strikes against the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. Some Christian families in Quetta say they were warned they would be killed if the U.S. attacked Afghanistan.
"Every day we hear threats from Muslims," an unnamed Christian school teacher was quoted by press reports as saying.
Some Christians in Quetta believe President Bush inadvertently jeopardized them a few weeks ago, by referring to a "crusade" against terrorism. White House officials later clarified the president's remark, saying he did not mean to imply a religious war against Islam.
"It is what the fundamentalists heard. Crusade means a clash between Muslims and Christians, and that is what we are all afraid of," the Christian school teacher said.
There are only about 25,000 Christians in Quetta, a city of 1.2 million. In all of Pakistan --- a country of 140 million -- fewer than 2 million people are Christian -- mostly Catholic, Episcopalian and Pentecostal.
Pakistan's Christian community was also targeted in riots that swept through much of Pakistan in 1998, when the U.S. launched cruise missiles into Afghanistan after the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
A series of assaults in recent years has included a 1998 bombing in St Patrick's Cathedral in Karachi and the massacre in 1999 of a family of nine, hacked to death in Nowshera, 25 miles from Peshawar. An anti-Christian slogan was reportedly scrawled in blood on the walls of the house where the family was killed, the newspaper said.
Christians seek refuge as Muslims retaliate
International Christian Concern (09.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (11.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Washington, DC based human rights organization International Christian Concern (ICC) is expressing concern about increased hostilities against Christians in Muslim countries as the West assures Muslims that the war on terrorism is not against Islam.
In Pakistan, Hafiz Syed, leader of the militant Muslim organization Lakshare Taiba, issued a religious decree in an emergency meeting in Lahore. Syed declared: We have started a Holy War against infidels & the USA. We will not spare any American & Christian people in this war. Jews & Christians can never be the friends of Muslims. It is a religious obligation of every Muslim to take revenge, and whoever will not join this war will be considered an infidel and a traitor. Lakshare Taiba has wide support in Pakistan and is funded by Islamic militant groups worldwide.
Hafiz Syed furthered incited Muslims to carry out terrorism saying, We will go to every extent to save our Muslim brothers in Afghanistan and to take revenge on Christians for these attacks." Meanwhile, other small Muslim militant organizations have also declared Holy war against the US & non-Muslims. Concerned about the future for Christians in Pakistan, a leading Pakistani Christian tells ICC, The situation for Pakistani Christians has become more dangerous. It is our fear that there will be blood shed.
Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a former member of Pakistan's legislative assembly and a nationally recognized figure closely connected to international Islamic extremist movements, told journalists that the Qur'an clearly states that Jews and Christians are the enemies of Muslims, and by inference should be killed. Several other Muslim religious leaders in Pakistan are reported to have issued a fatwa (religious decree) stating that two Pakistani Christians will be killed for every Muslim who dies during American strikes on Afghanistan.
In Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi and some other cities of Pakistan the revengeful action of Muslim extremists are increasing. In Peshawar, Christians living in a community called Christian Colony University were harassed by Muslim militant organizations. Some of the people were beaten. The extremists told the Christians, Leave this place and this country and go to USA for protection. This country is not for Christians. This is a Muslim country only for us. Militants tried to attack the homes of Christians, but due to police intervention they were stopped.
It has been reported that in many places throughout Pakistan, Christians have been expelled from jobs. In Peshawar and Quetta, the areas where Muslim extremists are making their threats and where the influence of the Taliban has been greatest, Christians are evacuating their houses and fleeing to safety. Pastors and other Christian activists are reporting having received threats. We are taking these threats seriously, says one activist.
Many Muslim extremists in Pakistan saw the attack on America as a signal to begin attacking Christians. One source reported that on the evening of September 11th, a Christian restaurant owner was beaten to death by a gang of Muslim men who refused to pay for their meal saying, "Take your payment from America." The same source reported that In Rawalpindi five Christian families were dragged from their homes and savagely beaten by Muslim mobs during anti-American protests. In a separate incident in Lahore a gang of Muslims set fire to a church. When the minister attempted to stop them he was viciously beaten. Another church has reportedly been stoned by Muslim rioters, and a Christian school broken into and vandalized.
More information and how to help Christians persecuted in Muslim countries can be found on the ICC web site at www.persecution.org or by contacting an e-mail to icc@persecution.org.
Pakistani Christians face suspicion, violence
Tiny minority says it is perceived as being loyal to U.S.
by Frank Langfitt
Baltimore Sun (02.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (02.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - S.M. Gill, an elder at the First United Presbyterian Church here, appreciates the fear many Muslims now face in the United States after the terrorist attacks last month. Like Muslims in America, Gill belongs to a religious minority in a wary, anxious land.
He is a Christian in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
When Gill lay in bed a few nights ago praying for peace, rocks the size of softballs came flying through the alley and crashed against the metal door of his home. The stones were his punishment for being Christian and a presumed supporter of the United States.
"It was like an explosion," said Gill, 72, pointing out the gashes where the rocks had torn the green paint from his door. The culprits were teen-age Muslim boys who yelled "Chohra!" a Sanskrit word meaning "untouchable."
Gill prevented his grandchildren from chasing the vandals. He warned that they could cause a riot in a neighborhood where everyone else is Muslim. That latest incident was the third stoning of Gill's house in two months.
"It is only because I belong to Christianity," said Gill, a frail, retired chief sanitary inspector.
Tensions in Pakistan's small Christian community after the terrorist attacks in the United States are the latest in what Christians here say is a history of religious discrimination and intermittent persecution. Christians account for about 2 percent of Pakistan's 141 million people, with Muslims accounting for nearly all the rest.
After the attacks in New York and Washington, some Christians temporarily fled their homes out of fear of mob violence. Police and the military, to ensure security, have at times stationed armed guards at church gates and in slums where Christians live.
Some Muslim prayer leaders have urged their followers to take revenge on Pakistani Christians for attacks on Muslims in the United States. Tensions eased when the United States refrained from responding militarily. But some Christians are bracing for unrest if and when an American response occurs.
"They can tomorrow burn our churches," the Rev. Emmanuel Lorraine said after the Sunday service in English at the 149-year old Christ Church. "If this erupts in our country, I believe no one will be able to stop them."
In a nation created in the name of Islam, Muslim faith pervades many aspects of life.
Before a plane takes off, passengers pray with the pilot. In the evening on the streets of Rawalpindi, men in traditional flowing shirts and baggy pants block road entrances as they kneel on prayer rugs and bow toward the setting sun.
Christians try to adapt.
Before entering Our Lady, a Catholic church in Rawalpindi, they slip off their loafers, sandals and sneakers according to Muslim custom. When giving Communion at Christ Church, Lorraine substitutes grape juice for wine out of respect for the Muslim prohibition on alcohol.
Still, Christians face political and social hurdles that no gestures can overcome.
Under Pakistani law, Christians can hold no more than four seats allocated among the 217-seat National Assembly. They are barred from holding key government positions, including prime minister and president.
Just as Muslims in America have been unfairly associated with the Islamic militants suspected of the attacks, Christians here are often blamed for the acts - real or imagined - of the United States.
Lorraine blames much of the tension on Pakistan's twin ills of illiteracy and poverty and to the incendiary rhetoric of some Muslim prayer leaders. Explaining religious attacks that occur in the United States is more difficult, he says: "These are the things that the illiterate people of Third World countries think is right. Educated people shouldn't behave like that."
Muslims and Christians last clashed in Rawalpindi in 1998 after a Roman Catholic bishop committed suicide. The bishop, John Joseph, was protesting the nation's draconian blasphemy law under which a 25-year-old Christian bricklayer had been sentenced to death on charges of insulting the prophet Muhammad.
After Joseph shot himself, thousands of Christians marched through the city, hurling rocks at passing cars. Muslims responded by beating several dozen Christians with clubs, kicking in doors, breaking car windows and ransacking homes.
Stephen, a local tax inspector and churchgoer who asked that his full name not be used, said he remembers the riots well. His brother was among those beaten. A neighbor received four stitches in his head from a clubbing injury.
The Friday after the terrorist attacks in America, Stephen and hundreds of fellow Christians packed their bags, locked their doors and fled to the homes of relatives and friends. Anticipating a repeat of 1998, they feared that prayer leaders in a nearby mosque would encourage worshippers to attack their homes.
Before Friday prayers, though, the government deployed several dozen police and military intelligence officers to the neighborhood to keep the peace, residents and preachers say. Most Christians have since returned. "Whenever anything happens in America or other places," Stephen said, "they attack Christians, because they think we belong to America, not Pakistan."
In Islamabad, the capital, more than 800 Christian families live in a fortress-like slum called the French Colony. The colony, named after the French Embassy that once stood nearby, took form in the mid-1960s when the government brought Christians from the countryside to sweep the streets of the newly built capital. Christians are traditionally among the poorest members of Pakistani society and often work in menial jobs.
Mohammed Sharif, a Muslim in his 70s, has cut hair in the French Colony for 16 years. He questions the patriotism of some of his Christian countrymen: "Most of the Christians here have no differences with us," says Sharif as he sits in a nearby park where he can speak more freely. "But there are some other people who support America and the other European nations. Some of them are not true Pakistanis."
In Rawalpindi, honking cars and the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages give way to singing birds and fir trees in the courtyard of the First United Presbyterian Church. American missionaries erected it in 1834 as part of an evangelical drive during British rule that helped lay the foundation for much of the Pakistani Christian community today. The missionaries focused on poor people from lower castes, providing them free education and health care.
The church's pastor, the Rev. Sardar Good, inherited his faith. His father, a Muslim, converted after he said Christ spoke to him while he was sick in a missionary hospital. Today, converting people to Christianity is against the law. Good said he sometimes sends potential converts to other towns where they can be baptized quietly and in anonymity.
Like other pastors, Good must watch what he says from the pulpit. After he preached about the differences between Christianity and Islam several years ago, police questioned him about claims by local Muslims that he had blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad.
"I said: 'Muhammad was a great man, who can speak against him?'" Good said. "They left me alone because I had praised him."
One last appeal filed for Ayub Masih
Supreme Court acquittal or the gallows for Pakistani Christian
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (07.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (10.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - After nearly five years in jail and more than three on death row, Pakistani Christian Ayub Masih is one step away from either Supreme Court acquittal -- or the gallows.
Masih, now 34, is the most high-profile Christian prisoner victimized by Pakistan's draconian blasphemy law. He also has the unhappy distinction of being the first blasphemy law defendant whose lower court death sentence has not been overturned by a higher court.
In a surprise judgment six weeks ago, the Multan High Court confirmed the April 1998 "guilty" verdict against Masih by the Sahiwal Sessions Court. Under the harsh statutes of Section 295-C of the Pakistan penal code, anyone convicted of blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed must be executed.
So Masih is down to the very last appeal allowed within Pakistan's judicial system: petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn the first two judgments.
According to Abid Hassan Minto, a prominent human rights lawyer who will be presenting Masih's defense before the nation's highest tribunal, Masih's formal Supreme Court appeal was filed on August 22. However, no hearing will be scheduled on the case until after the Islamabad court reconvenes from its summer recess in early October.
Minto stressed that the Supreme Court "will not be in a hurry" to resolve this death-penalty case. "They do not want to execute people quickly," said Minto.
Himself a Muslim, Minto had successfully defended Pakistani Christian Gul Masih in 1994 in a similar case of alleged blasphemy, also filed by Muslim neighbors. The Lahore High Court eversed the lower court's conviction and execution order against Gul Masih, concluding the defendant had been victimized by "concocted" blasphemy charges.
Minto told Compass he had "raised some legal and technical questions" about Ayub Masih's case in his appeal, after studying the Multan High Court's July 25 verdict.
"It's a very old case," Minto noted, filed nearly five years ago, with the conviction based on verbal accusations alone. "So it's a question of whether to accept them or not." With the case at the second appeal stage, Minto said, it is now "all a question of evidence."
As reported in the "Daily Jung" newspaper on July 26, the defendant had "blasphemed against the dignity of the Holy Prophet [Mohammed] and declared that Salman Rushdie is right" in October 1996.
Masih's neighbor Mohammed Akam, who filed the blasphemy case against him, claimed that Masih told him, "If you want to know the truth about Islam, read Salman Rushdie."
According to an August 24 article in "The Friday Times" (TFT) published in Lahore, "This is so absurd that it would be laughed out of court in any country that has the remotest pretension to decent administration of justice -- never mind common sense. Masih is literate but knows no English.
He could not possibly have read that book." The TFT article continued, "Masih is still in jail, hideously tormented by both inmates and warders, without hope, and forgotten by his country's justice system."
In an August 21 release, Amnesty International also noted that Masih "has on several occasions been ill-treated in custody," and called for his "immediate and unconditional release."
Lawyer Minto is currently conducting the high court appeal of still another blasphemy death sentence handed down in mid August, this one by a Rawalpindi court against a Muslim medical professor. His client, Dr. Younus Shaikh, is the third Muslim convicted of alleged blasphemy by a lower court in Pakistan, where mostly Christians, Ahmadis and other non-Muslim minorities have been victimized by the law.
Widespread media coverage of Shaikh's blasphemy conviction has brought considerable embarrassment to the Pakistan government, which after 15 years has failed to revise what the "New York Times" called its "cruel blasphemy law."
"Other countries can and do honor the beliefs of Islam without offending basic precepts of justice and intellectual honesty," a "Times" editorial declared August 30.
Religious clash in Pakistani town
by Shahid Malik
BBC News (27.08.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.08.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Tension is running high in the Pakistani province of Punjab after a place of worship belonging to the Ahmedi sect was set on fire late on Sunday night.
The place of worship in Syedwallah about 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Lahore was attacked while dozens of Ahmedis - including women and children - were listening to a religious sermon broadcast on foreign television.
An Ahmedi spokesman said those inside had to be moved to two private homes because the police warned them that mainstream Sunni Muslims were unhappy about the gathering. The spokesman said the crowd set fire to the place of worship, completely destroying it.
The crowd then surrounded the houses where the Ahmedi worshippers had gone, staying there for almost four hours chanting slogans.
Arrests
Additional Superintendent of Police Chaudri Ashraf told the BBC that he broadly agreed with the Ahmedi version of events.
But he said Sunni Muslims in the town had complained that they had been verbally abused by the Ahmedis at the place of worship.
The police official said over two dozen Ahmedis had been arrested for their own protection during the incident.
None of the attackers has been taken into custody.
The attack comes less than a year after a series of violent incidents in the Sialkot and Sargodha districts of Pakistan's Punjab province in which at least 10 Ahmedis were killed.
The Pakistani parliament declared Ahmedis heretics more than 25 years ago on the grounds that they believe that the Prophet Muhammad may not be the last prophet.
Ahmedis say they have suffered violence and discriminatory treatment at the hands of mainstream Sunni Muslims ever since.
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Pakistan Man Sentenced for Blasphemy
AP (18.08.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (20.08.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email:info@hrwf.net - A homeopathic doctor was sentenced to death Saturday for blasphemy and making insulting remarks about Islam's Prophet Mohammed, court officials said.
Sheikh Mohammed Younus also was fined $1,500. He was arrested in October after students complained about a lecture he gave at a private college in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Lower court Judge Safdar Hussain Malik said Younus deserved to be hanged for making derogatory remarks about Mohammed.
In Pakistan, those found guilty of blasphemous remarks against Islam, the Quran - the Muslim Holy book - or the prophet can be sentenced to death.
Human rights groups say the controversial blasphemy law is used to victimize religious minorities in this Islamic state of 140 million people. Most Pakistanis, including Younus, are Sunni Muslims.
Many accused of blasphemy have been killed by zealots even after being acquitted by courts, and so far none has been hanged on court orders.
Hundreds, mostly from religious minorities, remain in prison on blasphemy charges.
Younus is allowed to appeal the verdict.
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Death sentence confirmed against Pakistani Christian
Supreme Court Appeal is Last Chance for Ayub Masih
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass(01.08.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (02.08.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email:info@hrwf.net - The Multan High Court rejected the death-sentence appeal of Pakistan's most high-profile Christian prisoner last week, upholding a lower court verdict to execute Ayub Masih for alleged blasphemy against the Muslim prophet Mohammed. The unexpected ruling, issued by Judge Khawaja Muhammad Sharif and Judge Naeem Ullah Sherwani, was called "very devastating news" by some local religious rights activists.
But the Catholic Church's National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) organizing Masih's defense remained confident that a final Supreme Court appeal would "eventually resolve the case in favor of Ayub Masih."
"This man is really unfortunate for being detained for five long years for no substantial reason," NCJP executive secretary Peter Jacob told Compass today.
The ruling against Ayub Masih marks the first time that a high court in Pakistan has failed to acquit a Christian convicted in the lower courts on blasphemy charges. To date, all such cases -- invariably fabricated to avenge personal quarrels or maneuver financial gains -- have been overturned for lack of evidence.
"The current verdict is probably the result of extremist pressure," the NCJP observed in an action appeal yesterday labeled, "Justice at stake in case against Ayub Masih."
The July 25 decision came as a surprise to Masih's defense lawyer, Syed Sajjad Haider Zaidi, who confirmed from Multan that he did not expect a summary judgment at the first appeal hearing before the high court.
According to Jacob, lawyer Zaidi had been "very confident" that the High Court would acquit Masih.
Masih's appeal case had been designated as a "date in office" case, under which the hearing could be set on short notice. Normally cases set for hearing are listed publicly 15 days in advance. Since Zaidi was only notified two days beforehand of the appeal hearing, Jacob said, "He expected no interference."
But to Zaidi's dismay, a mob of some 25 extremist "maulvis" (Muslim religious leaders) was gathered at the courthouse before the hearing. The irate protestors tried to snatch Zaidi's case file from his hands and shouted threats at him.
"Even if the court releases Ayub Masih, even then we will kill him," they vowed, "and we will kill you also."
A report in "The News" the next day stated that "many fundamentalists outside the court building threatened [Zaidi] with dire consequences for pursuing the case."
Zaidi told Compass that he had told the protestors that Ayub Masih was innocent and could not be convicted. "But they were in a very angry mood," he said.
According to Zaidi, the Islamist protesters spoke a different dialect of Saraiki, the local language in Multan, indicating the Muslim religious leaders had come from somewhere else. Certain Islamist groups are known to monitor all known blasphemy cases and incite protest mobs at the court hearings.
Although Zaidi tried to register a complaint with the police, the authorities have refused to register a formal case, advising Zaidi that "this matter will become very sensitive for you." A Shiite Muslim, Zaidi was formerly president of Amnesty International's Pakistan chapter.
Local papers in Pakistan and Agence France Press mistakenly reported on July 26 that Masih's death sentence was being appealed by Amnesty International. The human rights group has since confirmed to Compass that Zaidi was not representing Amnesty in any formal capacity in Masih's case.
"Amnesty International considers Ayub Masih to be a prisoner of conscience, held solely for his religious beliefs, and has repeatedly urged the government of Pakistan to immediately and unconditionally release him," a representative commented from their London headquarters after the Multan court ruling.
The Multan court has still not issued its formal written judgment in the case, which most local observers considered "unusual." However, Zaidi said he had been promised official copies of the judgment on August 2. Unless special stipulations are cited in the judgment, the high court ruling may be appealed within 30 days before the Supreme Court.
"Definitely we will ask for an early hearing," Jacob said today, "because this man has suffered too long. The government has been appraised of the motives behind it, and there is no excuse for prolonging the case."
Zaidi said he expected the Supreme Court to rule on the case within four or five months.
The lawyer also said he had met with Masih's brother, who admitted that his family members were "very much disappointed, and rather afraid" after they learned of the high court verdict. Although uprooted from their home and lands, they are situated in a Christian village with relative physical security, Jacob noted.
Refused bail since he was jailed nearly five years ago, Masih has spent the last three years on death row in Multan's New Central Jail. His "guilty" verdict on April 27, 1998, rests solely on the verbal accusations of his Muslim neighbor Mohammed Akram, without any further corroborating evidence.
In fact, the 14 Christian families from Masih's village of Arifwala were evicted from their homes, and their land was confiscated on October 14, 1996, the same day that the alleged blasphemy case was registered against him.
According to an NCJP report issued this week, the house belonging to Masih's family is now occupied by his accuser, Mohammed Akram.
In a report released May 15, Amnesty International charged that the administration of ruling General Pervez Musharraf "has not been able or willing to effectively tackle the increasing religious intolerance which is the background against which the human rights of minorities in Pakistan have been abused."
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Christian blames Muslim extremists for robbery and rape of his wife
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (20.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (24.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email:info@hrwf.net - A man whose two younger brothers were jailed for blasphemy is blaming Muslim extremists for raping his wife and robbing his house.
Hamid Masihs wife was raped during the attack at their village home near Pasrur, 45 miles north of Lahore on June 25. A man was arrested in connection with the attack, but was later released and the suspects family is blaming Hamid Masih for the detention.
Hamid said: Now I do not know whether to pursue the case or remain silent. Since the registration of the attack, the whole family has been under extreme danger, not only from the suspect but also from Muslim extremists and we are going through a very hard time.
Hamid Masih has been providing for the wife and eight children of Rasheed Masih, 34, who is married with five children and Saleem Masih, 30, who is married with three children. The two were arrested on blasphemy charges in May 1999 after a row with a Muslim ice cream vendor and the family has been in hiding for fear of retaliation by local religious zealots ever since.
The brothers faced the charges after the vendor refused to serve the two Christians from the same bowls used by Muslims. Ice cream vendor Maqsood Ahmed filed a complaint that the brothers had uttered bad remarks against Islam and Mohammed. At the hearing Muslim leaders packed the courtroom and demanded the death penalty. In May 2000 the brothers were sentenced to 35 years imprisonment and fined 75,000 rupees each.
The accuseds lawyer, who is a member of a militant religious party, has put forward an appeal in the Lahore High Court. Both Rasheed and Saleem are in Lahores Kot Lakhpat Jail pending an appeal hearing.
Tina Lambert, advocacy director at CSW said: The blasphemy laws in Pakistan encourage militant Muslims to take the law into their own hands. Extremists tell their followers that those who blaspheme deserve to be killed immediately. The families of those accused of blasphemy are also targeted and that seems to be what has happened here. CSW is appalled by this latest attack on the family of two Christians who have already suffered so much.
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Death to Blasphemers: Islam's Grip on Pakistan
By Barry Bearak
New York Times (12.05.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (14.05.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net Blasphemy is a capital crime in this volatile Islamic nation, so Dr. Younus Shaikh, while teaching at a medical college, might have wisely avoided any discussion of the personal hygiene of the holy Prophet Muhammad.
But the topic came up during a morning physiology class. And the doctor talked briefly about seventh-century Arabia and its practices regarding circumcision and the removal of underarm hair.
Some students found his remarks deeply offensive. "Only out of respect, because he was our teacher, did we not beat him to death on the spot," said Syed Bilal, 17.
Instead, they informed a group of powerful mullahs, who in turn filed a criminal complaint. Lest the matter be treated with insufficient urgency, these clerics dispatched a mob to the medical school and the police station, threatening to burn them down.
Precisely what Dr. Shaikh said in class last October is now a matter of mortal dispute, but he has been jailed ever since, awaiting trial and pondering the noose. Defending himself presents a conundrum. What can he safely say?
Pakistan, a nearly bankrupt nation with 150 million people, a military government and an expanding nuclear arsenal, is drifting toward religious extremism. Blasphemy cases are its version of the Salem witch trials, with clerics sniffing out infidels, and enemies using the law to settle personal scores.
Accurate crime statistics are a low priority here, but the number of those imprisoned on blasphemy charges is estimated in the hundreds. Only the most sensational cases get much notice: when vigilantes murder the accused, or the bold judge who set him free. When a man is condemned to die if a few pages in the Koran are torn. When a newspaper is shut down after publishing a sacrilegious letter.
Dr. Shaikh is charged under Provision 295-C of the law: the use of derogatory remarks about the holy Prophet Muhammad. Whether such an offense is intentional or not, the mandatory punishment is death.
"Please understand, I am a deeply religious man," Dr. Shaikh said recently, professing his Islamic faith through the tight wire mesh of a jail cell. A short, rumpled man, he had the weary look of someone trying to rub a disturbing dream from bleary eyes. "I cannot even imagine blaspheming our holy Prophet, peace be upon him."
Few Pakistanis have heard of Dr. Shaikh, but news of his woes has leapt the borders, flitting across the Internet. He is associated with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, which describes itself as an "umbrella organization for humanist, rationalist, agnostic, skeptic, atheist and ethical culture groups around the world." In 1999, he gave a presentation at the World Humanist Congress.
In an attempt to save the doctor, a global letter-writing campaign was quickly begun, with pleas aimed at Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler. Publicity, on the other hand, has been discouraged.
The hope was that persistent statesmanship would outlast righteous anger, with the charges then quietly disappearing. This hushed approach has proved a frustration, however, and after declining earlier requests for an interview, Dr. Shaikh agreed to speak of his case.
"My statements about the holy Prophet, peace be upon him, were made in his praise only, and these have now been twisted out of context," he said in measured phrases.
Moments later, pressed for specifics, he said: "My students asked me about the shaving of pubic and armpit hair, and I, in describing the glory of Allah's revelations, said that before the arrival of Islam, the Arabs did not have these practices. And they did not."
Before his troubles, Dr. Shaikh lived alone in a small room in Islamabad. He had studied medicine in both Pakistan and Ireland but his practice had long periods of interruption. He preferred academic research and his passion has been "the history of nations." After the Koran, he said, the important books in his life have been the Encyclopedia Britannica and "The Story of Civilization," by Will and Ariel Durant.
Pakistan may have an ample supply of free thinkers, but free speakers have long been on the wane. Governments civilian or military tend to imprison opponents. Federal laws enforce a mix of mosque and state, and questions of religion are often presumed to have a single right answer, like arithmetic.
"Before saying anything in this country, you must always be aware of the forum, the place and the time," said Afrasiab Khattak, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "If accused of blasphemy, you are in great difficulty. The mullahs are not known for their generosity. Even if exonerated, you will always be in danger."
Dr. Shaikh was a member of peace and environmental groups. But while he might have asked an occasional dissenting question at a public seminar, he was not a well-known activist. His few writings have appeared mostly in cyberspace, and at least some of them accuse organized religion of mass murder, bigotry and the degradation of women. (Supporters have now removed most of this material from the Internet.)
Last fall, as Dr. Shaikh worked part time at a small clinic, he accepted a teaching job at the Capital Homeopathic Medical College, on the second floor of a shopping plaza. He had no expertise in homeopathic cures, but his subject was physiology and he knew that well enough. He was paid $89 a month.
However badly it ended, Dr. Shaikh's brief tenure was not a contentious one. Students liked him. If he had a fault, they said, it was for lectures that meandered into irrelevancies like poetry or free sex in Western countries.
Occasionally, Dr. Shaikh's digressions embarrassed his students; occasionally, they seemed impious. One irksome topic was how Muslims had come to practice circumcision and, for purposes of cleanliness, the removal of pubic and underarm hair. A question arose: Had Muhammad been circumcised before receiving God's revelations at age 40?
The ensuing discussion brought on no great ado, and Dr. Shaikh said he only remembers saying, "The Prophet's tribe did not practice circumcision."
But the offended students repeat a different version.
"He told us the Prophet hadn't been circumcised before," insisted Majid Lodhi, 22. "We asked, `In what book is this knowledge?' And he said, `I'm telling you the way it was, and if you have evidence to the contrary, bring in your proof.' "
Outside of school, the students had begun talking about Dr. Shaikh. Was he uttering blasphemies? they asked each other. And if so, what should a good Muslim do?
"I had heard from the sermons in the mosques that those who blaspheme deserve to be killed immediately," said Asghar Ali Afridi, who at 28 was older than most students and whose views were persuasive. "It was a weakness of faith that we did not do it."
But 11 students, the entire class, did sign a letter that listed Dr. Shaikh's possible crimes. They claimed he had said that the Prophet was not a Muslim until age 40; that before then, he did not remove his underarm hair or undergo circumcision; that he first wed, at 25, without an Islamic marriage contract; that his parents were not Muslims.
Mr. Afridi was picked to deliver the letter to the Movement for the Finality of the Prophet, a group well known for pursuing blasphemers.
"For Dr. Shaikh's own protection, we sought his arrest," said Abdul Wahid Qasmi, secretary general of the organization's Islamabad chapter."Otherwise, he might have been killed in the streets."
The Movement's vigilance is most often directed at Ahmadis, who regard themselves as Muslims but believe another prophet appeared after Muhammad.
By law, they are barred from linking themselves in any way to Islam. Each year, many are arrested for simply reciting a Koranic verse or using the greeting "Salaam aleikum."
Non-Muslims make up about 3 percent of Pakistan's population, and while they have obvious reasons to fear the blasphemy statutes, there is no shortage of opposition among Muslims as well. Even a strong advocate, the minister for religious affairs, Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi, says the law requires revision. He has reviewed numerous cases and said the
majority originate from "ill will and personal prejudice."
Last year, General Musharraf himself called for a procedural change, suggesting that the merits of blasphemy cases be reviewed by local officials before an arrest. But when fundamentalists took to the streets in protest, he backed down.
At the Movement's headquarters, the law also comes under criticism, though the complaint is of sluggish justice. Blasphemers may get locked up, but not one has been executed.
"Even if someone is only half- conscious when speaking against the Prophet, he must die," said Mr. Qasmi, who managed to sound amiable. "In Dr. Shaikh's case, his relatives have come to see us, saying the man is sorry and that he repents. But to be sorry now is not enough. Even if a man is sorry, he must die."
These days, Dr. Shaikh calls himself an "Islamic humanist," stressing the adjective. This surge in devotion is a return to his roots; he comes from a religious family in Bahawalnagar, and his father, a merchant, is a hafiz, a man who has memorized the Koran.
In hiring a lawyer, the family has steered away from human rights types. Its attorney takes a rather omnibus approach. First, there is a technicality to exploit. The students should have filed the charges instead of the mullahs, he asserts. Second, his client never said the things alleged, and even if he did, the words are not blasphemous.
A judge will decide. And customarily, the accusing party packs the courtroom with zealots in a show of righteous concern. The Shaikh family, however, has no intention of being steamrolled by hostile fundamentalists. At a recent hearing, they brought their own mullahs equally bearded, equally turbaned, equally able to quote from holy books.
"No blasphemy has been committed in this case," proclaimed Maulana Abdul Hafiz. An elderly, stern- faced man, he, too, heads a chapter of the Movement for the Finality of the Prophet, his being in Bahawalnagar. "Blasphemy can be committed only if issues are raised about the period after the holy Prophet declared his prophethood. These issues are pre-prophethood."
The mullahs from Bahawalnagar say they have tried to reason with the mullahs from Islamabad, but these efforts have failed. "They know we are right but they do not want to backtrack and lose face," said Maulana Hafiz, enraged by his adversaries.
How dare they? he declared: "They tell us that we ourselves should be cautious, that protecting a blasphemer is as bad as blaspheming itself."
Pakistani Christian teacher jailed for 'blasphemy'
WRNS (11.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (24.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A Pakistani Christian teacher has been jailed under harsh Muslim blasphemy laws because his private classes were attracting more students than a nearby Muslim school, Christian activists said Wednesday.
Parvez Masih was arrested on April 1 under Pakistan's draconian Blasphemy Act, which carries a maximum penalty of death, for allegedly uttering words against the Prophet Mohammad, members of the Christian Liberation Front said.
Front President Shahbaz Bhatti said the accusations against Masih, who is in jail pending trial, originated from a Muslim school in the same village of Sialkot district, central Punjab province.
"The school of Parvez Masih, because of its good standard and high reputation, attracted more students and hence ... his school was more successful," Bhatti said.
Senior figures at the Muslim school "could not tolerate that a Christian teacher enjoyed a good reputation as a successful and dedicated educationist."
He said prominent members of the majority Muslim community in Chailayke village agreed Masih was a "victim of hate, jealousy and religious extremism" but they were powerless to stop the blasphemy case.
"Extremist Islamic groups have announced that those pleading for Mr Parvez Masih and those found helping him would be dealt with severely," Bhatti said, adding the "situation has become very volatile" for the 20 Christian families in the village.
"It has also been announced in the Bar Council of Sialkot that any lawyer taking up Masih's case ... would be killed."
Sunni Muslim extremist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Sipah-i-Sahaba (SSP) have strong support bases in Sialkot.
SSP activists have been accused of murdering members of the rival Shiite sect in sectarian violence which has claimed thousands of lives from both communities in recent years.
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New blasphemy case filed against Pakistani Christian
Muslim schoolboys accuse Christian teacher of slandering Mohammed
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (09.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -- Police in Pakistan's Punjab province registered another questionable blasphemy case against one of its Christian citizens on April 1, jailing a respected high school principal for slander he allegedly spoke two months ago against Mohammed, the prophet of Islam.
Pervaiz Masih, founding director of the Iqbal Memorial High School in Chelay Kay village near Sialkot, was arrested at his home on April 1 during a late-night police raid.
Accused of committing religious blasphemy against Mohammed as prohibited under Section 295-C of the Pakistan penal code, the 33-year-old teacher is liable for a mandatory death sentence if convicted.
According to Masih's accuser, a Qur'an course teacher named Sajjad Ahmed, the Christian had made the offensive comments two months earlier to three teenage schoolboys he was tutoring privately.
The students alleged that Masih had told them Mohammed once raped a six-year-old girl, an incident which he said was recorded in "Sahih Bukhari," a book of the Hadith (inspired traditions) of Islam.
When the schoolboys related the alleged comments to Ahmed weeks later, he promptly reported their claims to local community leaders, demanding that the Christian be punished severely for sinning against their holy prophet of Islam.
According to local sources, one of Masih's Muslim neighbors, who started a rival private school two years ago about a mile from the Iqbal Memorial High School, had an ongoing feud with the Christian teacher. This same neighbor reportedly convinced village leaders to agree a case should be filed against Masih and then accompanied Ahmed to the police station.
Along with more than 50 Muslim representatives from Masih's home village and his own village of Chak Miyana, Ahmed went to the Saddar police station in Daska on April 1 to present his written accusation against Masih.
After first getting approval from the deputy commissioner of Sialkot, Assistant Sub-Inspector Ali Akbar registered Ahmad's formal complaint as First Information Report (FIR) No. 62, charging Masih with committing blasphemy.
Later that same night, officers from the Saddar Daska police station raided Masih's home and arrested him. Masih was sent the following day to the Sialkot District Jail, where his family has been refused admission to visit him.
Masih's family remains "very worried about his safety," a preliminary report from the Lahore-based Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) commented on April 6.
Non-Muslims incarcerated in Pakistan's large-ward prisons remain at risk of attack from other inmates once it is known they are charged with blasphemy. Christians charged under Section 295-C are rarely granted bail while under trial in the lower courts, an ordeal usually dragging on for several years.
Representatives of CLAAS and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan are slated to visit Masih in the Sialkot District Jail on April 14 as part of a fact-finding investigation on the case.
According to a local Protestant bishop, Masih, who is single, is a member of the Presbyterian Church in Pakistan.
Pakistan religious killings spark more violence
Reuters (06.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (07.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Pakistani police fired tear gas and detained dozens of religious activists on Tuesday to quell violence sparked by overnight killing of two Shi'ite Muslims, witnesses said.
They said police acted after some people from a funeral procession for the two killed Shi'ites lobbed stones on them and disrupted traffic near a Shi'ite centre on the main M.A. Jinnah road that leads to the port.
Hundreds of policemen and paramilitary rangers cordoned off the area and picked up several religious activists to stop the violence, the witnesses said.
Police earlier said unidentified attackers used automatic weapons on Monday night to kill two members of the Shi'ite Tehrik-i-Jafria party outside a public telephone office.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat sectarian killings of rival members of majority Sunni and minority Shi'ite sects in Pakistan. The latest attack followed the killing of five Sunni Muslim activists in Karachi on January 28, when gunmen ambushed a van carrying students and teachers to a Sunni seminary.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent years in clashes between armed Sunni and Shi'ite militants. The two sects disagree over the interpretation of some Islamic beliefs.
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Pakistani court acquits three Christians of blasphemy
Muslim accuser under investigation for fabricating case
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (26.01.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (02.02.2001) Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A Pakistani high court acquitted three Christians of blasphemy, calling for an investigation as to whether their Muslim accuser had fabricated a false case against them two years ago.
In a ruling issued on January 25 by Justices Naeem Ullah Sharwani and Khawaja Mohammad Sharif of the Lahore High Court, Hussain Masih, his son Isaac Masih and Iqbal Sahar Ghouri were cleared of the charges, which carried a potential death penalty under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws.
During the hearing yesterday, the chief prosecutor declared that "no direct or circumstantial evidence" could be produced to corroborate the complainant's claims. Observing that this meant there were "no valid grounds . against the accused," the justices ordered their case nullified.
According to a report issued later by the Lahore office of the Catholic-sponsored Justice and Peace Commission, the court ordered that complainant Ijaz Ahmed be investigated for "registration of a false and fabricated case against the accused."
A Muslim living next door to the Masih family, Ahmad had lodged a formal accusation of blasphemy against the three Christians on November 25, 1998, in Alipur Chatta, a village near Gujranwala in Punjab province.
Ahmed said he had found partially burned pages of the Koran and two letters containing derogatory remarks against the prophet of Islam in his yard near a wall separating his house from that of Hussein Masih. In his statement to local police, the Muslim declared that he "suspected his Christian neighbors" of the offense.
A joint fact-finding mission was conducted in Alipur Chatta by the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) and representatives of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) two and a half weeks after the case was filed. According to their findings, Ahmed had a running dispute with his Christian neighbors, whose home was separated from his own by a wall of clay bricks.
The Muslim had reportedly ordered Isaac Masih to stop playing hymns over the loudspeaker near the wall between their houses, complaining that his children were learning the words to Christian songs and prayers. Isaac's close friend, Ghouri, 23, was very active with him in prayer meetings and other religious activities held in the Masih home.
The head constable of Alipur Chatta, Mohammed Afzal, told the research team that Ahmed had gathered a procession of hundreds of "maulvis" (Muslim religious leaders) and threatened to set the police station on fire unless the officials agreed to register a blasphemy case against the three Christians. "We registered the case to avoid a tense situation in the city," Afzal said, admitting he did not have a large enough police force to confront the mob.
Local police promptly filed a case against the three under Section 295-C of the Pakistan penal code and issued warrants for their arrest. They first apprehended Ghouri, who was jailed for several weeks until the Gujranwala District and Sessions Court granted him bail on December 24.
Meanwhile, Hussain Masih and his son went into hiding to avoid arrest. But after consulting with a lawyer from the Lahore-based CLAAS, the father decided to present himself before the Additional Sessions Court in Gujranwala on December 29.
Hussain Masih was immediately jailed, and his lawyer's application for bail moved through the courts for nearly a year until it was finally granted by the Lahore High Court on December 6, 1999. His son Isaac remained in hiding, under warrant for arrest until yesterday's ruling.
The acquittal, which was the first granted to Christians accused of blasphemy in Pakistan since 1995, was pursued by CLAAS defense attorney Pervaiz Aslam Chaudhry.
"We are pleased with the ruling," said Fr. Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, national director of the Justice and Peace Commission, "and we pray that all innocent held under false charges be released soon and all unjust laws be repealed."
More than 50 Pakistani Christians have been victimized since 1987 for trumped-up allegations of insulting Islam, the Koran or the prophet Mohammed. At least seven Christians are currently imprisoned without bail on such blasphemy charges.
Over the past year, radical Islamist sects have begun to use the controversial laws as a trump card to file cases against rival Muslim groups, resulting in the jailing and sentencing of a number of Muslim leaders.
According to Asma Jahangir, a prominent human rights lawyer and Special Reporteur of the U.N. Human Rights Commission for Extra Judicial Killings, a total of 38 alleged blasphemy cases were filed in the first 10 months of 2000 against six Christians, 26 Muslims and 40 members of the minority Ahmadi sect.
Human Rights Watch has labeled the blatantly misused blasphemy law a "tool of religious persecution."
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Christians released at Karachi
CIP (18.01.2001)/ HRWF (01.02.2001) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - A group of Christians arrested during a demonstration on 10th January against the law on blasphemy were released on 16th January. The group consisted of Father Arnold Heridia, a 60 year old Catholic priest along with Aslam Martin and Riaz Nawab from Caritas, a Catholic organisation, aimed at promoting justice, peace and development. S M Haider, a Muslim was also freed.
The group was allowed to leave the Malir prison at Karachi, where they had been remanded in custody, after paying a bail of 500 dollars per person. Father Heridia, secretary of Idara-e-Amno Insaf, an ecumenical movement very active in the fields of justice and peace, paid the bail for the four detainees. The charges against them were subsequently dropped.
"We are not exactly sure what happened with this case and why the authorities dropped the charges. We think it may be due to pressure from the public of this country and from abroad. The Christians did not sign any pardon request", explained Aftab Mughal, secretary of the Multan Commission for Justice and Peace to the Fides (Vatican) press agency.
However there are still other Christians in prison in Pakistan, being held for having distributed Christian publications and copies of the film "Jesus". On the 11th January at Jacobabad, an area 650 km from Islamabad, local police mistreated and arrested Khalid and Nasir Masih, two young Protestants, accused of carrying out an act of proselytism. The areas Muslim leaders had officially requested the arrest of the Protestant pastor Yousaf Masih and other Protestant leaders, accusing them of having distributed "anti-Islamic" material. Certain fundamentalist groups have even threatened to kill the pastor, bursting into one Baptist church and stealing from it. Islamic leaders have covered the town with posters warning Muslim families to remove their children from the Victor Public Secondary School at Jacobabad, a school run by Christians. Around a hundred Christian families live in the town.
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Pakistan: Priest detained for protesting against the Blasphemy Laws
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (15.01.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (16.01.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Father Arnold Heredia, the former Executive Secretary of the Committee for Justice & Peace, Karachi and Council member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was among the one hundred and fifty protesters arrested in Karachi, Pakistan on Wednesday 10th January 2001.
About three hundred people from various faith communities took part in the peaceful demonstration organized by the All Faiths Spiritual Movement to call for an end to the misuse of Pakistan's notorious Blasphemy Laws (Sections. 295 B-C and Sections. 298 A-C of the Pakistan Penal Code). The protesters had intended to present a petition at the Governor's House but they were met by a large number of armed police when they reached Empress Market, Saddar, in the centre of Karachi. The police sealed off the roads and used baton and teargas to forcibly disperse the crowd. Many were brutally beaten.
Of those arrested, seventeen were detained and charged with multiple offences under the Pakistan Penal Code. Sixty year old Father Arnold Heredia, a renowned advocate for interfaith harmony, has been charged with rioting, being armed with weapons, unlawful assembly, obstructing public servants, assault, wilful assault and attempted murder. Father Arnold Heredia together with two other Christians, Aslam Martian and Riaz Nawab, and fourteen Muslims are remanded in custody until 16th January 2001.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) strongly condemned the use of violence to disperse the peaceful demonstration and called for the immediate and unconditional release of Father Arnold Heredia and his fellow detainees. CSW's Stuart Windsor adds, "The arrest of these peaceful protestors clearly violates Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which concerns the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. There is double injury in these arrests as the focus of the demonstration was to call an end to legislation which clearly violates international standards of human rights.
The Blasphemy Laws are regularly used against religious minorities in Pakistan to devestating effect. The arbitrary wording even allows individuals to use them to settle personal scores. This situation must be addressed by the international community if the Pakistan Government continues to fail to act."
For further information, please contact Lydia Haines on +44 20 8942 8810
or at Lydia@csw.org.uk <mailto:Lydia@csw.org.uk
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