Pakistan – FoRB in Full

A Christmas service in the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Lahore, Pakistan.

Celebrating in silence: The Christians in Pakistan under pressure this Christmas

Posted on 11/12/2023 by cswpress in Asia, Pakistan

Life is not easy for Christians in Pakistan. Many are economically marginalised, struggling to find work, at the mercy of those who wish to make life difficult for them. And they tend to experience an increase in adversity during periods of celebration.

This includes Christmas.

In some parts of Pakistan, Christians will be asked by their neighbours not to light their homes with decorations. Others who decide to invest in a tree may be asked to take them down by those who don’t want such symbols of Christianity in their community. Sometimes, neighbours will even forcibly remove decorations from the outside of Christian houses themselves.

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Joseph Colony in Lahore, Pakistan, which was infamously attacked in March 2013 after Sawan Masih was accused of blasphemy.

Pakistan needs to wake up to its blasphemy law crisis before it is too late

Posted on 24/07/2023 by cswpress in Asia, Pakistan

Last month, the desecration and burning of the Quran in Stockholm, Sweden sparked worldwide condemnation. Pakistan witnessed widespread protests and termed the act as blasphemous and deeply damaging to the sentiments of the Muslim community. A banned extremist group in the country, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, labelled it as an attack by Christians on Muslims and called on their followers to attack Christian settlements and kill Christians, while further vowing that they will make Pakistan a ‘hell for Christians’.

Last week, in the city of Sargodha, in Punjab province, a blasphemous poster was found near a local mosque. It prompted locals to gather in protest and demand that the police find a Christian from the nearby Christian settlement of Maryam Town. Since then, tensions in the area have been high with most of the 3,000-4,000 Christian families fleeing their homes due to fear of a mob related attacks.

Tensions over blasphemy have already had devastating consequences in Pakistan this year. On 6 May, a local cleric in the city of Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was killed by a mob after he was accused of making a blasphemous reference during a political rally of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party. In February a mob in the city of Nankana Sahib, Punjab, stormed the police station and proceeded to lynch and kill a man accused of blasphemy.

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A hero of the faith: Remembering Shahbaz Bhatti

Posted on 02/03/2022 by cswpress in Asia, Pakistan

On 2 March 2011 Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities Affairs, was assassinated as he left his mother’s house in Islamabad. He had spent his life dedicated to standing up and speaking out for marginalised and vulnerable minorities in Pakistan, and his legacy is still felt today.

On the 11^th anniversary of his assassination, Mr Bhatti’s nephew David writes about his uncle’s life and legacy, and the situation for minorities in Pakistan today:

On a recent trip to Rome, Italy, I was able to tour the Basilica di San Bartolomeo all’Isola. For the last twenty years, this ancient church has been dedicated to the memory of Christian martyrs of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Pilgrims and tourists from around the world go there to learn about and gain inspiration from individuals who – from Africa to South America, through Communism and Nazism – made the ultimate display of self-sacrificial love in the face of tyranny and evil.

On my visit, I was able to once again see, after eleven years, my uncle Shahbaz Bhatti’s bible which is displayed alongside the relics of the New Martyrs of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. This was the very bible that I would see on his nightstand on my visits to Pakistan – the book in which he would be immersed every morning, through which he gained his strength, and by which he lived his life. Today, it serves as an enduring symbol of his legacy: of his unwavering dedication to serving others and of his faithful and fearless pursuit for justice.

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‘This should never have happened to her’ – the story of Arzoo Raja

Posted on 15/02/202228/02/2022 by cswpress in Asia, Pakistan

Pakistani weddings are extravagant affairs. Guestlists are filled with hundreds of names of relatives and friends. People come from various cities and even abroad for colourful celebrations filled with music and dancing. Often, brides’ homes are so packed with relatives that there is hardly room to move.

About a month or so before the wedding, smaller events take place at the homes of both the bride and groom. Friends and family begin to choreograph wedding dances and wedding songs to the rhythm of the dholak, a two headed hand drum.

A few days prior to the wedding, the Mayun takes place. This marks the start of the husband and wife-to-be being separated from each other until the day of the wedding, with brides beautifying themselves by refraining from wearing anything on their faces and undergoing herbal skin treatments to improve their complexion.

None of this occurred in the case of Arzoo Raja. In fact, this young Christian’s so-called ‘marriage’ is essentially a crime, because Arzoo was abducted on 13 October 2020 from the street outside her home in Karachi Railway Colony, Sindh Province, and forced to convert and to ‘marry’ a man more than twice her age. Under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, the legal age for marriage is 18, and being a child of 13, she was in no position to consent or escape.

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Imran Khan: Defender of Islam or political opportunist?

Posted on 01/11/202112/11/2021 by cswpress in Asia, Pakistan

On 17 September 2021, less than a month after seizing control of the country, the Taliban effectively banned girls from secondary schools in Afghanistan after they ordered schools to resume classes for boys only.

The move marked a realisation of fears that had been raised ever since the Taliban regained power, and was met with widespread and routine international condemnation from countries and human rights organisations alike. One of the more surprising critics however was Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who told the BBC that preventing women from accessing education would be ‘un-Islamic’.

The reason for such surprise is that while Prime Minister Khan has expressed somewhat mixed feelings regarding the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, he has encouraged the international community, and particularly the United States, to recognise their authority. In addition, his own government has entered into talks with the organisation, and Khan himself has pledged to ‘forgive’ members of the group if reconciliation is achieved.

Developments such as these already start to make Khan’s criticisms of the Taliban ring hollow, but they are made even more interesting when considered in conjunction with his own rhetoric regarding what is and isn’t un-Islamic in his own country.

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