Over 100 Pakistani Christians were arrested after the lynching of two Islamists believed to be involved in two church bombings that killed 17 Christians. Now, some of the prisoners have been released and are showing evidence of brutal treatment from Pakistani police.
The International Christian Concern says that some of the 30 released from jail say they were beaten and given other tortures in an attempt to get them to confess to being a part of the killings.
“They were telling us that they were beaten to a pulp,” ICC President Jeff King told The Christian Post at Tuesday’s press conference. “A lot of times, what they are saying is that they get beaten to a pulp and get left on their doorstep in a bloody mess, and the whole point was to extract confessions.”
King said that the ICC condemns the killing of the two Muslim men and that just needs to be done, but that Pakistani officials are using the situation to target and harass Christians.
We would seek for justice for those Muslim families but arbitrary arrests and detention are not the way to get justice,” King told the Christian Post. “They only serve further flames of injustice and hatred. Frankly, it is a mark of a Banana republic and an incompetent police force.”
“They are just fishing and seeing if they can beat confessions out of random people from the neighborhood,” King added. “Foreign police forces know that this is actually terrible police work because people will falsely confess to end their beatings. But, you are not getting justice.”
The Pakistani air force conducted a series of airstrikes against terrorist positions in the mountain region near the Afghani border.
“The local population had fled their homes and villages when the operation was launched against the terrorists,” an official told Reuters.
The air force says that 34 terrorists were killed in the strikes.
The attack focused on the Pakistani version of the Taliban which while not officially connected to the Afghani Taliban, share a similar philosophy.
While they could not confirm death or injury, the military was able to confirm that the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, was in the area at the time of the strikes.
Local witnesses say the terrorists say there were fewer deaths.
“My elder brother said he had seen militants shifting bodies of the slain fighters to upper Tirah from Sandasa and nearby villages,” he said by telephone from the Landi Kotal subdivision of Khyber.
“Local militants of Lashkar-e-Islam told them 20 people were killed.”
At least 14 people were killed when terrorists attacked their churches.
Officlals in Lahore, Pakistan said that at least 70 were wounded in the twin attacks. One church was Catholic, the other was Protestant.
Geo TV reported that police stopped one of the bombers outside the church, forcing him to detonate outside killing one officer and wounding others. The second bomber was able to enter the church and detonate in the middle of services.
“Islamist militants in Pakistan have attacked Christians and other religious minorities often over the last decade or more. Many Christians, who make up less than two percent of Pakistan’s population of more than 180 million, accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow to act to improve security,” Retuers reported.
The Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they are planning to attack more churches.
The son of a Pakistani Christian woman who was accused of stealing of from her Muslim employer’s home was beaten and killed by local police in an attempt to make her confess to the crime.
The British Pakistani Christian Association says the police dumped the lifeless body of 20-year-old Zubair Rashid Masih into the street in front his mother’s home on March 8th.
The Muslim owner of the home where she had worked claimed she told gold ornaments and money from his home on February 24th, even though Aisha Bibi stopped working for him on February 20th.
Bibi was arrested and beaten by local officials when she did not admit to the crime. She suffered a broken arm as a result of the attack.
“When they arrived they had my eldest son with them and detained him as well. They were beating him and he was screaming in pain. I thought that I should confess to the theft charges to save my son,” Bibi said in an interview for The Christian Post translated and conducted by BPCA officer Shamim Masih. “However, at this point, they stopped my son’s beating for a while and told me to leave the prison and go home. Later they tortured my son to death.”
“I want justice, but I know the court will ignore our case. Our judicial system is corrupt despite attempts to prevent it. We forced police to lodge a [case] against the police officers involved in my son’s death,” Bibi explained. “It has now been registered after a protest but none of the police murderers have been arrested. The police are protecting themselves, placing their badge before their duties.”
“I am still facing threats from local Muslims who think I am a Christian thief,” Bibi continued. “I do not know how my remaining son and I can survive after this incident in this city that hates Christians.”
A Pakistani man who was brought to the U.S. from Great Britain on terrorism charges has been found guilty.
Abid Naseer was found guilty in a jury trial of providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiracy to use a destructive device. He faces life in prison at his sentencing as part of the condition for him to be extradited for trial is that the death penalty would not be considered.
The jury’s decision took a day after closing arguments on Monday.
“If the defendant hadn’t been stopped, hundreds of innocent men, women and children wouldn’t be alive today,” prosecutor Zainab Ahmed said during closing arguments. “He was trying to cover up his motive for revenge against the United States and its NATO allies. Revenge was the defendant’s motive.”
Naseer defended himself in court and said that the government did nothing to prove connection to al-Qaeda and all the email communications they pointed out where just him trying to find a wife.
A Christian Boys’ School in northern Pakistan was attacked by an armed mob of over 300 Muslims who were angry over the cartoons of Muhammad published in the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
“It is very sad that Islamic radicals attack Pakistani Christians because of Charlie Hebdo. Christians condemn the blasphemous cartoons. It is a shame that even after 67 years since the birth of Pakistan, Christians have not yet been considered Pakistani citizens, but are seen as ‘Western allies,'” Nasir Saeed, director of the NGO Center for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement, told Fides News Agency.
At least four Christians were wounded in the assault on the building.
Witnesses say that the Muslim mob lifted smaller members to the top of the fence surrounding the facility so they could go and open gates allowing the attackers inside.
The school has been closed for two days because of additional security measures being installed to the building and grounds.
The attack is the latest in assaults on Christians around the world for the drawings in the French publication, which is not Christian and has often published cartoons mocking Christ and God.
An Islamic leader is calling on western countries to limit freedom of speech because unless they stop people from drawing pictures of Muhammad, they will be inciting World War III.
Sirajul Haq, the leader of the Islamic extremist Jamaat-e-Islami Party in Pakistan, told a crowd during a protest celebrating the attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo that the United Nations and western leaders need to make sure religious personalities are not mocked.
“The path that the West has chosen will take the world to a third world war,” Haq told the crowd.
Haq also demanded that France issue a formal apology for allowing Charlie Hebdo to exist and for offending “billions of Muslims across the world.”
Jamaat-e-Islami is calling for a worldwide boycott of French products by Muslims as a way to show their anger toward France for allowing anyone to mock Muhammad. The group also is part of a circle of Muslim extremist groups that have offered a $1.6 million bounty for the heads of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
Thirteen Pakistani Christian families are homeless after refusing to enter into “bonded labor”, or a form of slavery.
Local government officials had told the Christians that unless the male heads of the families entered into the slavery-like contract at a local brick kiln factory, the would be driven from the area around Samundri.
The contracts state that if something happens to the one who signs the deal, family members would have to work off the debt should the person die. Currently about 75 percent of bonded labor in Pakistan are children working for deceased parents, according to the Barnabas Fund.
The kiln factory in this situation is owned by Muslims who told the local government if they couldn’t get the Christians to agree to slave labor, they would build a hospital on the site of the Christian’s homes.
A report from the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement says that the Muslim factory owners do not pay enough for anyone to overcome their debts and the young Christian women are taken and sold as sex slaves in the human trafficking market.
The Pakistan government has announced plans to execute 500 convicted terrorists in response to the Taliban’s killing of 133 children and 15 teachers at an Army Public School in Peshawar.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had announced last week the government was lifting a moratorium on the death penalty in terrorism related cases. Reports say that at least six terrorists have already been hung.
“Interior ministry has finalized the cases of 500 convicts who have exhausted all the appeals, their mercy petitions have been turned down by the president and their executions will take place in coming weeks,” an unnamed source told AFP news agency.
Pakistan officials said the attack on the school was their own country’s 9/11.
The United Nations has spoken out against Pakistan ending the moratorium on the death penalty for convicted terrorists.
The terrorists were unrepentant, releasing a video saying they will continue to kill children if any of the terrorists children are killed by military action against them.
A vigil was held outside the White House for the 132 children and nine staff members murdered by the Taliban in an Pakistan school.
Visitors to the vigil included the deputy chief of Mission at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington who said he wanted to show his country’s leadership was supportive of those standing for the memory of those children.
“I am to be with those who are here to express solidarity and support for the victims and the families of those who were killed in Peshawar,” Asad Majeed Khan told the Christian Post.
“You can see people from all colors and creeds and people with the different religions have come together in support and solidarity,” Khan asserted. “This is a message that I take also from here this evening that this is not a fight for any country in particular, this is not a particular ethnic group or a particular religion’s fight, this is a fight in which we are all together.”
Those participating held candles and a moment of silence to honor the victims. Many also held signs and banners calling for the destruction of the Taliban.