The Pakistani police have summarily executed a Christian Pastor.
Zafar Bhatti had been imprisoned since 2012 on charges that he has committed blasphemy for preaching Jesus was the only way. The men had long been receiving death threats from fellow prisoners and guards because of their Christian faith.
“This is a barbaric act,” Xavier Williams of Life for All told The Express Tribune. “There had been threats. The court should have instructed police to ensure Bhatti’s safety.”
The country passed a blasphemy law claiming that it would be a tool to stop religious intolerance in the country. However, Muslims have used the law as a way to take religious minorities to jail them, force them to convert to Islam or kill them.
“Unfortunately, pressure from Islamic radical groups and general discrimination against Christians in Pakistan has transformed trial courts into little more than rubber stamps for blasphemy accusations brought against Christians, regardless of the evidence brought to bear in the case,” William Stark of the International Christian Concern said. “Also, little is done to ensure the safety of those merely accused of blasphemy, leading to the deaths of at least 48 people, many of whom could have been proven innocent.”
This is the second major incident involving Christians accused of blasphemy in Pakistan. A Christian couple was sentenced to death in April for sending text messages that were called blasphemous by the court. However, the couple has been proven to be illiterate, so they could not send text messages. The death sentence is still in effect.
A Pakistani man who converted from Hinduism to Christianity has been arrested on charges that he burned a Koran and a chart of Koranic verses.
The family of the accused man says however that Islamic extremist groups have falsely accused the man and a co-worker because a large amount of Hindus are converting to Christianity in their region.
Javed Masih, the Christian convert and his co-worker Anana Lal who is Hindu worked as janitors at the Government Excellent High School in Satellite Town. The school’s headmaster, a Muslim, filed a report on August 29th claiming that he found the charred Koranic verses.
The moment the men were arrested, a mob made up of the Islamic extremist group Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam and Tahafuz Khatan-e-Nabuvat went to the men’s homes and called on the mob to burn the houses and kill the man’s children.
Masih’s wife was able to escape with their three children and is now in protective custody.
“Almost all Hindus who have converted, including us, accepted Christ as our savior not under any pressure, but of our free will,” she told Morning Star News. “The Hindu community is often targeted by Muslim groups, and our girls are forcibly taken and converted to Islam, so the community has a natural hatred for Islam.”
Police has repeatedly offered the Hindu man deals to set him free if he claims the Christian burned the Koran.
The lawyers of a Christian couple accused of sending text messages insulting the prophet Mohammed released a new development.
The couple is illiterate.
The court and those connected with the conviction of Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar have not been able to say how a couple that cannot read or write could be sending text messages. They were basically convicted on the word of one Muslim mosque leader who had been trying to take the couple’s property.
A local Christian leader said incidents like this are increasing in the region.
“We are seriously concerned. Cases like these are common and cause great suffering. We continue to pray, while the issue remains unresolved,” Fr. Aloysius Roy, Superior of the Pakistani province of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, said in the Christian Post. “We express our solidarity, but Christians keep a low profile, because life is full of difficulties and dangers, and for us the first commandment is to survive. Christians are afraid and they move with extreme caution.”
Lawyers for the couple say they not only will use the couple’s illiteracy as the basic for the appeal but also to appeal to the international community.
A Christian husband and wife in Pakistan have been sentenced to death because they allegedly sent a text message with a comment that was insulting to the prophet Mohammed.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar from Gojra were sentenced after what has been described as a manipulation of the legal system to benefit a Muslim leader.
Maulvi Mohammed Hussain, a Muslim leader from a mosque in the couple’s home city, complained last year that Emmanuel had used his wife’s phone to send a message that insulted the prophet. Kausar, who did not send or receive the message, was sentenced to death because it was her phone.
The couple’s lawyer, Nadeem Hassan, said that the Islamists brought in a fake SIM card from a phone and claimed it came from the woman’s cell. However, Hassan said the “evidence” was just part of a well-orchestrated plot on the part of the Muslims.
“The complainant was involved in a dispute with the pair and had made a threat with the full knowledge that they would face the death penalty,” he said.
The area of Pakistan where the case was brought is notorious for Muslim residents claiming Christians insulted the prophet as a way to have them killed so their possessions and homes can be taken.
Lady Warsi, a Muslim who is Great Britain’s Faith and Communities Minister, told the BBC that Christianity in large parts of the Middle East and in a majority of Islamic nations is on the brink of extinction.
I’m concerned that the birthplace of Christianity, the parts of the world where Christianity first spread, is now seeing large sections of the Christian community leaving, and those that are remaining feeling persecuted,” Lady Warsi told the BBC Radio 4 Today program. “One in 10 Christians live in a minority situation and large numbers of those who live in a minority situation around the world are persecuted.”
She said that as Islamic extremist groups gain influence, they are able to convince the local population that Christians are “newcomers” to the area that should be driven out when in many cases the Christians were living in the area before the arrival of the Islamists. She also said that Christians are being made the scapegoat for problems in the Middle East created by Islamists.
She also said that violence against Christians in Pakistan is threatening to drive all Christians from that nation.
She said that violence against Christians worldwide should not just reverberate in the Christian community but in all communities.
The Pakistani Taliban announced they have chosen as their new leader the man who planned the assassination of a teenage girl.
Mullah Fazlullah, who designed a failed assassination attempt on schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai, was named the new leader by the Taliban’s leadership council.
Militants fired AK-47 assault rifles and anti-aircraft guns in the air to celebrate the decision.
Fazlullah replaces Hakimullah Mehsud who was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Friday. Fazlullah is considered a hard-liner and has already rejected any peace talks with the Pakistani government.
Fazlullah’s branch of the Taliban routinely blew up schools with children inside and banned women from being able to go outside without male accompaniment. They would force all men to grow beards or face Sharia law.
The Pakistani Taliban have confirmed that their leader has been killed as the result of a U.S. drone strike.
Hakimullah Mehsud, who masterminded the Taliban attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan and multiple missions that lead to the deaths of thousands of Pakistani civilians, died Saturday when he was targeted by a U.S. drone. Mehsud was also believed to be the plotter of the failed Times Square bombing in 2010.
The U.S. had a $5 million bounty on Mehsud’s head.
Pakistan’s government expressed outrage over the U.S. strike saying they were working on peace talks with the Taliban at the time of the strike. Government officials summoned the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan to government offices for protests. Pakistan’s interior minister said the death of Mehsud was “the death of all peace efforts” although he said they would not be breaking off relations with the U.S. because of the attack.
The Taliban has been meeting to decide on a new leader.
This is not the first time that Mehsud was reported to be killed in a drone strike, however, this is the first time the Taliban acknowledged that he had been killed.
In the latest report of violence against Christians in Pakistan, three Muslim men have been arrested in connection with a home invasion and “forced conversion to Islam”.
Three men in their 30s reportedly entered the home of a large Christian family and forced them all at gunpoint to convert to Islam after spending the evening conducting various tortures. The family is related to a Christian man who was attacked and stabbed to death in a gold market after being accused of blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed.
The family had been living in fear since the murder of Boota Masih. They had been refusing to go to work because of concerns Islamic extremists would target them for false claims of blasphemy.
Local police officials reportedly consider one of the three arrested men an Islamic extremist.
The Taliban released a statement last month saying all non-Muslims in Pakistan are their targets.
A commander of militia in northwest Pakistan fighting the Taliban was injured in a homicide bomb attack that killed 15 people.
The Taliban admitted being behind the attack on the compound of Nabi Hanafi. Officials said there were wounded but were unable to agree on the number. At least one woman and child were among the wounded.
Witnesses told the BBC that gunmen fired on the compound after driving an explosives-laden vehicle through the compound gate.
Hanafi at one time was closely associated with the Taliban until 2008 when he formed his own militia and began to fight against the Islamic extremist group. The Pakistani government has been reported to have helped Hanafi’s group in fighting the terrorists.
The compound was hit with a homicide bomber attack last year that killed 18.
A second major earthquake has shaken the Awaran district of Pakistan killing at least 15 people.
The 6.8 magnitude quake comes on the heels of a 7.8 quake that killed at least 400 people. Officials say the second quake has caused more damaged to the communications and infrastructure of the region because repairs were unable to be made before the second strike. Continue reading →