Mission World - September, 2009
03.09.2009
Christians in Pakistan targeted again
Christians in Pakistan were attacked by Muslim mobs on July 30 at Korian, a small rural village near Gojra in Punjab province. Houses and churches were looted and destroyed and seven Christians, including women and children, were burnt to death.
According to Bishop Joseph Coutts, there was a Christian wedding in the village three days earlier. Some children cut up pages of an old book to use as ticker tape to shower on the wedding party. They had unknowingly cut up pages from an old school book of Islamic Studies. When some Muslims found pieces of paper with Arabic script and some Qur’anic verses scattered about, there was an uproar in the village. The matter was settled amicably when it became clear that this had been done by children who were illiterate and there was no intention of desecrating any holy texts.
Bishop Coutts is bishop of Faisalabad and the violence occurred in his diocese. A Pakistani, the 64 year old bishop is no stranger to anti-Christian religious discrimination which has been part of Pakistani life since the military coup led by the dictator General Zia ul Haq in 1977.
Life in Korian returned to normal but extremist Muslim clerics in Gojra claimed that the Christians of Korian had desecrated the Qur’an and demanded revenge. On July 30 a violent mob came from Gojra and demanded that Taalib Masih, the children’s father, be hanged for blasphemy. Eighty Christian houses were destroyed and two small Protestant churches were ransacked.
In spite of the assurances of the Pakistani government, the violence escalated.
The violence spread through Punjab province when a well-organized mob attacked Christians in a settlement called Christian Town in the centre of Gojra City on August 1 while police looked on. Some Christians who had pistols or hunting rifles tried to defend themselves but soon ran out of ammunition. Gojra police initially refused to register charges against 12 persons identified as being involved in the violence and only did so at the insistence of the provincial Law Minister, Raja Sanaullah.
Bishop Coutts led the funeral services for those murdered on August 2 accompanied by Bishop John Samuel of the Church of Pakistan. He said that this attack on Christians was well- planned. It was instigated by banned Islamic groups that want to “purify” Pakistan by making it a strictly Islamic, theocratic state and carrying out religious cleansing. It is part of the growing Christianophobia in Pakistan. Christians in the small Punjabi town of Kasur were attacked by a mob in June 2009. At Sangla Hill, also in the Punjab, Christian houses, two churches, the Catholic parish centre, the Catholic high school and the convent were attacked and burnt in 2005.
In 1987, a large Christian village called Shantinagar [“place of peace”] over 200 Christian homes were burnt to the ground. In all these cases the police did almost nothing to stop the rampaging mobs. Bishop Coutts says that government condolences, apologies and assurances are no substitute for the firm action that Pakistani Christians expect from their government.
+ Joseph Coutts
Bishop of Faisalabad.
Read more stories from the September, The Far East
