P. Thomas: Christians of Orissa an example of faith for the universal Church

by Thomas Chellan

The speech made by F. Thomas Chellan on receiving the “Defensor Fidei” award. The Indian priest was among the first victims of the Hindu fundamentalist violence in Orissa. Dedicated to the Christians of Kandhamal, killed because of their “resolute” faith in Christ.

Oreno (AsiaNews) – Today Oreno di Vimercate, Monza province, in Fr. Thomas Chellan receives the “Defensor Fidei” award 2009. Organised by the “Fides et Ratio” Foundation in collaboration with the Catholic monthly “Il Timone”, the prize is being awarded to the Indian priest for his witness to the faith. On August 25, 2008, two days into the pogrom against Christians, a group of about 50 Hindu thugs set upon him, stripped him naked and savagely beat him with sticks, axes and launches. A religious sister working with him was subjected to the same violence. In his acceptance speech the priest gives thanks fro the solidarity shown towards the persecuted of Orissa and reaffirms that Christian faith is the path of progress for India and the Dahlits. He also recalls the work of missionaries who preceded him, soling “the seeds of the Universal Church” and asks that we do not look upon the faithful of Kandhamal only with “pity”, but that we “imitate them in their faith”. Below we publish the full text of Fr. Thomas’ speech.

I dedicate this Award to all the persecuted Christians in Kandhamal, especially to those who lost their lives and stood by their faith.

When I received news of this award, I was overwhelmed, by the solidarity of Faith. Our Faith makes us one family, unites and bonds Christians beyond geographical borders, beyond barriers of ethnicity, nationality or, language. Beyond the limits of territorial boundaries. Faith makes us one family. I am grateful to be here with all of you.

There were moments of crises, I felt rejected from the place , from the people I knew, and when the news of this award was given to me- from someone, whom I have never seen or heard from, they called me and offered their solidarity , I felt a deep sense of solidarity and comfort. I felt I was not left alone in my suffering, I was consoled that I was not abandoned, and I marvelled that it was because of my faith, I endured the persecution and no it was only because of my faith, I have been embraced by universal solidarity, Faith Unites, Faith Bonds and Faith Heals and Faith forgives…and this brings a lot of joy.

The history of the Church [this is the place where I become aware that] teaches us to experience Joy through suffering, a faith that is tested through trails, and this is the history of the Church universal, not just Orissa, and if we trace the history of Christians, they have gone through this struggle and persecution.

I firmly believe, that from these of Christians of Kandhamal, will spring forth new life of the Risen Christ.

In the past twenty years, the Dalit population of Kandhamal has made tremendous in the field of education, and their own economic growth and development. An ostracised people changed from a ‘dependency module to a module of self sufficiency’, and people who were considered untouchables, now claiming their rightful place in society. And the Church has played a role in this transformation of these people. Those who have opposed this empowerment of the dalit community have reacted in the name of religion.

Mother Teresa and Saint Alphonsa whom the universal church honours, did not fight any unjust strictures, rather with their Love, Service and Simplicity have worked to help relieve the sufferings of the poorest of the poor…….today we honour them.

This is the attitude of the Church in India, we continue serving the oppressed, the marginalised, those whom society rejects, irrespective of caste or creed, we are not in any agitated mood, we forgive them we will continue to serve even those who have done unspeakable harm to us.

I too, look forward to continue my mission in Kandhamal, to live in the villages and serve the people.

The Church in India and especially in Orissa is now a fruit of the Christian missionaries who came under very difficult circumstances, today we enjoy the comforts of electricity, transports, telecommunications…..when missionaries came to Orissa nearly 100 years ago, they underwent such hardships and trials .sowing the seeds for the church.

Whatever is there of the Church in Orissa (or least of the remains of the Church in Kandhamal), whatever was built up, -is only the fruit of the unsung Christian Missionaries of the past. Today, thanks to the media, news and information gets disseminated instantly. Christian missionaries- many from foreign lands- have been selflessly and tirelessly working there for more than 100 years, without any of the modern conveniences. These Missionaries have endured much suffering to build up and empower the people, and we are only enjoying the fruits of their labour of love.

So as the Bible says ‘You received without charge, you give without charge’, so even in the days ahead, we continue our mission in the footsteps of the masters;” If you wish to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me.”

In India, the Church has been at the service of all peoples, in the field of education, health, welfare ministries, empowering people through our mission and service.

The Catholic Church has more than 20,000 educational institutions, 15,000 schools, 300 colleges, 115 nursing schools, 5,000 hospitals/clinics, 2,000 rehabilitation centres, 1,500 technical schools, 6 medical colleges, 22 % of the health care facilities are run by Catholic Institutions.

The Indian Episcopal Conference is the fourth largest, with 180 Bishops, 100 thousand nuns, 25,000 priests.

The Universal Church has to look at Kandhamal with admiration, with awe for the Faith of the people, like Christ these people were also tempted – (to become Hindus) but they resisted, strong in faith, they went through the persecution – yet they choose Christianity, they professed their Faith in Christi and many were killed because of their resolute belief in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The world should not pity the Christians who underwent the trials and persecutions, they are to be held in high esteem and emulated for their faith.

My own Calvary is nothing compared to the sufferings of the Kandhamal Christians.

Finally I would like my sincere gratitude to Gianpaolo Barra editor of “Il Timone” and president of the “Fides et Ratio” Foundation; Fr Bernardo Cervellera, Director, Asia News, who told the story of persecution of Orissa to the world and continues to promote Human Rights and Religious Freedom for our Kandhamal Christians; Fr Theodore Mascarenhas, Asia Desk, Pontifical Council for Culture, who has been a willing collaborator and has been coordinating all my documents and Visa for my travel to Italy for this Award; and Riccardo [Cascioli] who has been most helpful.

(Asia News, Italy)

Lamenting Homelessness

Islamabad: A Christian woman is sobbing and pouring dust on herself to protest forcible taking of her home. The picture is taken from Express Urdu newspaper published on May 21.

Diocese tries to help Swat refugees

by Bill Bowder

THE UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has warned that the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan has become “one of the most dramatic of recent times”. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been fleeing from fighting in the Swat valley, northern Pakistan (News, 15 May).

Ron Redmond, a UNHCR spokes­man, said on Monday: “It’s like trying to catch something that’s mov­ing ahead of us, because the number of people on the move every day is so big and the response is never enough.”

He estimated that it would cost hundreds of millions of pounds to keep up with the influx. A financial appeal for the region was expected soon. It was reported that large num­bers of civilians remain in the dis­puted areas, some of whom cannot afford to leave, and are at risk as the fighting intensified.

Dr David Gosling, Principal of Ed­wardes College, University of Pesh­awar, said on Monday that students from the college, both Christian and Muslim, were working with the refugees.

Last week, the Bishop of Peshawar, the Rt Revd Mano Rumalshah, said that 200 people walked the 100 miles to the diocesan relief camp set up at the Christian Vocational Centre in Mardan. Among them were three preg­­nant women. The diocesan weekly paper reported that two of the women had given birth and were being cared for by the diocesan medical team.

“Most [of the refugees] are arriv­ing on foot with little or no money at all. In view of the prevailing security situation in their home ­towns, af­fected families will require rehab­ilitation through employment oppor­tunities and education.”

The diocesan relief camp needed bedding, medicines, food, clothes, and prayers, it said.

(Church Times)

Christian refugees need prayer

Pakistan (MNN) ― Conflict with the Taliban has displaced almost one and a half million Pakistanis. Some are Christians, and Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs says they are especially vulnerable.

A "potential humanitarian crisis" is already brewing in the region, he said, but Christians face greater danger because they are already marginalized by the society.

"The challenge for Christians is somewhat multiplied because they are already sort of disenfranchised: they're already pushed to the side, and so they become sort of lost in the shuffle," Nettleton said. VOM already has indications that the government will not take care of Christian refugees as well as it will take care of Muslim refugees.

"We have even heard reports that while the government is helping to relocate Muslim citizens out of these areas where the Taliban is taking over, they're not giving that same assistance to Christians," Nettleton explained.

VOM is working to assist the Pakistani Christians who have been displaced by the violence. The Christians need their fellow believers around the world to pray for them -- not only for their safety, but also for the advance of the Kingdom of God.

"Pray that they can even have opportunities to witness and opportunities to share, because this is really a time of great upheaval in Pakistan, and that can be and often is a time of revival as well," Nettleton said. "There's so much going on, and people are threatened. They are open to the Gospel, they're open to the good news of Christ's love."

(Mission News Network)

Peshawar locals warned against wearing western clothes

PESHAWAR: Taliban hardliners are warning people against wearing Western clothes in the capital of Pakistan’s northwest region where the military is battling militants, residents said Thursday.

‘I received a piece of paper written in Pushto, saying that doctors and medical workers are wearing unIslamic dress which should be stopped,’ said Abdul Hammed Afridi, chief executive of Peshawar’s main government hospital.

But people working at smaller, private companies said they were steering clear of Western-style trousers and shirts, instead donning traditional shalwar khamiz after colleagues were beaten up in the streets.

But people working at smaller, private companies said they were steering clear of Western-style trousers and shirts, instead donning traditional shalwar khamiz after colleagues were beaten up in the streets.

‘My office advised me in writing to stop wearing western dress and start wearing shalwar khamiz after incidents of violence,’ Mohammad Saghir, who works for a private company, told AFP.

'Last week one of our colleagues was kidnapped by the Taliban, beaten and warned that pharmaceutical staff should stop wearing western dress,’ said Mohammad Nasir Khan, president of a medical representative’s organisation.

‘They put a warning letter in his pocket after beating him,’ he said.

‘One employee of our courier company was beaten on Tuesday and militants warned him to stop wearing T-shirts and trousers,’ an employee at a private company also told AFP on condition of anonymity.

(Courtesy Dawn)

The Shadow of the Crescent

By Rakesh Mani and Zehra Ahmed

New York - As Pakistan atrophies in its existential crisis, a fundamental question about the nature of the country is coming to the fore: Are the country's citizens Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, or are they Muslims who happen to be Pakistanis? Which comes first, flag or faith?

It is not a question that many Pakistanis can readily answer. The vast majority of the country's so-called "educated elite" seem to have no qualms about identifying themselves as Muslims first and Pakistanis second. Some feel that their religion is the most important thing to them, and that that's where their first loyalty will always lie. Others admit to having scant regard for religion, but say that Pakistan has come to mean so little to them that their religion supersedes their loyalty to the country.

This willingness to subordinate state to God, even among the highly educated, lies at the heart of Pakistan's crisis. How can a country be expected to prosper if the majority of its citizens harbor only a secondary allegiance to the state? How can it progress if, as the noted author M.J. Akbar wrote, "the idea of Pakistan is weaker than the Pakistani."

But what is the idea of Pakistan?

Back in the heady days of the 1940's, Mohammed Ali Jinnah rallied a people to nationhood. Despite his Anglophone status and Victorian manners, he carved out a separate homeland for India's Muslims. But, today, an erudite, westernized lawyer like Jinnah who isn't a wadhera (tribal leader) or a jagirdar (feudal lord) would find it impossible to win a popular election in Pakistan.

For the real Jinnah is now irrelevant in the country that reveres him as "Quaid-e-Azam," or founder of the nation. Few Pakistanis have the time or inclination to think about their founder's ideas. Jinnah's idea of Pakistan - South Asian Muslim nationalism - has been overrun by the dogma of Islamic universalism.

The modern Pakistani identity is shaped largely by the negation of an Indian-Hindu identity and the adoption of a global pan-Islamic charter. Economic advancement is taken to mean Westernization or worse, Indianization. At every turn, Pakistanis seem more likely to unite as brothers in Islam than as sons of the same soil.

Moreover, Pakistan's fear of vilification and failure has given birth to an increasingly paranoid brand of Islam that seeks to impose stricter controls - on education, women's rights, dancing, beardlessness, and sex - and close society to all forms of modernity. This paranoid Islam, represented by hard-line outfits like the Tablighi Jamaat, is Pakistan's fastest-growing brand of faith.

Pakistan is now at a crossroads, facing an uneasy moment of truth. To survive, its citizens must act in unison or risk seeing every moderate tendency in the country purged by a clamor of illiberal, religious voices. Today's crisis calls for every thinking Pakistani to ask serious questions of themselves: What should be the idea of Pakistan? Are you Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, Christians, or Hindus? Or are you members of a global Islamic ummah who just happen to live in Karachi or Lahore?

The real challenge, and the ultimate solution, is to get people to think and talk about these questions. But this must be a debate between people, and within people. Nothing will be solved by searching for the "true Islam" or by quoting the Koran.

The point is that eventually, despite strong regional loyalties and various cultural and religious differences, the majority can identify as being simply "Pakistani" - even though they may harbor radical differences about what this might mean. The real idea of Pakistan, ultimately, must be multiplicity.

Today, we have come to understand ourselves as composites; often contradictory and internally incompatible. In the Babarnama , for example, we see the internal contradictions in the personality of the founder of the Mughal Empire. When describing his conquest of Chanderi in 1528, Babar offers gruesome details of the gory slaughter of many "infidels" but just a few sentences later he talks at length about Chanderi's lakes, flowing streams, and sweet water. So who was Babar, bloodthirsty tyrant, humanist poet, or both - and not necessarily at odds with each other?

Pakistan's selfhood must be expanded ad maximum and made so capacious that it accommodates its Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, and Balochis, and their religions - Sunni, Shia, Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Qadhianis - until it is possible to call them all equally "Pakistani." That must be the ultimate goal, and step one in the long, winding battle to save Pakistan.

That is a national idea worth striving for - and Pakistan's intellectuals, its elite, and its youth must be at the forefront of the battle. The Crescent has cast a seemingly interminable shadow across the length of Pakistan. Its tragedies and failings are a result of what is happening in God's name, not Jinnah's. To save Pakistan, Jinnah's spirit, his moth-eaten ideals, must be renewed, and Pakistanis must ask themselves what Pakistan really means.

Zehra Ahmed is a Pakistani architect, designer and writer currently living in New York; Rakesh Mani is a 2009 Teach for India fellow, working with low-income schools in Mumbai. He is also a writer and commentator who contributes to a variety of publications.

(The Guatemala Times)

Al-Qaeda planning to target non-Muslims in Pakistan (from BBC Urdu)

(Translated for the blog from BBC Urdu)

According to the reports of spy agencies of Pakistan, seven highly trained extremists and masterminds of Al-Qaeda in Iraq have entered Pakistan.

The government has tasked the law enforcement agencies to arrest these militants.
According to the report received by the BBC, in addition to imparting training to likeminded people, they are planning to target government high-ups. These high-ups include President Asif Ali Zardari, chief ministers of all four provinces and commanders of intelligence agencies.
The report also reveals that this group of militants can attack non-Muslims and also embassies of pro-US countries. It should be kept in mind that security forces on Tuesday arrested some foreigners from Mohmand Agency. The report also reveals that Al-Qaeda commanders had a meeting on May 3 in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. It was decided in the meeting to continue support for defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) and other organizations in their terrorist activities.

According to the report, the TTP participated in this meeting. Along with Afghans, the tribesmen and Arabs also showed up. Raheem Ullah Khan, Maulana Khalid Abbas Shah, Shahid Ullah Khan, Adam Khan, Inam Ullah Afghani, Abdul Latif Afghani, Muhammad Saeed bin Talha, Ahmad Altwansi and Mehmood Shaheen al-Qawari were among the prominent participants.
In the light of this report, the provincial governments have been ordered to step up security in their respective areas and also ordered to arrest these militants.
(BBC Urdu)

Swat Valley: two million refugees on the run, as Caritas Pakistan provides assistance

by Qaiser Felix

The Catholic NGO is providing essential items, planning a sustained effort with the assistance of international partners. Bishop Coutts stresses the need for caution to avoid offending the sensibilities of people of various religions but slams the victimisation of minorities. Christian families are forced out of refugee camps.

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) – Caritas Pakistan, with the help of various international partners, is providing mattresses, fans, field tents and mobile clinics for the two million refugees who, according to the latest United Nations figures, have fled the fighting between Pakistani military and the Taliban in the Swat Valley.

Mgr Joseph Coutts, bishop of Faisalabad and national director of Caritas Pakistan, talks about the work performed by Catholic volunteers, stressing the caution they must display because the area in which they operate is not secure and because they must show extreme discretion given the sensitivities of the various people from different faiths.

“Our mission,” said the prelate, “is to provide, aid, love and assistance to all those in need, as Jesus Christ taught.”

About 300 mattresses and 25 fans were brought to refugee camps in Mardan North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), home to people who fled mountain areas. As temperatures rise (up to 50 degrees C) the emergency situation is getting worse. Outside the city of Mardan the government has set up two large relief camps, Sheikh Shahzad and Sheikh Yaseen, holding about 20,000 people, a number that is increasing every day.

“With the support of its international partners Caritas Pakistan is sending 2,000 tents to these camps in Mardan to increase capacity. Each tent is enough for a small family. Our international partners will also arrange mobile clinics for these internally displaced people,” the prelate said. .

Problems in the affected area are not recent but date back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As Afghan refugees poured across the border the Taliban come to the NWFP. Local Taliban groups emerged in the area, and eventually took it over, creating an emergency situation that deteriorated as soon as the Taliban began enforcing Sharia. After that then open warfare broke out with the Pakistani military.

Religious minorities are among the most vulnerable groups because in addition to the war they have experienced harassment and abuse.

Recently Sikhs have been forced to pay the Jizya, a poll tax imposed on non-Muslims for the benefit of Muslims. In other instances Christian families have been forced out of refugee camps because Muslims did not want them around.

For this reason Caritas Pakistan is acting with extreme caution.

In the meantime, fighting continues between the army and Taliban in various parts of the Malakand division.

In Islamabad the Pakistani cabinet met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani; on the agenda: the law and order situation in tribal areas, the ongoing military operations in Swat and Malakand, and what steps to take in favour refugees.

(Asia News Italy)

Yet another killed in sixth police ‘encounter’ in May

LAHORE: The death toll from police ‘encounters’ in the province during the current month reached five on Wednesday after an alleged criminal was killed by the police in Badami Bagh. According to details, a team of the Iqbal Town Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) killed Zulfiqar Masih in an ‘encounter’ on Peco Road at 6am. Badami Bagh Police Station duty officer Adil told Daily Times the CIA police team led by Inspector Muhammad Fiaz raided a house to arrest the accused. He said the accused, along with two accomplices, was aware of the raid and started firing at the police. He said the police returned the fire and an ‘encounter’ ensued for half-an-hour. He said the police team found Zulfiqar dead after the ‘encounter’ ended, while his two accomplices managed to flee. He said the body was sent to the city morgue for autopsy. As usual, no policeman was injured or killed. On May 8, an alleged dacoit was killed in an ‘encounter’ with Sargodha police, while the Gujranwala police killed two ‘criminals’ on May 10. On May 12, Lahore’s Sabzazar police claimed killing one Nasir alias Nasri in an ‘encounter’. On May 17, the Khanewal police claimed to have arrested two ‘dacoits’ after an encounter, while on May 19, the Investigation police of Lahore’s Mughalpura Police Station claimed to have arrested five proclaimed offenders after an encounter, while four escaped. staff report

(Daily Times)

Cabinet fixes 5% job quota for minorities

On 22 November, 2008 the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that the government would provide five percent quota to them in all federal government jobs. Yesterday, this decision was approved by the cabinet. Both stories are given here. Asif Aqeel

5 percent quota for minorities in all federal jobs: PM Yousuf Raza Gilani

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said the government is committed to protecting the rights of minorities as envisaged in the constitution of Pakistan and would provide five percent quota to them in all federal government jobs. Necessary legislation would soon be moved in this regard, he added.

The Premier said this while talking to the Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, who called on him at the Prime Minister House on Thursday afternoon.

The Prime Minister said the government is taking steps for bringing minorities in the mainstream and resolving their problems on priority basis.

He also issued directions to the concerned authorities in this regard. The Prime Minister said the religious festivals of the minorities should be celebrated at national level and their proper coverage to be ensured in the state media.

The Prime Minister lauded the services rendered by members of the minority community towards the stability and prosperity of the country.

Shahbaz Bhatti apprised the Prime Minister of various matters related to his ministry as well as his constituency. He also invited the Prime Minister to visit the Ministry of Minorities Affairs.

Cabinet fixes 5% job quota for minorities

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet on Wednesday approved a job quota of five percent for the minorities of the country in all the government departments.

Briefing the media about the decisions of the Cabinet meeting held here Wednesday with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in chair, Minister for Information and Broadcast Qamar Zaman Kaira said that the cabinet decided to fix the quota for the minorities keeping their grievances in view.

He said due to government’s good fiscal policies various economic indicators, including current account deficit, fiscal deficit and inflation rate, have improved significantly.

Kaira said that the country could not only be run on foreign aid and the government would impose taxes on new sections of the society. However, the number of the taxes would be reduced, he added.

The minister said that agriculture, stock markets and property business sectors would be included in the tax net from the next fiscal year.

He revealed that few countries have started dumping their products in Pakistan, saying the government would counter the practice.

(A Pakistan News)

Arab Christians

The Forgotten Faithful

Followers of Jesus for nearly 2,000 years, native Christians today are disappearing from the land where their faith was born.

By Don Belt
Photograph by Ed Kashi

Easter in Jerusalem is not for the faint of heart. The Old City, livid and chaotic in the calmest of times, seems to come completely unhinged in the days leading up to the holiday. By the tens of thousands, Christians from all over the world pour in like a conquering horde, surging down the Via Dolorosa's narrow streets and ancient alleyways, seeking communion in the cold stones or some glimmer, perhaps, of the agonies Jesus endured in his final hours. Every face on Earth seems to float through the streets during Easter, every possible combination of eye and hair and skin color, every costume and style of dress, from blue-black African Christians in eye-popping dashikis to pale Finnish Christians dressed as Jesus with a bloody crown of thorns to American Christians in sneakers and "I [heart] Israel" caps, clearly stoked for the battle of Armageddon.

They come because this is where Christianity began. Here in Jerusalem and on lands nearby are the stony hills where Jesus walked and taught and died—and later, where his followers prayed and bled and battled over what his teaching would become. Huddled alongside Jewish converts in the caves of Palestine and Syria, Arabs were among the first to be persecuted for the new faith, and the first to be called Christians. It was here in the Levant—a geographical area including present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Pales­tinian territories—that hundreds of churches and monasteries were built after Constantine, emperor of Rome, legalized Christianity in 313 and declared his Levantine provinces holy land. Even after Arab Muslims conquered the region in 638, it remained predominantly Christian.

Ironically, it was during the Crusades (1095-1291) that Arab Christians, slaughtered along with Muslims by the crusaders and caught in the cross fire between Islam and the Christian West, began a long, steady retreat into the minority. Today native Christians in the Levant are the envoys of a forgotten world, bearing the fierce and hunted spirit of the early church. Their communities, composed of various Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant sects, have dwindled in the past century from a quarter to about 8 percent of the population as the current generation leaves for economic reasons, to escape the region's violence, or because they have relatives in the West who help them emigrate. Their departure, sadly, deprives the Levant of some of its best educated and most politically moderate citizens—the people these societies can least afford to lose. And so, for Jerusalem's Arab Christians, there is a giddiness during Easter, as if, after a long and lonely ordeal, much needed reinforcements have arrived.

In a small apartment on the outskirts of the city, a young Palestinian Christian couple I will call Lisa and Mark are preparing to enter the fray. Lisa, still in jeans and a T-shirt, is struggling to get their 18-month-old daughter, Nadia, into a white Easter dress. Mark, in his pajamas, is trying without success to prevent their three-year-old son, Nate, whose mood ricochets between Spiderman and Attila the Hun, from trashing the brand new pants-and-vest outfit they've wrestled him into—or the TV, or the painting of child Jesus on the wall, or the vase of flowers on the table. Mark, a big, hot-running guy, grimaces in exasperation. It's eight o'clock on a chilly morning in March, and he's already sweating profusely. Yet it's Easter, a time of optimism and hope, and a special one at that.

This is the first Easter, ever, that Mark has been allowed to spend with the family in Jerusalem. He is from Bethlehem, in the West Bank, so his identity papers are from the Palestinian Authority; he needs a permit from Israel to visit. Lisa, whose family lives in the Old City, holds an Israeli ID. So although they've been married for five years and rent this apartment in the Jerusalem suburbs, under Israeli law they can't reside under the same roof. Mark lives with his parents in Bethlehem, which is six miles away but might as well be a hundred, lying on the far side of an Israeli checkpoint and the 24-foot-high concrete barrier known as the Wall.

(Courtsey National Geographic Magazine)

Oldest Christian community

The only community in the West Bank that remains completely Christian is At Tayyibah, and three churches tend its 1,300 souls. The remains of El Khader (above), a cross-shaped church built sometime between the fourth and seventh centuries and rebuilt by 12th-century crusaders, still stand on the outskirts of the town. For nearly a millennium after Christ, such Christian villages dominated the rocky hilltops of Palestine, declared holy ground by the emperor Constantine after his conversion to Christianity in 312.

(National Geographic)

Number of IDPs has surpassed 2.5 million: NWFP minister

* Hussain says war on terror battle for survival of Pakistan
* Says 30-35 percent of Swat, Malakand division residents stranded in war zone

Staff Report

PESHAWAR: The total number of internally displaced families has reached 344,143, NWFP Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain said on Wednesday, adding this meant there were over 2.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

He told a press conference the number of relief camps would be increased by eight to cope with the influx of IDPs. He said the war on terror is not a war on Pushtoons, and is instead a battle for the survival of Pakistan that will continue until the terrorists are completely eradicated. Hussain said the provincial government had to care for a large number of IDPs, adding any administrative negligence would result in chaos. He said pedestal fans and water coolers were currently in great demand at the camps.

The minister expressed his gratitude for the help from Sindh, Balochistan and especially Punjab, adding the Punjab government had also assured more support in future. He said 14 trucks loaded with edibles had been donated by the Punjab government, adding the provincial government had requested 25,000 tents, 11,541 stoves and 162,543 water coolers.

Still stuck: He said the IDPs from Malakand division were being given priority, adding barbed wire fences had been erected to restrict the movement of people from outside the camp. He praised the services of officers working at the camps. However, he added, negligent officers would be punished and cited the sacking of the Charsadda Relief Camp in-charge. He said 30 to 35 percent of Swat and Malakand division residents were still stranded in the war zone.

Commenting on the relief efforts, the NWFP minister said the provincial government had already received containers of aid from UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Nahyan, and urged that the $110 million assistance announced by the US should not be delayed. He said the Muslim Commercial Bank had opened information counters in all camps.

Day dreaming

A month long elections are over in India and the Congress Party has made an easy victory. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is going to be elected for the same office. According to the Daily Times, the 76-year-old premier has said, “India’s new government will make security and promoting Hindu-Muslim tolerance a priority while continuing its focus on raising the economic prospects of the country’s millions of poor.” There might be time when our government officials at their win pledge to improve relations with religious minorities. However, this time is nowhere in sight and we can only wish and pray for it. Asif Aqeel

Life changes for Taiser Town Christian Colony

Thursday, May 21, 2009
By Waqar Bhatti

While life in a Christian slum area in Taiser Town, Sector 35-C, has returned to normal, the graffiti that led to violence which resulted in the killing a teenager, injuring several others, and the torching of several shops and homes in the vicinity, is still clearly visible on three or four churches in the locality.

People in the Christian colony say that their lives have been changed since April 22 this year when one morning they saw provocative slogans written on the walls of their worship places. Their ensuing protest had turned into a full-fledged battle with Pakhtoons living nearby.

“On April 22, some young boys saw provocative graffiti on the walls of our main church. As they were discussing who might have done it, people from other parts of the colony also came over, and reported similar graffiti on churches of their area too,” Danish, an ice-seller, told The News.

He said that only women and children were in their houses when the graffiti was discovered and they started gathering in an open ground adjacent to the main church in the locality. “Soon, there were hundreds of people, mostly women and children. They chanted slogans against those who had desecrated their worship place but they were unarmed as nobody in a minority locality dares to carry firearms,” he said.

According to Danish, while people of the locality were protesting, two men came over and attacked two Christian boys by shooting at one and hitting the other with an iron rod. “This infuriated the protesting youth and they started pelting the opponents with stones. The opponents retaliated by shooting at them,” he said, adding that following the shooting from the opponents, the protestors scattered and ran for cover to protect their lives.

Patras, a tailor by profession and a resident of the colony, claimed that after the firing, men entered homes in the area, burnt houses, shops and cabins and tried to kidnap women.

“The help arrived in the form of political activists. They were heavily armed and they returned the fire and protected us. Had they not been here, all our homes would have been burned, our valuables would have been stolen, and our women would have been kidnapped,” Patras claimed.

Many others in the locality were also full of praise for the political activists, saying they came for their help and protected them.

For the grandparents and mother of 12-year-old Imran Masih, who sustained a bullet wound and died in the hospital when he was returning home from school, however, April 22 was the ugliest day in their lives. Their child, who had nothing to do with any kind of politics, died for no fault of his own, his grandfather and mother said while holding Irfan MAsih’s younger siblings in their laps.

During the visit of the area, everything appeared normal, except for the graffiti on the walls of churches that was clearly visible and readable despite efforts to hide it with spray paint. A sole mobile van of the Rangers was also seen, parked at the entrance of the colony.

“These Rangers’ personnel are the only guarantee of our protection and we feel safe until they leave the area. Some political activists have also assured us of protection but they don’t remain present here all the time,” said Qayyum, another resident whose tyre-repairing cabin was burnt down by arsonists on April 22.

On the other hand, people in another locality adjacent to the Christian locality have quite a different tale to tell. They believe that they were targeted by an ethnic group by inciting the Christians against them.

“On that day, somebody wrote provocative slogans on the Church in the Christian area and they started protesting against the Pakhtoons although we had nothing to do with the graffiti. They started beating some Pakhtoons in the area, burnt their shops, hotels and some outsiders also started firing at us,” Zafar, a Pakhtoon living in the area, said. “Actually, the provocative slogan on the church was written by the same group, whose armed men reached there, incited Christians against us and even started a war against the Pakhtoons.”

“We have nothing to do with the Taliban as there are no extremists in the area. Only labourers, drivers and small vendors live in the Pakhtoon locality,” another Pakhtoon, Zargul, said.

They said that it was a conspiracy to target Pakhtoons in Karachi as the same was happening elsewhere in the city where labourers, drivers, tea-shop owners, bread-makers and vendors were being killed by the ethnic group by declaring them Taliban.

(International The News)

How Christians are under attack in Pakistan

By Joseph Dias

They have been branded and categorized “Kafirs” (infidels), even as Pakistan has always been ill-treating its minorities. Repeated civilian governments showed no interest in addressing their concerns. The Military Governments headed by Zia-ul-Haq and Parvez Musharraf were no better. During Zia’s rule section 295 - C was inserted in the Penal Code of Pakistan to harass the Christian minority and during Musharraf’s rule the Management of Sikh Guruduwaras in Pakistan was taken over from the Sikhs. Pakistan’s Evacuee Trust Property Board took over the 18th Century Guruduwaras in Lahore and allowed the invaders to replace the Sikh symbols on it by Islamic slogans. Section 295-C was used to sentence Christians to death on a single, simple unfounded accusation. Bishop Joseph’s martyrdom lends testimony to this fact.

On April 19, 2009 when on the Church walls in Karachi Islamic slogans were painted and when Christians erased the same they were beaten mercilessly and two Christians slaughtered in full public view, while the Police refused to intervene. Taliban militants are wasting no time, pressurizing minoities in Pakistan. Christians were attacked in Taiser Town, near Karachi, which is outside the area where the Taliban have instituted Sharia law. According to reports, at least three Christians were killed, including an 11-year-old boy. The Taliban were attacking a number of Christians who were removing messages that had been written on their church buildings and local homes - messages that called for Christians to renounce their faith and made demands to actually pay a jizye tax.

The jizya tax is tax levied on non-Muslims who are living in a Muslim area. In return, non-Muslim citizens were permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to the Muslim state's protection, to be exempted from military service and taxes levied upon Muslim citizens. The consolidation of fundamentalist forces in the country should rule out the possibility of any improvement in the minority situation. It is terribly shocking, that the fresh violation of the rights of minorities, guaranteed under Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan, has failed to register on the international radar.

Latest Report from Pakistan

Christian families in Karachi, Pakistan are locking themselves in their own homes following escalating violence against them in recent weeks, Catholic Mission Pakistan director, Fr Mario Rodrigues has said. ”Last week, six families' homes were burned to the ground, along with shops, and a number of churches in the locale of Taiser Town, Karachi,” Catholic Mission Australia reports.

Describing the violence, Fr Rodrigues said the perpetrators had "misbehaved with the women and asked them to accept Islam otherwise they will kill them." "They burnt the Holy Bibles and the worst, they have killed people (when) a group of 35 to 40 men armed with AK47, TT pistols, repeaters, and rifles and fired indiscriminately at the Christian community," Fr Rodrigues said.

Prior to the violence, vandals had left messages on the Church walls which included - "Long Live the Taliban" and "Long Live Al Qaeda". Women were beaten on the streets and dragged by their hair, and many people were injured, Fr Rodrigues reported.

An 11 year old boy was killed, after being shot in the head. He died days later in hospital. Police reportedly recovered an arms cache of semi-automatic pistols and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Martin Teulan, National Director of Catholic Mission Australia said he was surprised by the lack of coverage and shocked by the turmoil of not only properties destroyed, but lives lost. "This is shocking news, and our prayers are with Fr Rodrigues and all the people affected by this senseless violence," Mr Teulan said.

"We must be mindful of this as a sad reality for many people around the world, living with daily threats, not only to their livelihood, but to their lives. We call for Australians to gather in prayer for our friends in Pakistan, and particularly for those who have lost loved ones." The Pakistani Government advised the National Assembly earlier this month that 1,400 people have been killed in terrorist attacks in the last 15 months in this area.

Fr Rodrigues pleads with us: "So this is a request to stay in prayer at your own homes. I believe that God will listen and he will not bring us to the test."

Martin Teulan is calling for all to be prayerful for the people of Pakistan. This follows reports from Fr. Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, Director of the National Justice and Peace Commission of the Pakistani Bishop's Conference who also visited the areas affected by the violence.

Fr Emmanuel encouraged the community not to lose hope and to continue in constant prayer, without responding to the violence with violence. The people, he says "are mainly poor families, the working class and farmers who lead a simple and tranquil life."

Displaced Christians in Mardan Church

May 18: A boy displaced by the Malakand Agency area offensive rests inside a church in Mardan, Pakistan. About 100 people belonging to Christian and Hindu communities who fled from a military offensive in the Malakand Agency have taken refuge here.

Pakistan races to deal with 1.5 million refugees

By MUNIR AHMAD

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan said Tuesday it was racing to help refugees fleeing a military offensive against the Taliban in its northwest — an exodus of some 1.5 million with a speed and size the U.N. said could rival the displacement caused by Rwanda's genocide.

The humanitarian challenge comes as the military said its troops are fighting street battles against insurgents in key towns in Pakistan's Swat Valley and amid government denials that the country is expanding its nuclear stockpile.

Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed, who leads a group tasked with dealing with the uprooted Pakistanis, told reporters that the government had enough flour and other food for the displaced but said it needed donations of fans and high energy biscuits. He also said the refugees would get money and free transport when it was safe enough to return. A "camp is not a replacement for home," Ahmed said, adding there are at least 22 relief camps operating.

The U.S. has praised Pakistan's military operation in Swat and surrounding districts, which comes amid long-standing American pressure to root out al-Qaida and Taliban hide-outs along the border with Afghanistan. Militants in those sanctuaries threaten American and NATO troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan's own future, U.S. officials warn. Whether Pakistan's will to take on the militants will falter could depend on the fate of its displaced citizens, many now stuck in the sweltering camps. U.N. officials said Monday that nearly 1.5 million people had fled their homes in Pakistan this month.

"It has been a long time since there has been a displacement this big," Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency. Earlier offensives had caused another 550,000 people to flee, though Ahmed said Tuesday that 230,000 people had returned to Bajur, a tribal region overrun by the Taliban and targeted in a lengthy military operation.

In trying to recall another such displacement in so short a period, Redmond said, "it could go back to Rwanda" — a reference to the 1994 massacre of ethnic Tutsis by the majority Hutus in the African country. The genocide displaced some 2 million people. The U.N. believes around 15 percent to 20 percent of the Pakistani displaced are in camps at the moment — around 250,000 in some 24 camps, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said. Most others are probably staying with host families, rented accommodation or other places. Holmes' estimate appeared at odds with a U.N. statement that said 130,950 people had been registered in camps. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the difference. "The situation is volatile and changing rapidly," Holmes told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Redmond, speaking in Geneva, said a lack of help for the displaced and the many thousands of families hosting them could cause more "political destabilization" for the country. At a congressional panel last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked whether there was evidence that Pakistan was adding to its nuclear weapons systems and warheads during what is a sensitive time. He simply replied: "Yes."

But Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira denied that assertion Monday. "Pakistan does not need to expand its nuclear arsenal, but we want to make it clear that we will maintain a minimum nuclear deterrence that is essential for our defense and stability," he said. "We will not make any compromise." Pakistan, a poor country of 170 million people, is thought to possess more than 60 nuclear weapons under a program that began when its traditional enemy, India, started producing them.

The advance of the Taliban has raised some concerns in the West that the weapons may one day fall into militant hands. A more likely scenario, analysts say, is that Islamists may infiltrate its nuclear facilities and get hold of nuclear knowledge and material.

Pakistan says more than 1,000 militants have been killed so far in the offensive, a claim impossible to verify because journalists have largely been barred from the battle zone. It has not given any figures for civilian casualties, but refugees say they have occurred.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Monday that infantry troops were moving into the main towns of the region after three weeks of mostly aerial bombardment of insurgent positions, camps and training grounds in the hills.

He said the army wanted a "quick and speedy operation so we can clear the area and allow the internally displaced people to return."

Associated Press writers Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva and Edith M. Lederer in New York contributed to this report.

Editorial: A broader front against Taliban

President Asif Ali Zardari said Sunday that the Pakistan Army would be going into other tribal areas of the country in the hunt for the Taliban. He explained that the army had 150,000 troops there and it was already costing a billion dollars; an expansion would depend on how much the world would want to help. The collateral fallout will include more refugees, but then their quick return would depend very much on the success of the army operations. And for all this the world would have to help financially because Pakistan was in the eye of a global Taliban threat.

For the first time, Pakistan seems to be truly grasped of the situation. The operation in Swat is going well, judging from the very favourable casualty count of the enemy. But all analysts agree that the dwindling Taliban force will in time be reinforced from other parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that abut on Malakand Division. Also, for the first time there is almost a complete national consensus behind the plan to start wider operations. In fact, for the first time, the religious-clerical community has voiced its opposition to the Taliban brand of Islam, or at least the majority school of thought has dared to speak against a force that has hounded them over the years into submission.

There are, however, political problems within this consensus that will have to be faced squarely. The political parties have overt and covert agendas which they insist on expressing through various levels of “objection” to the military operation. From the extreme view, that our army is merely fighting America’s war and killing its own people, to the less extreme view that some parties were not consulted to avoid “talking” to the Taliban, the disagreement is very much there and can become more strident in the face of the attrition of fighting an insurgency involving foreign infiltrators.

The way the people at large have reacted to the savagery of the Taliban against the people of Swat is sure to make the resolve to fight the terrorists more firm. The resolve to take on the Taliban in FATA clearly demonstrates this new confidence. The Taliban must be stopped from coming to the help of warlord Fazlullah, and that can be done only by engaging the other warlord Baitullah Mehsud. Swat can be “conquered” and the refugees could start returning, only to find that Baitullah has sent in his people from South Waziristan to start the massacre all over again.

The triangle of discord in Karachi over the presence or non-presence of the Taliban in the mega-city unfolds with three coalition partners in the government steadily losing their men to “unknown” killers. After muhajirs and Pashtuns, now the PPP leaders at the local level are getting killed. Sadly, the three parties suspect one another of having carried out the killings. The MQM is seen as being alarmist about the swelling of the Taliban ranks in Karachi but, despite reports supporting this point of view, the other two insist that the Pashtun of Karachi are not terrorists. The police, however, go on reporting the arrest of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and their rank and file who confess that their men come to Karachi to get medical treatment and to take rest.

International opinion has turned in favour of Pakistan since the military operation began in Malakand Division. This is understandable because the policy of “talking” to the Taliban and making “peace deals” with them was seen, correctly, by world leaders as a policy of dereliction. When Islamabad and Rawalpindi decided finally to grasp the nettle of Taliban treachery, this opinion softened and is now inclined to help Pakistan financially as its army mobilises.

Therefore, for now at least, Pakistan is well set to face up to the menace of the Taliban without taking an economic nosedive. It now depends on our internecine politicians to keep the national consensus against terrorism intact and bite the bullet of some collateral damage in the coming days.

(Daily Times)

Conference on Religious Minorities and Oppressed Nations in Pakistan: ‘Minorities’ rights should be practically ensured’

* Conference organised to commemorate Bishop John Joseph’s death anniversary
* BNP leader asks how minorities can get their rights if ‘nations’ like Baloch and Sindhis do not

Staff Report

LAHORE: The rights of minorities should be practically ensured as Pakistan came into being as a socio-democratic liberal progressive model, speakers at a conference on Religious Minorities and Oppressed Nations in Pakistan said on Sunday.

They said the current state of minorities in the country was not satisfactory. The conference was jointly organised by the Minority Rights Commission and the Minorities Movement for Democracy to commemorate the 11th death anniversary of Bishop John Joseph. Speaking at the occasion, former minister for parliamentary affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi said under the constitution of Pakistan, minorities’ rights were well protected. He said minorities’ voters were allowed to cast two votes, one to their own candidate and another to a Muslim candidate, adding that this proved their superiority in this matter. He said a new province by the name of Siraykistan should be formed, adding that it could be the solution to several problems. He said amendments in the constitution were made by rulers to perpetuate their regime. Talking to reporters, Niazi said the operation in Swat was inevitable as it was necessary to get the areas vacated from the Taliban. To a question on the judiciary’s freedom, he said: “In India, the biggest democracy of the world, they have taken back the authority of suo motu notice from the judiciary. By using this authority, a court can summon anybody and humiliate him or her over any reason. When we talk about the checks and balances, nobody should be given absolute authority.” He said minorities were protected under the constitution, adding that they should read it to learn about their rights.

Rights: Balochistan National Party (BNP) leader Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch said the civilian bureaucracy from Punjab had always kept exploiting the rights of the Balochis, Sindhis, Pathans and even other Punjabis. He said when nations like Balochis and Sindhis were not able to get their constitutional rights than it would be extremely difficult for a minority to get its rights. He said Balochistan had a coastal line of 770 kilometres, adding that it was of great strategic importance. He said the civil and military bureaucracy had occupied precious land in the province and the locals’ hatred for them was increasing daily. Balochistan National Party (BNP) leader Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch said the civilian bureaucracy from Punjab had always kept exploiting the rights of the Balochis, Sindhis, Pathans and even other Punjabis. He said when nations like Balochis and Sindhis were not able to get their constitutional rights than it would be extremely difficult for a minority to get its rights. He said Balochistan had a coastal line of 770 kilometres, adding that it was of great strategic importance. He said the civil and military bureaucracy had occupied precious land in the province and the locals’ hatred for them was increasing daily.

Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) leader Qazi Abdullah Khamoosh said practical steps taken by Quaid-e-Azam showed he wanted to make Pakistan a secular state. “The first law minister of Pakistan was a Hindu and the first foreign minister was an Ahmedi. Both were appointed by Quaid-e-Azam himself,” he said.

(Daily Times)

Christian women face unknown world in Pakistan

During the recent days of battle in the northwest region of the Swat Valley, minority groups are leaving as quickly as possible. Although the majority of religious minorities in the Swat Valley are ethnic Pushtuns, with Sunni religious beliefs, Christian minority women and their families are also part of the fleeing force of refugees.

As violence continues between 4,000 Taliban splinter groups and Islamabad soldiers in the conflict of war, Christian minority refugees, global rescue agencies and Pakistan’s own army leaders nervously wait to see who, in the end, will end up controlling the region. Some Christian women and their families will be forced to stay behind as they have been unable to leave due to the expense of travel. Those who join the 100 degree Fahrenheit refugee camps also face problems with the sharing in handouts of food, an activity that is usually segregated among Sikhs, Hindus and Christians.

“Christian, Hindu and Sikh families have been forced to flee because the Taliban imposed on them Jizia, a tax levied on non-Muslims living under Islamic rule,” said Catholic Archbishop, Lawrence John Saldanha, in a letter released by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. “Now minority communities in the province are forced to endure unemployment, intimidation and migration,” continued the Archbishop’s message.

90% of Pakistani Christians live in Punjab with 50% living in rural villages. “Less than 2% of Pakistanis are Christians,” says a 2008 CNS – Catholic News Service report, although this number has been more recently set by United Nations agencies at a larger 4%. Half of Pakistan’s Christian minority population is Catholic, the other half Protestant.

Pakistan’s religious minorities

Minority religions and sectarian groups in Pakistan come from a vast collection of religious diversity which includes Christians, Buddhists, Ahmadis, Zikris, Hindus, Kalasha, Parsis, Sikhs and Shia Muslim sects, including Ismailis and Bohras. Ethnic regional groups come from 5 different communities, including the Baloch, Muhajir, Punjabis, Pushtuns and Sindhis.

Although 25% of religious minority women are not considered disadvantaged, Christian minority women who live on the bottom of society face many untold limitations. A policy of “living invisibly” with family members is often the only answer for protection for many minority Christian families who suffer under the great specter of poverty in Pakistan.

The most recent Pakistan 1998 census shows minority totals in the country to number somewhere between 11 to 13 million. Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus claim to have a population of 4 million each.

Marginalization of Christian minority women

Most of the families of Christian minority women in Punjab came, at the turn of the 20th century, from families that were originally from India. They came from dalit Hindu families who moved to what would later become the Pakistan region in 1947. Their legacy of isolation and separation from Indian society is ongoing. As dalits they were part of the lowest “untouchable” caste in India. This has been a nemesis that has followed them, even after they converted from Hinduism to Christianity. Basic women’s rights and human rights are often out of reach for these women who daily experience conditions of extreme poverty.

Dalit Christian women who have been severely marginalized often suffer from a shortage of even the simplest basic needs. Lack of health care is common. Slum conditions can also be found where families are forced to live on the streets or to live together in crowded poorly constructed shelters, amid garbage, toxic chemicals and refuse. Their structures often have no electricity, heat or clean water.

Because of these conditions, many dalit Christian women fall into lifetime careers as sewer cleaners, domestic servants or brick kiln workers. Payments for these positions are painfully low, or at times non-existent. Some employers give payment loans ahead to trap minority women, preventing them from ever paying the loans back as they continue to work for free on wheels of never ending debt bondage.

University educated Christian minority women, on the other hand, have quite an opposite experience. Because they are usually supported by family or a husband with money they fare much better among Pakistani society. These women usually have comfortable standards of living, a home their family owns and personal time for leisure activities. They also have much greater freedom with contacts and life opportunities.

The act of clustering poor dalit Christian minority women and families on church owned land or “colonies” has contributed to a much deeper degree of cultural segregation. While isolation and clustering is meant to provide safety, at times it has created more danger for families, as Islamic extremist groups identify Christian community locations to specifically plan their attacks.

A survey of Christian minority women in society

When a 2006 University of Birmingham, UK study was conducted among a wide span of Christian minority women in Pakistan, all women did mention that they had experienced what they called Muslim “name calling.” One derogatory name which is used commonly in Pakistan is “sweeper” which refers to the “worst of all” – a dalit Christian.

Both educated and uneducated Christian women admitted that they had been asked numerous times by others if they would convert to Islam. Some also experienced reverse discrimination when they befriended someone Muslim, as some of their Christian friends criticized them. One student said that her marks at school were lowered when her teacher realized she was Christian, but she also added her experience was, “not that difficult.”

Those who come from much greater disadvantaged backgrounds, on the other hand, shared much more serious grievances.

Women from disadvantaged backgrounds described how legal and police protection systems in Pakistan had failed minorities. For a few, this included their own experience or someone they knew who had experienced rape, assault or torture as Police forces did little to nothing to help them. In contrast, one woman who had police fail to protect her and her family, admitted enthusiastically that the Muslim owner of the factory where she worked “very happily” gave her a position of “influence” at her workplace.

“The general attitude in Pakistan is that if you are rich you are respectable and if you are poor you are not,” said another woman interviewed. Consensus in attitudes among all the women pointed to feelings that the less educated and “poorer” Muslims were, the more like they were to act from a “habit of discrimination.”

Literacy challenges for women in Pakistan’s Christian minority

As the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) gathered data on education for women in Pakistan (with the help of 900 civil and rights groups), in 2007, their shadow report revealed, “Pakistan has an extremely low female literacy rate with higher drop-out rates among girls before completing primary education. The social norms and practices prefer boys over girls for better education…”

Statistics show that education for the poorest ethnic and religious minority women has constantly been placed at the very bottom of Pakistan’s educational system goals.

With such little opportunity for public education in rural areas, the best chance for poor Christian minority girls to receive literacy training is for them to attend a Christian parochial school. Even this is often very difficult as Islamic Madrasas schools are moving to close all existing programs for minority girls education across Pakistan.

“We are at the beginning of a great storm that is about to sweep the country,” said Ibn Abduh Rehman, who directs the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization. “It’s red alert for Pakistan.”

“The mindset wants to stop music, girls schools and festivals,” said Salman Abid, a social researcher in southern Punjab. Because of the rapid expansion of Madrasas schools in northern Pakistan, vandalism and burning of Christian schools and buildings has been increasing since 2002.

Attacks in the Muree region on a Christian school and violence against a chapel in Taxila Hospital have both been attributed to small terrorist groups like the (LJ) Lashkar i Jhangvi, a small Sunni splinter group numbering approx 100 members.

(Women News Network)

Murdered Pakistani girl may not receive justice

The murderers of a young Pakistani Christian girl may never be brought to justice as authorities end their search for her killers.

Nisha Javid, nine, was walking near her home in the Punjab on Maundy Thursday this year when she was kidnapped, gang raped, beaten to death and left in a canal.
Christians in the area believe the attack was meant to intimidate them, coming as it did the day before Good Friday.

Now police have stopped looking for the perpetrators of the crime, reports Voice of the Martyrs Canada. Christians in Pakistan often struggle to receive justice in the legal system as their testimonies are not regarded as valid compared to Muslim testimonies. A Christian man’s testimony is worth half of that of a Muslim man, while a Christian woman’s testimony is worth a quarter of a Muslim man's, meaning that crimes committed by Muslims against Christians often go unpunished, especially in cases of rape.

Recently another child, a boy aged 11, was killed by anti-Christian groups near his church. According to Voice of the Martyrs Canada many such attacks are not planned but happen when Christians get in the way of Muslims.

(Christian Today)

Christians Pressed as Pakistani Military Battles Taliban

Residents flee Swat Valley where fight rages with Islamist insurgents.

By Michael Larson

ISTANBUL, Pakistani Christians in Swat Valley are caught between the Taliban and Pakistan’s military as it assaults the stronghold where sharia (Islamic law) rules.

Nearly 15,000 troops have been deployed in the picturesque Swat Valley in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and neighboring Afghanistan. Troops came after months of peace negotiations collapsed between the Taliban Islamist insurgents who have imposed sharia in the valley and the central government last month. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have fled the war-ravaged area for fear of a full military assault.

On May 10 (Sunday) the army ordered residents to flee Swat Valley during a lull in fighting. Aid groups estimate that as many as 1.3 million could be displaced by the fighting, according to The Guardian.

Christians are particularly vulnerable in the mass exodus. Working as poor day laborers, they occupy the lowest rung of the social ladder and have little money for costly transport or to stock up on resources before fleeing.
“Christians are poor, and like in any conflict, the prices of transportation and commodities skyrocket,” said Ashar Dean, assistant director of communication of the Church of Pakistan Peshawar diocese. “Some had to go on foot to flee the valley.”

The Taliban had ratcheted up pressure on Christians, other religious minorities and liberal Muslims in Swat to live according to Islamic fundamentalist norms. They were forced to grow beards and don Islamic attire for fear of their safety in an attempt to blend in with Muslim residents of Swat.

Many Christians also fled for insufficient funds to pay the jizye, a poll tax under sharia paid by non-Muslims for protection if they decline to convert to Islam.

In February the Pakistani government ceded control of Swat valley to the Taliban, who imposed their version of sharia and established clerical rule over the legal system. But Christians had seen warning signs long before the formal sharia announcement. In the past year the Taliban burned or bombed more than 200 girls’ schools in Swat, including one that housed a Catholic church.
Religious minorities live in a precarious situation in the Muslim-dominated country. The legal system informally discriminates against non-Muslims, and in recent years Christian villages have been ransacked by Muslim mobs incited by dubious reports that a Quran had been desecrated.

The Taliban’s attempts to spread out from Swat into neighboring areas, however, have increased feelings of insecurity among the nation’s 3 million Christians.

“The threat of the Taliban is a hanging sword above the necks of Christians,” said Sohail Johnson, chief coordinator of Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan. “Christians could be in the situation where they would have to accept Islam or die.”

Swat Christians Flee

Approximately 40-60 Christian families lived in Swat as congregants at the Church of Pakistan. But since Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani on April 8 announced a military mission into Swat, nearly all have fled to nearby districts.
Most are in refugee housing in Mardan in the NWFP. They stay in a technical school owned by the Church of Pakistan, a congregation composed of Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Lutherans

The school dismissed its students for the school year early to make room for the refugees. Opening its doors to the displaced Christians was necessary due to government inaction toward religious minorities, said Yousaf Benjamin of the
National Commission for Justice and Peace.

“The government is giving protection to Muslims, but the Christians are through waiting for their services,” he said.

Similar measures are being employed in hundreds of schools. To provide for the massive influx in refugees, the Pakistan government ended the school year early in districts near Swat and opened the schools to refugees for temporary housing. Teachers are also assisting in the humanitarian relief effort, Benjamin said.
Some Christians have complained of facing discrimination in refugee camps. Government relief workers forbade Christians, Hindus and Sikhs from setting up tents or eating with Muslim refugees, according to online news site Christian Today.

But ultimately Christians will not be able to return to Swat Valley unless the Taliban threat is completely removed, Christian relief groups said. Their possessions and property will otherwise always be under threat.

“Christians will face terrible persecution if the Taliban is not controlled by the government,” Johnson said. “They will easily attack churches, schools and other Christian institutions.”

Rehman Malik, the interior minister, said Pakistan’s military operation would continue until the last Taliban fighter had been ousted. Since April 8, government troops have killed an estimated 751 militants.

There are believed to be 5,000 Taliban militants in Swat Valley. The government hopes to minimize civilian casualties through precision air strikes and delivering emergency humanitarian aid.

Pakistan’s government has come under harsh national and international criticism for its negotiations with the Taliban and ceding control of Swat. They fear the Taliban could seize control of the nation’s nuclear weapons.

Searching for peace

Qulsoom Riasat stands at the burned door of her home in the Christian slum at Teisar Town in Karachi, Pakistan. A mob of men shouting pro-Taliban slogans stormed the area last month.
(Associated Press)

Pakistani minorities fall prey to Taliban

Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus tell of new attacks and threats. "We feel we have no protection," one cleric said.

By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press

KARACHI, Pakistan - Fauzia Abrar had finally gotten her crying baby to sleep when screaming men pounded on the steel doors of her home in the mostly Christian slum in the port city of Karachi.

Suddenly she heard shots, and the screaming grew louder: "Long live Taliban! Death to infidels!" The men forced their way into her house, hurled loose tiles and a glass at her and fired a shot. She fainted. As the Taliban gains a stronger foothold in Pakistan, increasingly violent assaults against religious minorities are further evidence of its growing power and influence.

In dozens of interviews from Karachi to Peshawar, Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus told of attacks and threats and expressed an overwhelming sense of fear. The watchdog Minority Rights Group International lists Pakistan as seventh on the list of 10 most dangerous countries for minorities, after Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, and Congo.

"In Pakistan today there is a lot of feeling of fear by all the minorities," said the Rev. Richard D'Souza of St. Jude Church in Karachi. "We feel we have no protection." The trouble in D'Souza's parish started with graffiti on the church walls praising the Taliban and Islamic law, and condemning Christians as infidels. Young Christians in the neighborhood protested. Within days, 25 burly, bearded men rampaged through the neighborhood, beating Christians, pelting women with stones and setting fire to houses. An 11-year-old boy was killed. "The police never helped. None of us had weapons. The police just stood there," said Imran Masih, 26, who spent 10 days in the hospital after a bullet pierced his neck.

Dozens of Christian families fled. D'Souza said the parish is thinking of forming its own armed youth brigades. When he asked the government for armored personnel carriers, he said, two bored-looking policemen showed up for the Easter Sunday service and were gone the next day. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities affairs, said the government is trying to stop the Taliban through military operations. "Minorities can be easy and soft targets of these extremists, but these Taliban are committing such violent acts that everyone feels fear in their presence - the minority and the majority in Pakistan," said Bhatti, a Christian. Religious minorities represent 5 percent of Pakistan's 160 million people, according to the CIA World Factbook.

But Michael Javed, director of a peace council and a minister in southern Sindh, charged that census takers intentionally keep minority figures low to deny them greater representation. Christians alone represent 5 to 6 percent of the population, he said. Frightened Christians are trying to arm themselves, Javed said, pulling out a bulging file with more than 60 applications to buy weapons. Even Shiite Muslims have come under attack as the Sunni Taliban tears through the tribal areas. In the past two years, the Taliban has embraced a violently anti-Shiite group, Lashkar-e-Janghvi, unleashing a fresh wave of bitter bloodletting. More than 500 Shiite Muslims in the Kurram tribal agency have been killed in daily attacks.

The Taliban issued an ultimatum in March to the elders of 25 Sikh families in the Orakzai tribal agency near the Afghan border: Convert to Islam, join the jihad or pay 5 billion rupees - roughly $62 million - for protection.
"We couldn't pay that amount. We were farmers," said a young Sikh who asked to be identified only as Singh, because he was too terrified to give his full name or location. In a nervous whisper he recalled the Taliban's threat to take a Sikh leader to South Waziristan to decide his fate if the money wasn't paid.
The villagers persuaded the Taliban to reduce the amount to 12 million rupees or $150,000 - still a princely sum for the Sikh community. But Singh said they raised enough money to get their elder released, with a promise to pay the rest by March 29.

On March 28, he said, the Sikhs paid the full amount, and the Taliban promised to protect them. By 10 p.m. that day, the Taliban told Sikh elders they were preparing to attack. By 2 a.m., the elders had packed everyone into cars and trucks, and more than 150 Sikhs fled to Peshawar, the provincial capital. "What are we to do? We have nothing," Singh said. "We have asked the government of Pakistan, either relocate us to somewhere safe or send us to India." The lives of Hindus also are in danger, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Last month, extremists attacked a Hindu Holi religious festival not far from the border with India, setting fire to a Hindu temple and destroying shops. Last year, a young Hindu worker was beaten to death at a factory in Karachi by fellow workers who accused him of insulting Islam. "We are under more and more of a threat because of these extremists, but we ourselves feel if we take the wrong step, even to tell of the wrong things, then it will be death for us," said Amarnath Motumal, a lawyer and head of the Karachi Hindu Panchayat, representing Hindus.