The General Secretary of a fundamentalist Muslim party in Pakistan accused a Christian girl of blasphemy, taking her to the police who interrogated her for 16 hours.
On June 3, Muhammad Abid Raza returned to his home in Kharian to find that his younger brother had saved burnt pages of the Koran in plastic bags which he claimed had been burned by their Christian neighbor, Nazia. Even though it was 10pm, Raza said that he immediately alerted the Saddar Police Station.
The next day, police arrived at Nazia's home and took her and her family members to the police station for questioning, where they kept her for 16 hours. Police realized she was mentally challenged when she failed to respond clearly to basic questions. When police asked her name, she responded, "Nadia." A few moments later she suddenly said, "No, my name is Shaista," and then, "No, my name may be Nazia."
Raza did his own research after accusing her of blasphemy, inquiring about her from neighbors and discussing the issue with Muslim clerics. His investigation led him to drop his charges against Nazia and request that police set her free on June 5.
Jeremy Sewall, ICC's Advocacy Director, said, "There are two major concerns with this story. First, this is another example of why Pakistan's blasphemy laws are morally and legally bankrupt. Second, it shows that not even the mentally challenged are adequately protected from harassment and persecution. Praise God that Nazia was released, but her case illustrates exactly why Pakistan must repeal its extremist blasphemy laws."
[With Thanks from ASSIST News Service (ANS)]
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Bombing in Pakistan injures Christians
Pakistan (MNN) ― The sound of a parcel bomb exploding rang out in the streets of Hasilpur, Pakistan, in the Bahawalpur district last Saturday, June 13.
According to International Christian Concern, at least ten Christians were injured in the attack. Among the injured were four women and two children listed in very critical condition.
The incident was only one in a recent number of attacks against Christians and other minorities in Pakistan. Another incident occurred on May 9, when a Christian was beaten and stabbed to death for drinking tea in a Muslim-only tea stall.
Since the military campaign against the Taliban began, “the country has … witnessed spiraling violence targeting minorities,” according to ICC.
However, the explosion was not reported in the news, and Nazir S. Bhatti, chief of Pakistan Christian Congress, believed "the news was not highlighted in media due to Christians being targeted," ICC reports. He also said the Pakistani government censored the incident "to avoid international pressure and mounting human rights violations."
According to other sources, Pastor Salim Sadiq of Holy Spirit Church in Karachi said the community has been attacked because Islamic extremists have sworn to avenge "the suffering of their brotherhood."
Please pray for the Christian minority in Pakistan as they face increased persecution. Pray that they will remain strong, even in the face of death.
For updates on this and other stories, go to persecution.org.
(Mission Network News0
According to International Christian Concern, at least ten Christians were injured in the attack. Among the injured were four women and two children listed in very critical condition.
The incident was only one in a recent number of attacks against Christians and other minorities in Pakistan. Another incident occurred on May 9, when a Christian was beaten and stabbed to death for drinking tea in a Muslim-only tea stall.
Since the military campaign against the Taliban began, “the country has … witnessed spiraling violence targeting minorities,” according to ICC.
However, the explosion was not reported in the news, and Nazir S. Bhatti, chief of Pakistan Christian Congress, believed "the news was not highlighted in media due to Christians being targeted," ICC reports. He also said the Pakistani government censored the incident "to avoid international pressure and mounting human rights violations."
According to other sources, Pastor Salim Sadiq of Holy Spirit Church in Karachi said the community has been attacked because Islamic extremists have sworn to avenge "the suffering of their brotherhood."
Please pray for the Christian minority in Pakistan as they face increased persecution. Pray that they will remain strong, even in the face of death.
For updates on this and other stories, go to persecution.org.
(Mission Network News0
Muslims Halt Construction of Church Wall for Livestock
WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 18, 2009) - International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that four radical Muslims are trying to stop Christians in Pakistan from building a boundary wall around the only church in their village because the Muslims use the church’s land to stable their livestock. To make matters worse, the police are refusing to defend the rights of Christians to build on their own property.
There are about 100 Christian families living in the village of Chung Khurd in the suburbs of Lahore Cantt who say they have peacefully co-existed with their Muslim neighbors for many years. Even though there have been Christians in this village for decades, it was not until last year that the community was able to pool funds to construct a church there. This year, the community raised money to construct a boundary wall around the church to keep out animals and thieves.
There are about 100 Christian families living in the village of Chung Khurd in the suburbs of Lahore Cantt who say they have peacefully co-existed with their Muslim neighbors for many years. Even though there have been Christians in this village for decades, it was not until last year that the community was able to pool funds to construct a church there. This year, the community raised money to construct a boundary wall around the church to keep out animals and thieves.
On May 3, they began construction of the boundary wall. Just a few hours after they had started working, a group of four Muslim neighbors, accompanied by police, approached the worksite and said they had a stay order from the courthouse to stop construction of the boundary wall.
The next day, the head representative of the Christian community, Bashir Masih, went to the police station to complain to the officer in charge. He was able to obtain a meeting with the Station House Officer on May 7, but when he arrived at the scheduled time, the officer refused to meet with him. Instead, the officer’s assistant told Bashir that the Muslims had the right to stop the church’s construction project.
Bashir told ICC that most of the Muslim residents of the village are in favor of the church being able to build the boundary wall. Only four men oppose it: Shaukat Shad, Mohammad Yousaf, Mohammad Abbas and Mohammad Akbar Bhatti. The reason why these four men oppose the construction of the boundary wall is that the church is located in a central position in the village and they use the premises of the church to park their cars and stable their cows and buffaloes.
On May 14, a group of Muslims told Bashir that the courthouse had scheduled a hearing on their case for May 26, even though they had not served notice to the church. In addition, police officers keep threatening the church not to work on the boundary wall, and claim it is because they are preparing a police report on the situation.
Despite repeated requests, the Station House Officer refused to speak to ICC.
Would you speak up for Bashir Masih and the Christians in Chung Khurd? Please call the Pakistani embassy in your country and ask them to give Christians equal and fair treatment in this case.
Source: International Christian Concern
There are about 100 Christian families living in the village of Chung Khurd in the suburbs of Lahore Cantt who say they have peacefully co-existed with their Muslim neighbors for many years. Even though there have been Christians in this village for decades, it was not until last year that the community was able to pool funds to construct a church there. This year, the community raised money to construct a boundary wall around the church to keep out animals and thieves.
There are about 100 Christian families living in the village of Chung Khurd in the suburbs of Lahore Cantt who say they have peacefully co-existed with their Muslim neighbors for many years. Even though there have been Christians in this village for decades, it was not until last year that the community was able to pool funds to construct a church there. This year, the community raised money to construct a boundary wall around the church to keep out animals and thieves.
On May 3, they began construction of the boundary wall. Just a few hours after they had started working, a group of four Muslim neighbors, accompanied by police, approached the worksite and said they had a stay order from the courthouse to stop construction of the boundary wall.
The next day, the head representative of the Christian community, Bashir Masih, went to the police station to complain to the officer in charge. He was able to obtain a meeting with the Station House Officer on May 7, but when he arrived at the scheduled time, the officer refused to meet with him. Instead, the officer’s assistant told Bashir that the Muslims had the right to stop the church’s construction project.
Bashir told ICC that most of the Muslim residents of the village are in favor of the church being able to build the boundary wall. Only four men oppose it: Shaukat Shad, Mohammad Yousaf, Mohammad Abbas and Mohammad Akbar Bhatti. The reason why these four men oppose the construction of the boundary wall is that the church is located in a central position in the village and they use the premises of the church to park their cars and stable their cows and buffaloes.
On May 14, a group of Muslims told Bashir that the courthouse had scheduled a hearing on their case for May 26, even though they had not served notice to the church. In addition, police officers keep threatening the church not to work on the boundary wall, and claim it is because they are preparing a police report on the situation.
Despite repeated requests, the Station House Officer refused to speak to ICC.
Would you speak up for Bashir Masih and the Christians in Chung Khurd? Please call the Pakistani embassy in your country and ask them to give Christians equal and fair treatment in this case.
Source: International Christian Concern
Pakistan Christian Student “Too Ugly” To Study Science
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 (12:32 pm)
By Jawad Mazhar, BosNewsLife Special Correspondent reporting from Pakistan
MIANWALI, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A talented Christian student has been deniedadmission to Science studies at a girls high school in Pakistan because the Muslim school principal regards her as "too ugly" to participate, her father said Wednesday, June 17.
Abdullah Masih said the female principal of the Government Girls’ Mian Shahbaz SharifHigh School in the Pakistani city of Mianwali told his 14-year-old daughter Uzma Noreen: "Your ugly face is not fit for Science studies."The principal, who is also a science teacher and known only as Sofia, declined to discuss the situation in details, but made clear she had not changed her opinion about the Christian sudent.
DAUGHTER DEVASTATED
Masih, 42, told BosNewsLife his daughter was devastated. "Besides humiliating my daughter" the principal "also wrecked her educational career,” he added in a telephone interview. He said his daughter was punished for her Christian faith as she apparently scored most points of students participating in "the final examination of class eight" a key condition for Science studies in class nine."Her name was at the top of the list of students to whom admission in Science subjects was granted...Now she is rejected merely for being Christian," Masih claimed. "She was also told she is an ugly Christian girl and therefore her face does not appear to be fitting for Science studies in higher classes."This is no isolated incident, rights groups suggest. In recent months and years, several Christian students have reportedly been forced to leave educational institutions in Pakistan because of their faith.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Christians say they are getting threats of suicide bombs
By Anto Akkara, June 16, 2009
[Ecumenical News International, New Delhi] Christians in Pakistan say they are being threatened with violence by extremist groups claiming to represent Islam and they hope that a government offensive against militants in the Muslim nation will succeed.
Christian groups say extremists in a number of instances had given them a choice -- embrace Islam or ready themselves for attacks by suicide bombers.
Two masked young men riding motorbikes without registration numbers in the Pakistan city of Lahore on June 10 threatened to blow up the Rabita Manzil, a complex that houses several Roman Catholic groups, including the church's communications office.
The militants told a Catholic teacher living next to the complex that his family had to give up their Christian faith and pay a 1.5 million Pakistan rupee (US$18,500) fine or "be ready to be blown up in a suicide bomb attack.""We are really worried. The situation here is such that anything can happen anywhere," the Rev. Nadeem John Shakir, the director of the Catholic center, told Ecumenical News International.Shakir issued a press statement after the threat and police have stationed two guards at the entrance to the center.
More than three million civilians have fled the mountainous North West Frontier Province since early May, according to emergency aid groups, after the Pakistan government decided to break a pact it had struck with some Taliban groups. Government forces began to storm the strongholds of extremist militia.In February, in a bid to halt hostilities in the troubled regions around the Swat Valley and other districts, the Pakistan government had succumbed to a Taliban demand for the introduction of Sharia, an Islamic legal system, in the region, thereby rendering the constitution and the judicial system redundant.
Residents gave accounts of Islamic militants enforcing their writ ruthlessly, closing hundreds of schools educating girls, including Christian educational establishments. They forced many of those in the tiny Christian minority there to embrace Islam under threat of death, or quit the region. They also introduced jazia, a religious tax imposed only on minorities in other areas.The Pentecostal Bible school in Quetta was closed indefinitely in May, a month after Taliban militants threatened a suicide bomb attack.
On June 12, Allama Sarfaraz Ahmed Naeemi, an eminent Muslim religious scholar, was killed in a suicide attack at his seminary in Lahore. Reports said he had been targeted by extremists claiming to represent Islam after he had declared suicide bombing as un-Islamic. He had also supported the crackdown on Taliban groups in the region bordering Afghanistan.Following the killing of the cleric, church groups decided to scale down a major ecumenical march they had planned for the day to protest against "increasing attacks on minorities by fundamentalists.""We had only a token program and around 250 Christians took part in it," Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, told ENI. "We are keeping a low profile these days. The situation is not a very happy one."
(Episcopal Life Online)
[Ecumenical News International, New Delhi] Christians in Pakistan say they are being threatened with violence by extremist groups claiming to represent Islam and they hope that a government offensive against militants in the Muslim nation will succeed.
Christian groups say extremists in a number of instances had given them a choice -- embrace Islam or ready themselves for attacks by suicide bombers.
Two masked young men riding motorbikes without registration numbers in the Pakistan city of Lahore on June 10 threatened to blow up the Rabita Manzil, a complex that houses several Roman Catholic groups, including the church's communications office.
The militants told a Catholic teacher living next to the complex that his family had to give up their Christian faith and pay a 1.5 million Pakistan rupee (US$18,500) fine or "be ready to be blown up in a suicide bomb attack.""We are really worried. The situation here is such that anything can happen anywhere," the Rev. Nadeem John Shakir, the director of the Catholic center, told Ecumenical News International.Shakir issued a press statement after the threat and police have stationed two guards at the entrance to the center.
More than three million civilians have fled the mountainous North West Frontier Province since early May, according to emergency aid groups, after the Pakistan government decided to break a pact it had struck with some Taliban groups. Government forces began to storm the strongholds of extremist militia.In February, in a bid to halt hostilities in the troubled regions around the Swat Valley and other districts, the Pakistan government had succumbed to a Taliban demand for the introduction of Sharia, an Islamic legal system, in the region, thereby rendering the constitution and the judicial system redundant.
Residents gave accounts of Islamic militants enforcing their writ ruthlessly, closing hundreds of schools educating girls, including Christian educational establishments. They forced many of those in the tiny Christian minority there to embrace Islam under threat of death, or quit the region. They also introduced jazia, a religious tax imposed only on minorities in other areas.The Pentecostal Bible school in Quetta was closed indefinitely in May, a month after Taliban militants threatened a suicide bomb attack.
On June 12, Allama Sarfaraz Ahmed Naeemi, an eminent Muslim religious scholar, was killed in a suicide attack at his seminary in Lahore. Reports said he had been targeted by extremists claiming to represent Islam after he had declared suicide bombing as un-Islamic. He had also supported the crackdown on Taliban groups in the region bordering Afghanistan.Following the killing of the cleric, church groups decided to scale down a major ecumenical march they had planned for the day to protest against "increasing attacks on minorities by fundamentalists.""We had only a token program and around 250 Christians took part in it," Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, told ENI. "We are keeping a low profile these days. The situation is not a very happy one."
(Episcopal Life Online)
Monday, June 15, 2009
Pakistan Relief Efforts Under Threat, Say Agencies
When top EU officials meet with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari this week, the plight of the more than one million people affected by fighting in the country’s Swat valley must be first on the agenda, insist nine major international aid agencies.
The agencies, which include faith-based CAFOD/Caritas and World Vision, say they urgently need funding in order to scale up their response in Pakistan and prevent a greater humanitarian crisis.
Presently, the agencies are under threat due to a lack of funds, facing a shortfall in excess of $42 million (USD). Some agencies risk having to downsize their relief programs or close altogether if funding isn't received soon.
“While we wait for funds, vulnerable people are struggling to meet their very basic needs," reported Graham Strong, World Vision Pakistan's country director.
Since the Pakistani army launched an offensive late April to expel Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants occupying the northwest area of Pakistan, close to the border with Afghanistan, millions of people have fled their homes.
Around 80 percent of the former residents of the region have since found shelter in neighboring host communities, according to reports. Those who have found themselves in one of the displaced persons’ camps that were installed, meanwhile, find themselves surrounded by an increasing number of people in places with insufficient sanitary and medical facilities.
"Pakistani families are sharing their homes, food, clothes and water with those fleeing violence. They are poor already and are making themselves poorer in the process," commented Strong, whose agency has been able to reach 3,500 people with health kits, mattresses and essential household items with limited private donations.
World Vision's assessment of the crisis found people are in great need of improved health services, hygiene, education, water, shelter and sanitation facilities.
In making last Thursday's appeal, the Christian humanitarian group joined together with ActionAid, CAFOD/Caritas, Care, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, and Save the Children.
The appeal was made less than a week before the first-ever EU-Pakistan summit on June 17 in Brussels, where EU officials will meet Pakistan's president.
(The Christian Post)
The agencies, which include faith-based CAFOD/Caritas and World Vision, say they urgently need funding in order to scale up their response in Pakistan and prevent a greater humanitarian crisis.
Presently, the agencies are under threat due to a lack of funds, facing a shortfall in excess of $42 million (USD). Some agencies risk having to downsize their relief programs or close altogether if funding isn't received soon.
“While we wait for funds, vulnerable people are struggling to meet their very basic needs," reported Graham Strong, World Vision Pakistan's country director.
Since the Pakistani army launched an offensive late April to expel Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants occupying the northwest area of Pakistan, close to the border with Afghanistan, millions of people have fled their homes.
Around 80 percent of the former residents of the region have since found shelter in neighboring host communities, according to reports. Those who have found themselves in one of the displaced persons’ camps that were installed, meanwhile, find themselves surrounded by an increasing number of people in places with insufficient sanitary and medical facilities.
"Pakistani families are sharing their homes, food, clothes and water with those fleeing violence. They are poor already and are making themselves poorer in the process," commented Strong, whose agency has been able to reach 3,500 people with health kits, mattresses and essential household items with limited private donations.
World Vision's assessment of the crisis found people are in great need of improved health services, hygiene, education, water, shelter and sanitation facilities.
In making last Thursday's appeal, the Christian humanitarian group joined together with ActionAid, CAFOD/Caritas, Care, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, and Save the Children.
The appeal was made less than a week before the first-ever EU-Pakistan summit on June 17 in Brussels, where EU officials will meet Pakistan's president.
(The Christian Post)
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Christian Man Raped, Murdered for Refusing to Convert to Islam, Family Says
By Nora Zimmett
A young Christian man was raped and brutally murdered in Pakistan for refusing to convert to Islam, and police are doing nothing about it, the victim's brother and minister told FOXNews.com.
Pakistani police reportedly found the body of Tariq "Litto" Mashi Ghauri — a 28-year-old university student in Sargodha, Pakistan — lying dead in a canal outside a rural village in Punjab Province on May 15. He had been raped and stabbed at least five times.
"They have sexually abuse him, torture him with a knife on his testicle and genitals," Ghauri's brother, 24-year-old Salman Nabil Ghauri, said. "They have tortured him very badly, and after that they have stabbed five times with a knife and killed him."
The family believes Litto Ghauri was murdered by the brothers of his Muslim girlfriend, Shazi Cheema, after they found him in a compromising sexual position with their sister.
The Rev. Haroon Bhatti, a Christian clergyman in the village and a friend of the Ghauri family, said Cheema's three brothers came to Litto Ghauri's house on May 11 and gave him an ultimatum: Marry their sister and convert to Islam.
Ghauri agreed to the marriage but refused to accept Islam, and the brothers kidnapped him at gunpoint and drove him to a remote farmhouse, where they tortured and murdered him, the minister said.
"On that farmhouse — four days there — we all, Christians and family, were searching for him," the Rev. Bhatti said. "I was with him. I was searching for him."
After police discovered the body, Ghauri's death was declared a homicide and the family filed paperwork with the Atta Shaheed police station in their small village, Adda 44SB. But Ghauri's brother said police still have not arrested the alleged killers and have refused to meet with his family.
"They don't want to meet us, and the three of them who are murderers are outside," Salman Nabil Ghauri told FOXNews.com. "They are free. Nothing is happening to them. No investigation is running."
The Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., told FOXNews.com that they knew nothing of the incident but were looking into it.
But one embassy official questioned the truth of the report.
"On the face of it, this appears to be exaggerated," said the Pakistani official who asked not to be named. "This does not happen over there."
The official said that minorities are very well represented in the Pakistani Parliament, and if someone in fact were murdered for not converting to Islam, "it would have been reported hugely."
The embassy official added, "if an incident of that nature happened over there, there would have to be an investigation."
Yet human rights watchdog groups say that what happened to Litto Ghauri is not uncommon because Christians in Pakistan are looked upon as the dregs of society. Pakistan's population is 97 percent Muslim, and Christians are only a very small part of the remaining 3 percent.
"What the Muslim society has done in Pakistan is just associate low caste with being Christian," said Jeremy Sewall, Advocacy Director of the International Christian Concern, which first reported the killing. "Many of these people, they clean human waste and that's their job, and that's what Christians are known for in Pakistan."
The Rev. Bhatti says that radical Muslims frequently try to trap Christian men into converting to Islam by using a woman as bait — and Ghauri suspects the involvement of his dead brother's girlfriend in trying to entrap him.
"It's common to offer things — money, women — to Christians to convert," Bhatti said.
Pakistan is one of the most hostile countries in the world for minority religions. The country still has blasphemy laws on the books that forbid saying or writing anything against Islam or the Koran. Punishment can include death.
"You basically have a situation where people can kind of act with impunity in the public," said Paula Schriefer, advocacy director at Freedom House, a human rights group. "They use these laws to sort of settle scores ... or, in situations like this, actually engage in kind of forced conversions."
The U.S. State Department's 2008 International Religious Freedom Report on Pakistan says, "Government policies do not afford equal protection to members of majority and minority religious groups."
The Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is supposed to protect religious freedom, has a verse from the Koran on its masthead, the report said: "Islam is the only religion acceptable to God."
While the U.S. government has provided millions of dollars in public outreach programs to help teach religious tolerance in Pakistan, human rights watchers say it's not sufficient.
"There's probably not enough that the U.S. government is doing to really talk about this issue because it's such an important issue in Pakistan because faith is so important to them," said Sewall.
The small Christian community is hoping that Ghauri's death will bring attention to the plight of minority religious groups in Pakistan.
"Several incidents of Christian persecution go unnoticed in Pakistan because they occur in the furthest parts of Pakistan," the Rev. Bhatti said. "This is Pakistan — predominantly Muslim. So they're the rulers. They rule us."
For Christian families like the Ghauris, living in a remote village in Pakistan, options are few. Because of their poverty they can neither leave nor help secure their own safety.
"We have very little family," said Salman Nabil Ghauri, whose mother died years ago and whose father worked as a day laborer until the killing. "My father was a daily worker. Now he is earning nothing. He is fully mad now. He cannot understand anything — he is still in the shock of death.
"My elder son is dead, and I am only one person. Where can I run? I cannot start my studies or run after my case. What should I do?"
(With thanks from FOXNews)Parcel bomb critically injures Christians in Pakistan
By: Rahul Benjamin
A Christian colony was the subject of a parcel bomb blast in Pakistan in the latest of a series of incidents targeting the minuscule community.
According to a source, at least 10 Christians were injured when a parcel bomb exploded in Hasilpur, Bahawalpur district.
The injured, including four women and two children are said to be in a very critical condition.
Nazir S Bhatti, chief of Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC), condemned the heinous incident and said, "the news was not highlighted in media due to Christians being targets".
He said the Pakistan government censors such incidents to avoid international pressure and mounting human rights violations.
Even the presence of Christian internally displaced persons (IDPs) in refugee camps, he said, were not revealed for the same reason.
The incident comes close on the heels of a Christian man hacked to death for using a cup designated for Muslims.
According to the International Christian Concern (ICC), Muslim radicals May 9 attacked Ishtiaq Masih who ordered tea at a roadside stall in Machharkay village.
"When Ishtiaq went to pay for his tea, the owner noticed that he was wearing a necklace with a cross and grabbed him, calling for his employees to bring anything available to beat him for violating a sign posted on the stall warning non-Muslims to declare their religion before being served," the ICC reported.
The owner and 14 of his employees, said the human rights organisation, beat Ishtiaq with stones, iron rods and clubs, and stabbed him multiple times with kitchen knives even as Ishtiaq pleaded for mercy.
A correspondent from the ICC confirmed that he saw a warning posted outside the tea stall, which read: "All non-Muslims should introduce their faith prior to ordering tea. This tea stall serves Muslims only."
Recently, after the military offensive against the Taliban, the country has also witnessed spiraling violence targeting minorities.
Pastor Salim Sadiq of Holy Spirit Church in Karachi earlier told Christian Today that homes belonging to the community were pounded by the Islamic extremists who have vowed to avenge for "the suffering of their brotherhood in NWFP area."
(With thanks to Christian Today)
A Christian colony was the subject of a parcel bomb blast in Pakistan in the latest of a series of incidents targeting the minuscule community.
According to a source, at least 10 Christians were injured when a parcel bomb exploded in Hasilpur, Bahawalpur district.
The injured, including four women and two children are said to be in a very critical condition.
Nazir S Bhatti, chief of Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC), condemned the heinous incident and said, "the news was not highlighted in media due to Christians being targets".
He said the Pakistan government censors such incidents to avoid international pressure and mounting human rights violations.
Even the presence of Christian internally displaced persons (IDPs) in refugee camps, he said, were not revealed for the same reason.
The incident comes close on the heels of a Christian man hacked to death for using a cup designated for Muslims.
According to the International Christian Concern (ICC), Muslim radicals May 9 attacked Ishtiaq Masih who ordered tea at a roadside stall in Machharkay village.
"When Ishtiaq went to pay for his tea, the owner noticed that he was wearing a necklace with a cross and grabbed him, calling for his employees to bring anything available to beat him for violating a sign posted on the stall warning non-Muslims to declare their religion before being served," the ICC reported.
The owner and 14 of his employees, said the human rights organisation, beat Ishtiaq with stones, iron rods and clubs, and stabbed him multiple times with kitchen knives even as Ishtiaq pleaded for mercy.
A correspondent from the ICC confirmed that he saw a warning posted outside the tea stall, which read: "All non-Muslims should introduce their faith prior to ordering tea. This tea stall serves Muslims only."
Recently, after the military offensive against the Taliban, the country has also witnessed spiraling violence targeting minorities.
Pastor Salim Sadiq of Holy Spirit Church in Karachi earlier told Christian Today that homes belonging to the community were pounded by the Islamic extremists who have vowed to avenge for "the suffering of their brotherhood in NWFP area."
(With thanks to Christian Today)
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