Stop aid to Pakistani government unless it defends Christians, says Peter Tatchell

The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has spoken out after the Pakistan government announced further restrictions on Christians’ civil liberties.

Pakistan’s education minister, Mohammad Balighur Rahman, has said that Koranic education will be compulsory for all schoolchildren.

Tatchell, a veteran activist best known as a gay rights campaigner, said: “This is the latest escalation of the country’s bias against Christians, other minority faiths and non-believers.”

He argued that the British government “should make overseas aid to Pakistan conditional on Islamabad’s protection of the human rights of Christians and other minorities.

“If Pakistan’s rulers do not comply, the UK should switch aid from the government to NGOs that do not discriminate.”

Tatchell was speaking in the wake of a report from the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), which detailed the many hardships Pakistani Christians face. These include frequent violence and prosecutions, as well as the kidnapping and forced marriage of Christian girls.
BPCA estimates that 86 per cent of Pakistan’s Christian population work as sweepers, domestic servants, or sewage workers, or in bonded labour – a form of modern slavery.

Tatchell said the BPCA’s report “reveals shocking inequalities, disadvantages and outright oppression of
Christians and other minority faiths in Pakistan, such as Hindus and Sikhs. Atheists, secularists and humanists are also persecuted.

“Pakistan is a member of the Commonwealth. By failing to ensure equality for Christians, other non-Islamic faiths and non-believers, Pakistan is in breach of its human rights obligations under the Commonwealth Charter, as well as under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Earlier this year, Tatchell said the prosecution of two Northern Irish Christians for refusing to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage message was “a step too far”.

Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association said the new requirement to learn verses from the Koran “is the latest of many instances where Islam is privileged and people of other faiths or no faith are disadvantaged or discriminated against.

“For example, 15 per cent of blasphemy allegations are laid against Christians who only make up 1.6 per cent of the population. This is evidence of their pariah status.”

Chowdhry echoed Peter Tatchell’s call for British government action. “Britain and America plough money into Pakistan,” Chowdhry said, noting that “£225 million pounds of Britain’s £445 million budget given to Pakistan last year was allocated towards holistic educational reform.

“This places Britain internationally as a de facto funder of state-sponsored hatred towards Pakistani Christians. I pray our MPs see sense and either terminate aid to Pakistan, their largest aid recipient, or insist upon improved human rights as a condition for continued funding.

“Removing this latest risible drive towards compulsory Koranic studies has to be a priority.”

Chowdhry pointed out that Pakistan’s constitution forbids religious indoctrination of non-Muslims. It states: “No person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction … if such instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than his own.”

The Saga of Christians in Pakistan

Minorities in Pakistan make up almost three percent of the total population. Among them are Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Bahais, Parsis and Kalash. Hindus are the biggest group with two percent of the population, and Christians comprise 1.6 percent.

The beloved country, Pakistan, was just two months away from existence, when in the united Punjab all parliamentarians were seriously thinking about the assembly session on the 23rd of June 1947 for the final decision whether the Punjab would be part of Pakistan or India. Likewise, Christian leaders were also worried because most of the Christian population was living in the Punjab. Also, they had a deep affiliation to the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Therefore, on the 21st of June 1947, all the four Christian members of the Punjab Legislative Assembly met at the residence of Dewan Bahadur Sittia Parkash Singha (S P Singha) and decided unanimously to go with Pakistan. The historic day came, motion moved, voting started and the result was a tie. It was a glorious moment in the history of Pakistan when the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly, S P Singha used his ‘costing’ vote in the favour of Pakistan and brought ‘golden victory’ for the upcoming, independent, sovereign state.

After the session was over, in a friendly talk, the Quaid-e-Azam asked a personal question to Singha why he voted for Pakistan. And Singha answered, “Sir, your nation remained the minority in India for ages, and bore the oppression of Hindus. And who can know better than you the pain they passed through. Now, we, the Christians, will be the minority in Pakistan, and we hope to have a good future.”

After 14th of August 1947, the migration started from both sides, and most of the Sikh community living in the Punjab was moving to India, leaving their lands, properties, and their ‘servants’. At the time, around 60,000 Christian families were working for Sikhs, assisting them in land farming. Now they were all ‘unemployed’. From the opposite side of the border, Muslim migrants were entering into the Punjab with their limited households and utensils. They were being welcomed in different areas of Lahore, Sialkot, Kasur, Sheikhupura etc. The newly formed government of Pakistan started allotting them lands previously owned by Sikhs; in a couple of months all lands were distributed among new arrivals, but the poor Christians were kept waiting to get their share but it did not happen. In spite of the efforts of the Christian Members of Parliaments those Christians were never given any compensation for leaving their homeland for Pakistan.

Christians started moving to other villages and cities for survival. Because of their illiteracy, they were forced to find employment doing menial jobs, like sweeping and cleaning, to feed their families. This was the first organised discrimination Christians faced in Pakistan.

In 1972, the people-elected prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in the name of socio-economic reforms, nationalised all private educational institutions. Many institutions were owned, managed and controlled by Christians. As a result of nationalisation, they lost their properties and their peace of mind. Many were so frustrated that they left the country and never came back. During the military era of General Zia-ul-Haq, the severe clauses of the blasphemy law were introduced. Bringing any new law is not an issue, but its application/implementation is a serious concern. Blasphemy laws were made but there was no abuse-check on this law. Minorities living in the country clearly felt those laws as a ‘sword’ on their neck. More than 1,300 individuals have been accused under this law, more than 60 people have been killed during trials, and hundreds of victims of blasphemy laws have miniscule chances of survival in society. It is not the law that is bad, but its abuse that is rampant and atrocious.

Persecution of minorities has remained very high during the last 69 years. In February 1997, Shanti Nagar, a Christian village, was torched by thousands of people from the nearby localities. In 2002, a church in Taxila was attacked, where four Christians were killed and 25 wounded. In September 2002, unidentified gunmen shot dead six people at a Christian charity foundation in Karachi. November 2005 has the story of the burning of several churches in Sangla Hill. In August 2006, a church and many houses of Christians were attacked outside Lahore in a land dispute. In July 2008, an angry mob stormed a church in Karachi during service, and denouncing Christians as ‘infidels’ attacked them, leaving several injured. The year 2009 is the sorrowful story of the Gojra riots. A federal minister of minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was murdered in 2011. In September 2012, a mob set on fire a church, St Paul High School, a library, a computer lab, and houses of four clergymen. March 2013 saw the horror of the Joseph Colony, Lahore, where hundreds of houses of Christians were torched. The same year brought another misery when the All Saints Church, Peshawar, was targeted by a suicide bomber, killing 75 people and wounding hundreds. Christians have sad memories of March 2015 when suicide bombers blew themselves up in two churches of Youhanabad, Lahore. And March 2016 had the carnage of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, Lahore, on Easter Sunday, where 73 people were killed, many of them children.

The successive governments of Pakistan during the last seven decades could not demonstrate that they had any concrete plan for the security, safety and development of the marginalised Christian community. In 1951, the Punjab assembly passed a resolution to allot land to Christians, but it never reached fruition. There have been many decisions for the good of the community, but they remained only in files, and were never executed. Lip service and hoodwinking minorities appears to be the agenda of all governments. The Christian community is a victim of oppression, injustice, inequality and discrimination. For the last several decades they are being persecuted but no one has paid attention to them. Christians have all rights to live a peaceful life in their homeland, Pakistan. Christians are patriots like all other Pakistanis of different faiths or sects. Christians are in search of a protector, someone like the Quaid-e-Azam who was considered a ‘protector’ by S P Singha and other Christian leaders of the Pakistan movement. But the protector died only after a year of independence, leaving a fertile land for those who had different agendas.

Once again the Christian community in Pakistan is crying for a protector. Perhaps one exists or not, but we must not lose hope. Trust in God with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Pakistan: "Christian Girls Are Only Meant for the Pleasure of Muslim Men"

Three Christian girls in Pakistan, who rejected the advances of some wealthy Muslim young men, were recently mauled by them. One of the girls died.

The London-born Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) and human rights activist, Wilson Chowdhry, who broke the story, reported that one of the men had said: "Christian girls are only meant for one thing, the [sexual] pleasure of Muslim men."

The incident occurred on January 13 in Lahore. The three girls—aged 17, 18, and 20—were walking home after a hard day's work. Four Muslim youths in a vehicle followed the girls and accosted them. The men "misbehaved," yelled "suggestive and lewd comments," and harassed the girls to get in their car for "a ride and some fun."

The girls declined the "invitation," and added that they were "devout Christians and did not practice sex outside of marriage."

This caused an immediate change in the demeanour of the boys who became more aggressive and started to threaten the girls to enter the car or to be physically forced in. Terrified of the increasingly dangerous situation they were in the girls started to run in a fit of panic. This only enraged the young Muslim men further, one of them shouted out at the girls, he said: "How dare you run away from us, Christian girls are only meant for one thing, the pleasure of Muslim men."

The Muslim men chased the girls and ran the car into them. Two girls fell to the ground; one's hip was broken, the other's ribs were shattered. The youngest, Kiran Masih, aged 17, flew up in the air and crashed into the speeding car's windshield. The Muslims, laughing and with the girl on the windshield, accelerated. Then the driver apparently slammed on the brakes, hard. The force of the stop catapulted the girl into the air. She then crashed to the ground, cracking her skull open and smashing her bones. Within minutes she was dead.

Twenty-year-old Sumble, a Pakistani Christian, had her hip broken when a group of Muslim men rammed a car into her and her girlfriends. The men attacked the Christian girls for refusing to have sex with them. Sumble's friend, 17-year-old Kiran Masih, was murdered in the attack. (Image sources: British Pakistani Christian Association [left]; Investigative Project on Terrorism [right])

As usual, Pakistani police are reportedly "doing little to apprehend the young men and are allegedly delaying the investigative process." Chowdhry said:

In any other nation [than Pakistan] the perpetrators would be arrested, convicted for murder and sentenced for a long term.... Violence against Christians is rarely investigated and highly unlikely to be met with justice.... Women have a low status in Pakistan, but none more so than Christian women who find themselves under the grip or terror, especially after this attack. Muslim NGO "Movement of Solidarity and Peace" state[s] that around 700 Christian women in Pakistan are abducted, raped and forced into Islamic marriage every year – that figure is almost two a day and the world does nothing.

Accounts like this -- including the claim that it is a Muslim man's right to rape Christians and other "infidels" -- are common in Pakistan.

A Muslim rapist, while attacking a 9-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan, her told her "not to worry because he had done the same service to other young Christian girls."

Local residents, discussing the man's remark to his 9-year-old rape victim, said: "It is shameful. Such incidents occur frequently. Christian girls are considered goods to be damaged at leisure. Abusing them is a right. According to the community's mentality it is not even a crime. Muslims regard them as spoils of war."

The Islamic concept of "spoils" is explained by one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law and jurisprudence, the late Majid Khadduri, in War and Peace in the Law of Islam:

The term spoil (ghanima) is applied specifically to property acquired by force from non-Muslims. It includes, however, not only property (movable and immovable) but also persons, whether in the capacity of asra (prisoners of war) or sabi (women and children). ... If the slave were a woman, the master was permitted to have sexual connection with her as a concubine.

Even in Western nations, Muslims from Pakistan believe it is their right to rape and sexually abuse "infidel" women – or even Muslim women if they are out at night unaccompanied or not wearing a veil. Of course a veiled woman might also be attacked, but then the rape would be the same as for a non-Muslim rapist -- he wants what he wants and that's that. But if she is a Muslim out on her own, he can rationalize away or justify the rape as "his right" since she is acting like an infidel, so supposedly deserves what she gets. This author knows of no instance where a Muslim man targeted a Muslim woman because he thinks it is his "right."

In Britain in 2012, nine Muslim men—eight from Pakistan—were convicted of rape and sexual exploitation of children in Britain. And just as Christians and other "infidels" in Pakistan are told before they are raped, the men regularly "told their victims that it was all right for them to be passed around for sex with dozens of men 'because it's what we do in our country.'"

Today, as Muslims spread into the West, what they do to "infidel" women in their adopted countries is increasingly what they do to "infidel" women in their home countries—as thousands of women in Cologne and other cities recently found out.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War in Christians (a Gatestone Publication, published by Regnery, April 2013), is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum

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