Re: Chuches under attack in Pakistan..
State is responsible to provide protection and uphold the rights of its citizens to practice their religion without the fear of being haraased or persecuted. Punjab and Pakistan Govt have plenty to answer.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\11\28\story_28-11-2005_pg3_1
EDITORIAL: Stop vandalism in the name of sanctity of Quran!
The Punjab chief minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, has visited Sangla Hill to see the evidence of the vandalism committed against churches there and ordered a high-level judicial inquiry to get at the root of what really transpired on November 12 after an alleged desecration of the Quran. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who recently visited Pakistan, expressed concern over the attacks in his meetings with President General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul Haq. The Christian community in Sangla Hill has demanded that the government institute an inquiry at the High Court level and has refused to remove the debris from the site of the attack. Since the local administration seems to have been involved in the incident, the chief minister had to remove some officers who had shirked their responsibilities. He has done the right thing by promising a high-level inquiry.
The destruction of the churches in Sangla Hill has hurt Pakistan’s image at a time when it needs positive publicity abroad. Expectedly, the Urdu press has given the outrage little coverage and has expressed no concerned editorial opinion about it. Equally, the Christian community in Sangla Hill has remained quiet, most probably out of fear of reaction or on advice from the government. However, they have made sufficiently credible reports on the incident to the church authorities in Europe. They seem to agree about the origin of the trouble. Yousaf Masih was in the habit of gambling with a Muslim, Kalu Sunyara. After winning from Kalu, Yousaf Masih wanted to walk away but Kalu collared him in the street and asked him to play on, but he refused. He was thereafter accused of having torched a house set aside for the abandoned pages of the Holy Quran to prevent them from being trampled.
Under the new procedure established by the government, a case of desecration of the Quran is registered only after consulting the district police officer (DPO); but in the case of Sangla Hill the SHO registered the case and proceeded to torture Yousaf Masih’s brothers after they failed to lead him to wherever he was. (He was eventually apprehended.) The Holy Spirit Church was attacked a day later, on November 12, 2005, after announcements from the mosques asking people to gather “for discussion”. Soon, the city nazim was leading the crowd. A mob of around 2,500 people holding sticks, stones, big hammers and bottles of chemicals, attacked the church compound. They raised cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and “Asai kuttay hai-hai” (Down with the Christian dogs). By the end of the day, three churches, a mission-run school, two hostels and several houses belonging to the Christian community had been vandalised by the mob.
The tehsil of Sangla Hill is situated in the newly created district of Nankana Sahib and lies 130 kilometres from Lahore. The area has a population of 150,000 of which 12,000 are Christian. Among the Christians, the Catholics are the overwhelming majority, while the rest belong to various Protestant denominations. The parish of Sangla Hill was set up in 1914, out of the Mariamabad parish territory. (Note the English name of the tehsil.) Even in 1937 there were around 4,000 Catholics in the parish, who have now grown to around 1,800 families. The parish comprises 183 villages, many of which have small chapels, while the main parish church of the Holy Spirit was constructed and blessed in April 1951. Muslim-Christian tension was rare in the area, but conditions have begun to change after the escalation of radical thinking among the local Muslim community. In one recent case in the neighbourhood (May 9, 2005 in the village of Sathiali Kalan) when the two communities clashed, resulting in the burning of a chapel, the police rounded up five Christians (and no Muslims) who are still “in custody” without trial.
While the Punjab government has shown initiative in preventing the Sangla Hill incident from becoming a wave of province-wide intolerance, **Lahore’s clergy has become active too. Unfortunately, it has taken a position that will shock the world. Maulana Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, secretary general of Tanzimat Madaris Diniya, has said that the government had paid scant attention to the desecration of the Quran but “rounded up 88 Muslim citizens of Sangla Hill on the false charges of destroying the Christian churches”. He declared that the “Christian clergy had set the churches on fire after the desecration incident and should be put behind bars and not allowed to leave the country”. He warned that he was taking a procession to Sangla Hill to get the Muslims released from jail. He protested religion minister Ijaz ul Haq’s statement that the Muslims had destroyed the churches. He said that the Quran “library” was burnt by the Christian clergy with the help of a special incendiary powder they first used in Shantinagar in 1997. (Shantinagar was destroyed by Muslim fanatics on the pretext of desecration of the Quran.)
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Other rather dubious “Khatm-e-Nabuwwat” organisations have been mobilised by the vandals of Sangla Hill to issue dire threats. The situation is simmering. Therefore there is need to hold a High Court-level judicial inquiry into the details of the Sangla Hill incident and get at the truth quickly. It should be interesting to find out why the procedure set by the government under the desecration law (295-B) was not followed by the police authorities and why the nazim had decided to take “direct action” without proper judicial procedure? During the past 12 months Muslims and non-Muslims have been equally the victims of such laws in the country particularly in Punjab. A lot of damage has been sustained by public property and bodily harm by innocent citizens. In some incidents the police is known to have joined the mobs. Since the buck stops with the chief minister, it is time he showed his commitment to General Pervez Musharraf’s plea for enlightened moderation in no uncertain terms.