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A terrible state of affairs for the minorities of Pakistan. One wonders what would be the reaction of Muslims worldwide, if Muslim immigrants would be treated in the same way in the West, say in Britain or America?

This year, Christians in Pakistan have suffered their worst persecutions for a decade. As a percentage of the population in the predominantly Muslim country, Christians number less than five percent. This year, seven Christians were burned alive in mob violence at Gojra in Punjab province. Four of these were women and one was a four-year-old child. In other parts, homes and churches have been destroyed and hundreds of Christians have been forced to flee their homes.

Pakistan's discriminatory blasphemy laws have continued to be used to oppress minorities. As soon as a police complaint (FIR or First Information Report) is made about blasphemy the accused is compulsorily remanded in custody until trial. One Christian individual who was detained in this manner died violently on September 15th, even though the police who incarcerated him attempted to pass off his death as a suicide. In almost all the cases of legislative oppression and mob violence against Christians, blasphemy has been invoked as justification.

Recently Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari was on an international diplomatic tour, in which he visited Rome for three days. On Wednesday September 30th, he met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and signed an agreement on intelligence-sharing and military cooperation. The persecution of Christians in Pakistan was briefly mentioned.

Zardari said: "We are confronting the problem of religious minorities in Pakistan. We support all religious minorities in our country. They have the same rights, whether it is their religious practices or political rights." Berlusconi confirmed this, noting that he "found president Zardari to be very attentive."

The following day (October 1st) Zardari visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo. The Vatican Press Office stated: "The cordial discussions provided an opportunity to examine the current situation in Pakistan, with particular reference to the fight against terrorism and the commitment to create a society more tolerant and harmonious in all its aspects."

The Blasphemy Laws

The blasphemy laws as they are now employed derive from amendments made in the 1980s to Pakistan's Penal Code (PPC). This legislation derives from 1860, as a set of statutes introduced by the British Raj for the governance of West Pakistan, then a predominantly Urdu-speaking region of India. The controversial amendments were introduced by the Islamist military dictator General Zia ul-Haq. This individual deposed Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and imposed martial law.

In 1980, ul-Haq introduced a Majlis-e-Shura (a council) of unelected advisers – many from the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party – to replace parliament. Later, he enacted sham elections. Zia ul-Haq retained connections with religious extremists, such as Maulana Muhammad Abdullah Shaheed who was imam at the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad. Ul-Haq gave himself the role of President, with power above prime minister, and ruled Pakistan until his death in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. The main blasphemy amendments were introduced while Pakistan was under a military dictatorship, and not under a civil democracy.

Part XV of the PPC lists offenses involving religion. Originally, there were only four laws of this nature, numbered from 295 to 298, but these have been expanded to number 10. The laws generally invoked to oppress Christians (and also Hindus and the Ahmadiyya, an Islamic sect deemed by some to be heretical) are all the results of amendments. These are Sections 295-B, 295-C and less frequently Section 298-A.

Section 295-B which outlaws "Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur'an" originally arose as an amendment introduced in 1927 and revised in 1982. This states: "Whoever willfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur'an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life."

Section 295-C prohibits "Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet" and was introduced with the approval of General Zia ul-Haq and the Islamist Jammat-e-Islami party in 1982 and revised in 1986. This statute reads: "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."

The death penalty option to Section 295-C was added in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, III of 1986, S. 2

Section 298-A deals with "Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages". This amendment was introduced in 1980, and states: "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of any wife (Ummul Mumineen), or members of the family (Ahle-bait), of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), or any of the righteous Caliphs (Khulafa-e-Rashideen) or companions (Sahaaba) of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”

Other sections of the PPC - 298-B and 298-C specifically target the Ahmadiyya. The first of these, introduced in 1980 prevents the Ahmadiyya from using devotional names to anyone other than Prophet Mohammed and his companions, and from calling any place of worship associated with anyone other than Mohammed as a "masjid" (mosque).

Section 298-C was also introduced in 1980, with a further amendment made in 1984. This forbids any Ahmadiyya from calling him- or herself a "Muslim" and forbids any proselytizing of their religion. Sections 298-B and C both carry penalties of up to three years' imprisonment and/or a fine.

Events Leading Up to the Gojra Violence

The violence in Gojra, in which Christians were burned to death, stemmed from a dispute that involved accusations of blasphemy. On Tuesday June 30th, a month before the atrocities, more than 110 Christian families were forced to flee their homes in the village of Bahminwala (Bahmina Wala) in Kasur district in Punjab province. The Christians were forced to hide in the fields around the village. They were driven out because Muslim mobs, encouraged by the local mosque, accused them all of blasphemy after one of their number had been listed in an FIR report.

The rampaging began after an incident that had occurred on the previous day. An argument broke out between a Christian farm laborer, 38-year old Sardar Masih (Arif Mashi), who was driving a tractor, and a Muslim riding a bicycle who came by and demanded that he should be allowed to pass. When this did not happen, the Muslim (Muhammad Riaz) apparently accused the Christian of being lower caste and a fight broke out.

According to Pakistan Christian Post, a mosque imam called Qari Lateef (Qari Latif) was consulted, and charges were filed against Sardar Masih at the local police station. These charges did not – it seems – include blasphemy, but the imam used his mosque loudspeaker system to make such accusations. In the ensuing unrest, electricity meters on Christian houses were smashed, Christian villagers were beaten, and houses were looted and burned.

The Daily Times newspaper sent journalists to the region. They met Shaan Ali and his brother Imran, who had both led the mob that attacked the Christians. Shaan Ali claimed, "The Christians had committed blasphemy." He could not specify who had committed this blasphemy. Ahmed Ali Dhillon of the provincial assembly confirmed that Qari Latif, imam at the village mosque, had instigated the violence against the Christians.

A few days later after the violence, while Christians made public protest at their treatment, Pakistan's minority minister Shahbaz Bhatti visited the village. Bhatti promised compensation to victims of the violence. Chief Justice Khawaja Mohammed Sharif at the Lahore High Court demanded that the local police chief for Kasur district appear to give their account of the events.

The events at Gojra followed – like so many similar cases of mob violence – the same trajectory as at Kasur, but the outcome was more horrific. Gojra is situated 99 miles west of Lahore in Punjab province. The spark that triggered the rampage began with an accusation that blasphemy had occurred. It was alleged that three Christians, Mukhtar Masih, Talib Masih and Talib's son Imran, had desecrated pages of the Koran at a wedding ceremony in Korrian, outside Gojra town.

A case was registered against the three men under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, but they were not immediately arrested. It is traditional for money to be presented at a wedding, and for those who are poor, "pretend money" is displayed. The Christians had allegedly cut up pieces of paper to look like money. There was no evidence from any sources that a Koran had actually been desecrated.

On Thursday July 30th, fearing reprisals for the alleged desecration, residents had fled from Korrian, leaving many houses empty. A mob gathered, and set fire to about 50 houses, also burning cattle. A kangaroo court was held in which Talib Masih was asked to apologize for desecrating Islam's holy book. He denied having desecrated pages from the Koran and refused to apologize. Two churches were also set ablaze. The mob blocked the main road to the village, to prevent fire engines from putting out the fires.

Imran Masih was officially charged under Section 295-B of the Penal Code. Pages of the Koran were allegedly found among garbage outside the scene of the wedding on July 26th.

A second incident followed, on Saturday August 1st, which filled international newswires for the scale of its ferocity. The police did nothing as a mob of fanatical Muslims entered the town of Gojra and started to shoot. They threw Molotov cocktails at houses, burning down forty domiciles. The assailants were said to be from Lashkar-e-Jhvangi or its associated group Sipah-e-Saba. These groups have been involved in previous instances of sectarian violence against any minority that is not Sunni Muslim, including attacks upon Shia civilians.

Six of the individuals who died came from one family, that of . A week after the event, Almass Hameed spoke from his hospital bed: "I think there were thousands. My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house."

Mr. Hameed described how he and nine members of his extended family hid in an upstairs bedroom, and heard members of the mob breaking in, smashing items and dividing valuables between them. Some intruders beat on the bedroom door where Almass and others were hiding. The intruders threatened to burn them alive, and soon he could smell smoke as flames spread. He recalled: "We just couldn't breathe. I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them."

Those who remained in the bedroom were Almass' four-year old son Mousa, his 11-year-old daughter, his wife, her sister and her mother. Unable to escape, they were burned to death.

A Muslim youth blamed the event upon the Christians. He said: "We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots. Of course it is bad that Christians died. But they provoked the Muslims here. I don't understand why everyone is on their side."

In the aftermath of the atrocity at Gojra, missionary schools were closed on Monday August 3rd.

A total of 800 individuals were charged with murder, including the local chief of police and the District Coordination Officer. Only 17 of these were actually named and placed in custody, with the remainder listed as "unknown" individuals. The charges had been brought by a local bishop. Shahbaz Sharif announced that 500,000 Rupees ($6,002) would be awarded for each family member that had died in the August 1st rioting.

The events in Gojra were to precipitate further attacks in a wave of "blasphemy hysteria". At Mudrike in Lahore, immediately after the Gojra arson deaths, a Muslim factory owner was falsely accused of blasphemy. The incident took place on Tuesday August 4th. It involved Mian Najib, the owner of East Leather, a leather-processing factory at Khatiala Virkan near Muridke. Najib removed an out-of-date Islamic calendar from the wall of the factory and, it is alleged, burned it. Calendars of this nature often have verses or quotations from the Koran upon them, and as such, any destruction of these quotations is seen as destruction of the Koran.

A worker at the factory called Moulvi Shabber claimed to have seen this act, and incited revenge for this act. A crowd of hundreds attacked the East Leather factory. In the ensuing violence, a security guard was killed, along with a security guard. Several others were injured.

On Wednesday, August 5th at Sanghur in Sindh province, a 60-year-old Muslim woman was accused of blasphemy, and her home became surrounded by a mob, led by a local shopkeeper who accused her of blasphemy. The shop owner had said that Akhtari Begum had thrown around some pages of the Koran inside his store. She, for her part, claimed that she had thrown the book in which her credit entries had been kept by the shopkeeper, onto the ground. Police took the woman into custody, apparently sparing her life.

Other Incidents

The fact that Muslims too can become innocent victims of mob violence may perhaps be the key to having the Blasphemy Laws revoked. Traditionally, extremist Islamic groups, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which had a part in writing the laws, have campaigned successfully for blasphemy laws to remain. In March 2008, for example, the Jamaat-e-Islami party (which seeks Sharia law and wants apostates from Islam to be executed under law) condemned political parties for ignoring its rallies in favor of enforcing the Blasphemy statutes.

The mention of agitation by the groups Lashkar-i-Zhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba in some of the recent attacks against the Christian minority suggests that the extremes of violence have been deliberately manipulated.

While the victims of the Gojra violence were buried, police took action against suspects and arrested 65 people, including Qari Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a leading figure in Sipah-i-Sahaba. The residence of Abid Farooqi, another member of the banned terror group, was raided, but Farooqi had fled. His father and two brothers were apprehended and taken into custody.

On November 12, 2005, a similar incident had taken place in Sangla Hill in Punjab province, where a false allegation of blasphemy had been made. Yousaf Masseh was accused of desecrating pages from the Koran, though it was claimed that he had been accused by two men who owed him money from gambling debts, and did not wish to pay. Masseh had been imprisoned, while a mob of about 1,500 Muslims, encouraged by loudspeaker announcements from a mosque, descended upon the Christian homes in Sangla HIll. Three churches, including a Catholic and a Protestant house of worship, a school, a youth hostel, a nunnery and two homes belonging to Protestant priests were destroyed.

Shortly after the orgy of destruction, Christian community leaders in Sangla Hill had been threatened over the phone by a man who identified himself as a member of Lashkar-i-Jhvangi. He warned them to accept his "deal" within two days or to "get ready to die."

Lashkar-i-Jhvangi was the group believed responsible for the kidnap and decapitation of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. An offshoot of Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhvangi came into existence in 1996. It was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization on January 30, 2003. Both Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba had been banned by President Musharraf in Pakistan on August 14, 2001. Sipah-i-Sahaba had been formed in Punjab province in the 1980s. Both groups have a Deobandi philosophy (the ideology which governs the actions of the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan) aimed for a Sunni state in Pakistan under sharia law.

In April 2009, Christians came under threat from Taliban-supporting militants in a community near Sarjani Town in a suburb of Karachi, in Sindh province. Buildings, including two houses and about six shops, were set on fire. Roadside traders' stalls and carts were destroyed by fire. Gunfire broke out between groups and four people were injured. The violence broke out after graffiti on the walls of a church had been found on Wednesday April 22nd. The graffiti comprised of pro-Taliban slogans.

Christians responded by burning tires and throwing stones at passing vehicles. The two groups – Pakhtoons (Pashtun migrants from the Afghan borderlands) and Christians – faced each other down, and then gunfire broke out. Four people were injured, including an 11-year-old boy. One of the individuals who had been shot, a man called Irfan Masih, died later in hospital.

The graffiti which was chalked onto the wall of the Roman Catholic church in Sarjani town included: Taliban are coming," "Long live Taliban" and "Be prepared to pay Jizya or embrace Islam."

Jizya is a tax, listed in the Koran and the Hadiths, which non-Muslims were traditionally obliged to pay to Muslim overlords when a community was fully controlled by Islam and governed by the precepts of Sharia. In the Koran, Sura 9, verse 29, it is written (Yusufali's translation): "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

During the incident in the Christian settlement (called Khuda ki Basti) near Sarjani Town, police were present but had done nothing to stop the incident. When the shooting began, only Christians were injured.

On August 28th in the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, southwestern Pakistan, six Christians were shot dead and seven more were injured. For months before the atrocity, Christians in the region had been receiving letters from Islamic fundamentalists which ordered them to convert to Islam or to die.

The most recent incident of prejudice against the Christian community involved the Blasphemy Laws. A 25-year-old Christian man from Sialkot in northeastern Punjab province, close to the Indian border, was arrested on Friday September 11th, accused of desecrating the Koran. A mob of about 100 people, most of them young men, made the accusations against Fanish Masih, who sometimes went under the name of Robert. The mob went on the rampage through Sambrial district and attacked a Roman Catholic church, setting it alight.

The alleged incident that provoked the violence was a claim that a Christian had snatched a Koran from a 10-year-old girl and had then desecrated it. No authentication of the incident has appeared from other sources, and it seems that – like almost all alleged cases of Koran desecration – it could be a baseless myth.

On Tuesday September 15th, police announced that Fanish Masih had committed suicide in his cell. The young man had been kept in a separate cell, and police maintained that he had tried to commit suicide by hanging himself with a narrow cord. This version was immediately contested. Asma Jahangir, the head of HRCP, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, claimed that "This is death in custody and the police authorities are responsible."

Kamran Michael, the Punjabi provincial Minister for Minority Affairs said: "I have seen the body and there were torture marks on it." It is obvious that there is a deep gash on Robert's forehead, which appears to have been caused by impact from a sharp-edged object. The body was taken away by local Christians who demanded a private autopsy.

At the funeral of Fanish Masih on Wednesday September 16th, there was discontent. The body could not be buried in Fanish's native village of Jaithikey-Sambrial for fear of inflaming tensions again. Instead, a memorial service was held in the grounds of a Christian school in the industrial city of Sialkot. There was ill feeling on the night before the funeral, and some Christians blocked roads, threw stones at vehicles and trashed 13 shops. On the day that Fanish was interred, there were clashes with police, and nine Christians were arrested.

The day of the funeral, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Minorities demanded an official inquiry into the circumstances of Robert Fanish Masih's death in police custody.

While Pakistani newspaper editorials carried sincere expressions of regret about the treatment of Christian and other minorities in Pakistan, a bizarre turn of events took place in Toba Tek Singh, the district that included Gojra. On September 26th, it was announced that an individual called Ghulam Murtaza had filed a case against 129 Christians from Gojra.

Murtaza claimed that he had been among 12 Muslims who had been injured on August 1st, the day that seven Christians had been injured in Gojra. In this counterclaim, it was stated that one of the Muslims who was injured on the day of the rioting, Muhammad Asif, later died from injuries. The legal charges invoked the Anti-Terror Act as well as Sections from the Penal Code, including Section 295-C (insulting Prophet Mohammed), 280 (theft from a house), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house etc.), 324 (Qatl-i-amd or attempting to cause death of another), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (being part of an unlawful assembly and guilty of committing a crime) and Section 342 (wrongful confinement).

The individuals listed in Murtaza's charge sheet included John Samuel, the Bishop of Gojra, and also Samuel's two sons, and a local administrator.

Six days before Ghulam Murtaza brought his extraordinary set of charges against members of Gojra's Christian community, 18 people who were held in custody for the violence of August 1st were released. A joint committee of Muslims and Christians, set up to enact reconciliation, had decided to declare the 18 individuals innocent. A similar committee had brought the same results – and consequence lack of punishment for offenders – in the aftermath of the Sangla Hill riots of 2005.

The Death of a Dream

When Pakistan broke free from British rule, it was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It is hard to imagine that originally, the state of Pakistan was officially secular. Nowadays, Section 2 of the constitution maintains that "Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan." Jinnah was only in power for 13 months before he died. With him died the dream of a secular nation.

The current Constitution maintains in Section 20 A that, "subject to law, public order and morality, every citizen shall have the right to profess and propagate his religion". Section 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code deliberately suppresses this basic right in relation to the Ahmadiyya. These believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded their faith on March 23, 1889, is a prophet. In every other way they follow the tenets of the Koran, though they are banned by Saudi Arabia from performing one of the five pillars of Islam, making the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.

One of the few heartening things to have emerged as a consequence of the recent attacks against Christians is a willingness on the part of respected Muslim commentators within Pakistan to voice their shock and shame at the events that have been allowed to take place on account of the Blasphemy Laws. For the first time in three decades, there appears to be a determination on the part of Pakistan's elite to discuss the removal of the contentious and divisive laws.

Several writers have gone back to the historic speech made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah on August 11, 1947, the day of Pakistan's Independence. As president of the new republic, Jinnah addressed the Constituent Assembly.

He included the following words: "You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State."

He added: "Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State."

The evidence is now incontrovertible: Pakistan is now a nation where Hindus, Christians and the "heretical" Ahmadiyya are minorities who have none of the freedoms that were described by Jinnah in his first speech as elected president. Jinnah was speaking of the need to frame a Constitution and what it should encompass. He railed against the corruption that had been endemic at the time of Independence. Acknowledging that Pakistan would have non-Muslims in its population, he urged that the state should work for the well being of everyone. He said: "If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his color, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make."

Pakistan has long abandoned the principles that brought it into being. The rule of Zia ul-Haq was the third military dictatorship since independence. Since 1947, only one government, the one that preceded this current one, has completed a full term of office, and that was blighted by emergency powers introduced by Musharraf at the end. The Blasphemy Laws, approved by Zia ul-Haq with the support of Islamic fundamentalists, have been a source of strife, a means by which personal scores can be settled, a pretext for communal violence. At a speech delivered after the funeral of Fanish Masih, Father Emanuel Yousaf Mani called on the current government to review the Blasphemy statutes. He told a press conference that since their introduction, 947 people, all of them non-Muslims, had been killed.

In Part Two, I will describe how previous attempts to amend the Blasphemy Laws have foundered in the face of fundamentalist opposition, and show how they have been used to settle scores and to turn minority groups into convenient scapegoats.

Methodology of Oppression

Christians are not the only group to have been affected by Pakistan's blasphemy laws. These statutes have been used against Hindus, Muslims, and members of the Ahmadiyya (or Ahmadi, Qadiani) sect, who consider themselves "Islamic" yet are shunned as heretics. The laws are also used to "punish" people as a result of feuds, arguments over land, and other reasons. In these cases, innocent Muslims are often the victims of the blasphemy statutes. But there are other ways of oppressing minorities in Pakistan.

Forcibly converting people is one means of oppression that has been used against minority groups. On May 26, 2006, a conference was held in a Lahore hotel, sponsored by the Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan (MRC). It was claimed at this meeting that although only 100 cases of forced conversions were reported in the Pakistan media, the true annual figure ranged between 500 and 600 a year.

I.A. Rehman, a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) told the conference: "In Pakistan we do not have any law against forced conversion and converting from Islam to any other religion means death. To change this state of affairs, we must consider the issue as a struggle for democracy and invite Muslims as well to these meetings, so they can help us to better understand all points of view of the argument."

The practice of forcing Hindu girls to convert has been documented in Pakistan. In November, 2005, there had been 19 such cases reported in Karachi, the main city in Sindh province. Hindus are generally in low numbers in Pakistan, but in Sindh, there are two districts (Jacobad and Larkana) where (according to the 1998 census) they comprise about 40 percent of the local population. Hindu girls were abducted, converted to Islam and hastily married to young Muslims before their families could trace them.

The most offensive method of forcible conversion is gang-rape. In the fall of 2005, a young Christian girl was allegedly gang-raped to force her to convert to Islam. The 12-year-old girl was abducted from her home and forced to have sex with numerous men. The case was presented by the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA). One former influential member of APMA, Shahbaz Batti, is now the Minorities Minister in the current government.

Christian news sites have several details of such cases of forcible conversions through rape that have taken place in Pakistan. A report by the Asian Human Rights Commission from March 2007 describes how a 15-year-old Shia Muslim girl was gang-raped in Layyah in Punjab province, as a means to force her to convert to Sunni Islam.

Ahmadis

Ahmadis are said to comprise less than one percent of Pakistan's population. They are treated by the majority population and by the establishment in a manner that should invoke the outrage of "rights groups" like CAIR, but strangely, few groups are prepared to defend the rights of the Ahmadis. The group has as its slogan: "Love for All, Hatred for No One," yet the group has received vilification from conventional Muslims. In Pakistan in 2005, more than 1,300 reports containing hate material against Ahmadis were published in the Urdu press. The group has also been subjected to violent attacks in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The persecutions of the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan are similar to those endured by Christians. Occasionally villages are attacked, or individuals are accused of blasphemy, often in an attempt to invoke sectarian violence against the community of the "blasphemer." Such an instance happened on June 24, 2006, when a village was attacked after allegations were made that two Ahmadi youths had burned a copy of the Koran. Seven Ahmadis had been arrested under Section 295-B of the Penal Code (desecration of Koran), but a mob nonetheless rampaged through the village of Jhando Shai in Punjab province. Thirteen Ahmadi families lived in the village. Twelve families were forced to flee, while their homes (and some shops) were burned down. The Ahmadi families who fled could not return to register complaints against those who had vandalized their abodes – the police had banned them from coming back.

Between 1986 and 1999, a total of 189 Ahmadis were imprisoned for contravening Section 295-C of the Penal Code. This outlaws blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, and is the most serious of the religious statutes, potentially meriting the death penalty.

In 2002, Ahmadi political candidates in the general election were forced to sign a pledge confirming that Mohammed was the final prophet (khatm-e-nabbuwat), essentially forcing them to deny the prophethood of their founder Ghulam Ahmad. The Ahmadis do, however, state that Muhammad was the last law-giving prophet.

The discriminatory oath seemed designed to oust Ahmadis from the political process. Not only are Ahmadi candidates placed in the uncomfortable position of either denying the tenets of their faith or sacrificing their rights to stand for election, the same oath must be signed by voters. As a result, Ahmadis are denied the right to partake in the political process.

The Ahmadiyya were officially declared to be non-Muslims on September 21, 1974. This declaration was made by the National Assembly, and became the second amendment to the constitution. The government then was under the leadership of Fazal Elahi Chaudry, of the PPP party.

The official demonization of the Ahmadis obviously contradicts Jinnah's original vision of Pakistan as a nation where people of all faiths should be equal. The machinations of anti-democratic fanatics and dictators have betrayed not only Jinnah, but the first government after independence. The first foreign minister of Pakistan was Sir Zafrullah Khan (1893 - 1985), who was an Ahmadi. A figure of international politics, and champion of the Third World, Zafrullah Khan's religion seems to be the reason why he is not remembered in Pakistan.

Political discrimination continues. The leaders of Pakistan's Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party (JUI) follow strict Deobandi beliefs. Sami ul-Haq, who leads the "S" wing of the party, heads the Haqqania madrassa which educated most of Afghanistan's Taliban, including Mullah Omar (even though the latter did not finish his course). The "F" wing of JUI is led by Fazlur Rehman. Both have argued for Sharia law to replace Pakistan's democracy. On September 29, 2009, Senator Dr. Khalid Mehmood Soomro of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) publicly condemned the exiled leader of the MQM party for supporting the Ahmadi. Soomro also condemned the governor of Punjab for supporting the Ahmadis, and vowed that JUI activists would ensure people knew about khatm-e-nabbuwat.

In December 2004, the Pakistani authorities removed the necessity of a column in a person's passport that declared one's religion. Briefly, it seemed that Ahmadis would be able to join the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. However, in March 2005 government ministers restored the religious identification section on all Pakistani passports. They had apparently been pressured by fundamentalist groups.

Scattered as they are across Pakistan, the cohesion of Ahmadis as a group is maintained through publications. Now, the Internet is used to keep Ahmadis aware of what is happening to their communities both nationally and globally. On September 9, 2006, the offices of an Ahmadi newspaper in Rabwah, Punjab, were raided by police. The Blasphemy laws (298-B and 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code), introduced in 1980 by dictator Zia ul-Haq to deny Ahmadis the right to present themselves as "Muslims," were invoked to justify the raid. Additionally, the newspaper was said to have published "hate literature." Arrests were made, some staff escaped. The Daily Alfazl newspaper, which was founded in 1911, was forced to stop printing. It continues, and has an online edition.

The Ahmadis face discrimination even after death. When an Ahmadi is buried in a Muslim graveyard, there are often protests, leading to exhumations and reburials, as happened to a 60-year old-woman in June 2007 and a 17-year-old Ahmadi girl in March 2006. This girl, Nadia Hanif, was reburied because local clerics, supported by extremists, campaigned against her body lying amongst "true" Muslims. A family spokesman said: "How can peace and harmony be built in society?" Between 1988 and 2006, there were a total of 28 Ahmadi exhumations from Muslim cemeteries. Attempts by Ahmadis to expand or alter their own cemeteries are limited by the actions of fanatical Muslims.

In April 2007, when Ahmadis wished to place a fence around a graveyard at Wagah Town near Lahore, a radical cleric declared this unacceptable. The cleric, Dr. Sarfaraz Ahmed Naeemi, promised retaliations if the government allowed it. He said that as the cemetery was near the Indian border, having it enclosed appeared to suggest they wanted a headquarters. Naeemi added: "The government should remember that according to our belief, apostates should be killed within three days. It is only the difference of opinion on this decree within Muslims that has stopped us from doing so."

Ahmadis – like Christians – are killed for the sake of their faith. Between 1984 and 2004, at least 79 Ahmadis were killed. On March 1, 2007 a senior police officer shot dead Muhammad Ashraf, an Ahmadi man who was eating his breakfast in a hotel in a village near Lahore, Punjab province. Before shooting him, the policeman shouted: "You are an infidel, and are preaching an infidel creed in the area."

Early on Friday October 7th, two gunmen burst into an Ahmadi mosque in Mong, Mandi Bahuddin town, 60 miles south of Islamabad, the capital. The assailants fired Kalashnikovs at Ahmadis who were offering morning prayers. Eight people were killed and 14 more were injured. The gunmen fled on a motorcycle of a third man, who waited outside. A witness said: "The floor of the one-room place of worship was littered with blood."

On Monday January 19, 2009 a 55-year-old Ahmadi shopkeeper was shot dead in Kotri district, Sindh province. Saeed Ahmed had been returning home from work when he was shot in front of his house. The only reason for his killing, claimed an Ahmadi spokesman, was his faith. The spokesman blamed a media fatwa for allowing such killings to happen (see below).

Killings are horrific but when children are criminalized under the law on account of their faith, there can be no moral justification. In February 2007, it was revealed that police in Khushab district in Punjab province had registered a case against five young Ahmadis. Their "crime" had been to subscribe to an Ahmadi children's magazine called Tasheezul Azhan. The police officer who made the case claimed the magazine was "banned" and contained "hate material," even though it had been printed since 1906. Two of the accused were preteens. One was an 11-year-old girl, Nusrat Jahan, and one was an 8-year-old boy called Umair Ahmed.

In Layyah district in Punjab province, another incident involved children being criminalized. Four Ahmadi boys from the district were arrested on January 28th this year. The boys, named Muhammad Irfan, Tahir Imran, Tahir Mahmood and Naseeb Ahmad, were said in the FIR (First Information Report) to have written "blasphemous material" in the latrines of the Gulzar-e-Madina mosque in Kot Sultan. They were all charged under Section 295-C of the Blasphemy Laws. This statute, which outlaws the use of "derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet", is the most serious, as it can lead to the death penalty.

Following a well-established pattern, the accusations of blasphemy were followed by mob violence. On January 29, 2009, a day after the arrests, a mob tried to burn Ahmadi houses in Layyah district. The protagonists of the violence were said to be banned Islamist extremist groups.

The case is serious. It is the first time since 1986, when Section 295-C of the PPC was introduced, that it has been used against children. The "banned groups" who led the agitation against the Layyah Ahmadiyya community, were the Sipah-i-Sahaba. Apparently a retired schoolteacher called Noor Elahi Kulachi, who is a member of the Sipah-i-Sahaba, led the campaign to have the children arrested. Kulachi approached a relative of a member of the National Assembly, who then convened a meeting. This had the boys branded as "guilty."

On Friday January 30 a 45-year old man called Mubaser Ahmed was also arrested. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) released a statement. This asserted that the boys had not been part of the mosque where the graffiti was found, nor were they from the area.

The AHRC statement also read: "After contacting Dr Muhammad Azam, the district police officer (DPO) of Layyah, family members were told that the police were under pressure from fundamentalists to act against the children. If he did not arrest them, Azam said, the group had threatened to close down the whole city and attack the houses of Ahmedi sect members. Worried about civilian deaths, the officer arrested the children."

On February 7, 2009, it was revealed that the four accused children had been sent to Dera Ghazi Khan Central Jail. A local community leader sent them books in jail, so they could review for their examinations. Members of the banned Islamist groups that were said to be responsible for attacking Ahmadiyya homes in Layyah were not charged or arrested.

I contacted a British Ahmadiyya mosque and was told that the four Ahmadi boys have since been bailed. Even though they are no longer in prison, they are still awaiting their trial for blasphemy.

In a country that receives so much money from Western nations, particularly from the United States, it is shocking that some officials and politicians flout the rule of law and show no respect for the human rights of others. On September 7, 2008, a former government minister repeatedly declared that as Ahmadis did not believe Mohammed to be the last prophet, it was necessary under Islamic teachings to kill them. He also persuaded his two guests to agree with the statement. Within 48 hours, two Ahmadis had been murdered.

Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain had formerly been the religious affairs minister for Pakistan, and used to be with the MQM party. On July 4, 2007, he was forced to resign from his post as religious affairs minister, on the orders of the MQM party. The party was unhappy with Liaquat Hussain's comments that Salman Rushdie should be killed for blasphemy.

Liaquat Hussein made his comments on the popular religious show that he had fronted as anchorman, called "Aalim Online," This show is on Geo TV. Shortly after his calls for Ahmadis to be killed, the MQM party also dropped Liaquat Hussein from their main committee.

Eighteen hours after Liaquat Hussein called for Ahmadis to be killed as a "religious duty" (Wajib ul Qatal), six people walked into a clinic in Mirpur Khas, Sindh province. Here, Dr. Abdul Manan Siddiqui had a medical practice. They called for the doctor, an Ahmadi, to come to assist a patient. When the doctor came down to see them, he was shot eleven times and died. A woman and a guard were injured by gunfire. On September 9, 2008, a 75-year-old man was killed in Nawab Shah, Sindh province. Mr. Yousaf was a rice trader and head of his local Ahmadi group. He was shot at by men on motorbikes, hit three times, and died in an ambulance before it reached hospital.

On May 29, 2009 the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat issued a press release. This stated that a 54-year-old Ahmadi man from Faisalabad in Pakistan had been killed in what appeared to be a targeted assassination. Mian Liaq Ahmad was driving home when he found a car blocking access to the road where he lived. Men jumped from a car and shot Mr Ahmad in the head. The press release stated: "He becomes the 5th Ahmadi to be martyred in 2009 and the 101st to be killed in Pakistan since anti-Ahmadiyya laws were introduced by the Government of General Zia-ul-Haq in 1984."

Christians

In Part One I mentioned the case of Fanish "Robert" Masih, who was apparently murdered in his jail cell. His extra-judicial killing is not without precedent. On May 28, 2004 a Christian called Samuel Masih died from injuries. Samuel had been a suspect in a blasphemy case, and while incarcerated, he had developed tuberculosis. On May 22, 2004, he had been escorted to hospital by police guards. One of these police officers, Faryad Ali, hit Samuel on the head with a brick-cutter. Apparently, the police constable claimed that he wanted to gain a place in heaven by killing Samuel.

Christians are most frequently murdered in connection with blasphemy cases, but occasionally acts of naked sectarian violence are used against them. On Christmas Day 2002, three girls were killed in a grenade attack at a church. The incident happened in Chianwala, north of Lahore in Punjab province. The assailants who threw the grenade wore burkas. Two girls died instantly, and another died later. The victims were aged 6, 10 and 15.

The grenade attack happened after a local Muslim cleric told his congregation: "It is the duty of every good Muslim to kill Christians. You should attack Christians and not even have food until you have seen their dead bodies." The cleric, Nazir Yaqub, was a supporter of banned group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is linked with al Qaeda.

On September 25, 2002, seven Christians were killed in Karachi, Sindh province. On March 17, 2002 another church was attacked with grenades in Islamabad. Five people were killed and 45 were injured.

On Monday August 5, 2002, six people were killed at the Murree Christian School near Islamabad. On August 9, 2002 grenades were thrown into a Christian hospital in Taxila, 25 miles from Islamabad. Three nurses died.

The worst sectarian attack against Christians happened on October 28, 2001 when 18 people died after gunmen attacked a church service in St. Dominic's church in Bahawalpur in Punjab province. In July 2002, four people were arrested in connection with the incident. Two of these belonged to the banned group Lashkar-i-Jhvangi.

Challenging the Blasphemy Laws

In May 2007 Christians in Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province, close to the Afghan border, were threatened by Islamists. A letter telling them to convert or die was circulated in the town. The threats came after a legal attempt to change the blasphemy laws had failed.

Attempting to challenge the blasphemy laws has always invoked the ire of Islamic fanatics. These are highly organized. Lashkar-Jhvangi comprises former fighters who were in Afghanistan, fighting the Soviets. Other groups, such as Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat, have been instrumental in oppressing the "heretical" Ahmadiyya, and also challenging any proposed changes to the blasphemy legislation. The Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat reappeared in the news in May last year demanding that Pakistan cut ties with the Netherlands and Denmark.

The aggression of this group was expressed by its leader, Hanif Tayyab, who said: "We put the government on one-month notice to expel these envoys and recall our ambassadors from the two countries, otherwise we will ask our followers to march on Islamabad."

Lashkar-i-Jhvangi and Sipah-i-Sahaba appear to have been instrumental in many notorious instances of communal violence against Pakistani Christian communities (as well as their documented attacks upon Ahmadi and Shia Muslim communities). Often they invoke "blasphemy" accusations against individuals to better mobilize groups to violence against whole communities. This appeared to have happened at Sangla Hill in Punjab province in 2005, and also at Gojra in August this year.

The first major case of such communal violence happened against the Christian village of Shanti Nagar near Karachi, Sindh province. On February 6, 1997, thousands of Islamic protesters descended on the village with placards stating: "Kill the Christians because they are Blasphemers towards the Holy Quran and Holy Prophet." In the village of Shanti Nagar 785 houses were destroyed, four churches were burned, and 2,500 people forced to flee. Two days before, Muslims had run riot in the town of Khanegal. In all, 13 churches were destroyed and 2,000 Bibles were destroyed. The mob violence, in which incendiary devices were used, had stemmed from the discovery of a ripped Koran, which had Christians' names written on the pages.

The problems with attempting to challenge the blasphemy laws are plain: Anyone who attempts to alter the laws is seen as an "enemy of Islam," and the Islamist groups can mobilize support with little resistance from the authorities.

Lawyers who have acted to defend those accused of blasphemy have been threatened. Aslam Pervaiz is one individual who had received death threats and had been assaulted for defending those accused of blasphemy. Sheikh Anis A Saadi is the Chairman of a free advocacy service and said in November 2008 that he has been subject to social stigma from defending alleged "blasphemers." His office had been set on fire, he had been assaulted, and his family had received written threats from a "jihadi" group.

The Asian Human Rights Commission reports that a lawyer has been mentioned in a printed Urdu advertisement, placed in several newspapers. The lawyer in question is called Rao Zafar Iqbal, and he is head of the National Council for Human Rights. He received threatening letters in July 2009. These demanded that he stop defending religious minorities. They came from Jan Nisaran-e-Nabuwat and Aqeeda-e-Tahafuz-e-Kathme Nabuwat. When he went to Faisalabad police to request protection, they refused. He was then shot at.

On August 4, 2009, an advertisement appeared in the Daily Pavel newspaper. It is reproduced above. This advertisement declared that Rao Zafar Iqbal is deserving of death, because he defended a man called Mohammed Ayube who claims to be Prophet Mohammed. Even though Ayube appears to be mentally ill, fatwas appeared against him in the Daily Pavel and Daily Express newspapers. The advertisement mentioning Rao Zafar Iqbal stated that murdering the lawyer would be doing a service to Islam.

The police appear to have taken no action against the newspapers, and in so many cases of alleged "blasphemy," as well as when sectarian riots occur, the police are said to have stood back and done nothing.

When lawyers have been successful, and their clients are freed, the acquitted individuals have to flee for their lives. Several have been killed after gaining freedom. For example, Manzur Masih, Rahmat Masih and Salamat Masih had been arrested in May 1993, accused of blasphemy, under Section 295-C of the PPC.

The Christians were said to have passed pieces of paper into a mosque in Punjab province. The slips of paper allegedly bore insulting comments about Mohammed. The three had been accused by a cleric, Maulvi Fazl-e-Haq, who was a leader of the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba, which at that time was not banned. Fazl-e-Haq claimed the three had also scribbled graffiti on the mosque wall.

At Lahore High Court, the three were acquitted, and set free, accompanied by another young man who had been falsely accused. Standing on the steps of the courthouse, the four were shot at by gunmen. Manzur Masih was killed. The judge who had acquitted him would also later be killed by extremists for freeing the Christians.

Bishop John Joseph, the first ethnic Pakistani to become Bishop of Faisalabad, attended the funeral of Manzur Masih, and even kissed the feet of the dead man. He vowed that he would be the next person to die under the blasphemy laws. Later, in his frustration, Bishop Joseph would give his own life. But even his own sacrifice brought no change to the laws.

In Part Three, I will discuss the events of Bishop Joseph's mission to stop the persecution of Christians and to repeal the blasphemy statutes. I will also present a timeline of some of the most interesting Pakistani legal cases of blasphemy. 

Bishop John Joseph

Manzur Masih, a 37-year-old Christian laborer, was shot outside the Lahore courthouse on April 5, 1994. Acquitted of blasphemy, gunmen connected to the fanatical Sunni terror group Sipah-i-Sahaba had issued their own version of "summary justice".

A year previously, Masih had been put on trial with two others from his village, Rehmat Masih and 12-year-old Salamat Masih. Initially accused by a cleric allied to Sipah-i-Sahaba, they were charged, found guilty and sentenced to death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. They were accused of writing derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed. Since the early 1990s (states the National Commission for Justice and Peace) the death penalty has been a mandatory sentence for those found guilty of breaching Section 295-C. The flaw in the charge against the three villagers was that they were all illiterate and could not have written the insulting slogans for which they were convicted. All three were shot outside the court, with Manzur dying on the spot. Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih received serious injuries.

Justice Arif Iqbal Husain Bhatti, one of the two Lahore High Court judges who set the Christians free, was not to escape the "justice" of fanatics. He would receive death threats from fanatics. Finally, in October 1997, the extremists' threats were fulfilled and the judge was shot near the Lahore courthouse where he worked. A laborer was arrested for the judge's murder in 1998.

The suspect, Ahmad Sher, allegedly told interrogators that: "....I went to his Turner Road office at around 9 am but he had not arrived. I went out and returned after about 30 minutes but he was still not present. When I went into the office for the third time, the office boy went in to inform him and entered the room from the other door. He was engrossed in some document when I fired three shots targeting the head and face. After firing the shots I rushed out."

Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph kissed the feet of Manzur Masih's corpse at his funeral, and is said to have declared: "Manzur, the next blood to be shed for these laws will be mine." The bishop would lead protests of Christians against the murder of Manzur Masih.

John Joseph, a native of Khushpur, was born on November 15, 1932. He was ordained as a priest on January 18, 1960, and consecrated as a bishop in January 1981. He served as an auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Faisalabad for four years before becoming ordained as the Bishop of Faisalabad on January 9, 1984.

Bishop Joseph's pastoral work brought him into contact with Christians with little education and no political power, who were being exploited by Islamic fundamentalists. He would become deeply involved in the plight of Christians who were accused by fanatics of "blasphemy" against Islam.

He would become intimately linked with the National Commission for Justice and Peace, NCJP, a group formed in 1985 by the Pakistan Catholic Bishop's Conference. In 1987, NCJP provided advocacy for bonded labor in brick factories, leading to the abolition of bonded labor in 1992.

One of the campaigns against discrimination that Bishop John Joseph and the NCJP worked on was mounting an opposition to a decision by the government to have a section on identity cards listing a person's religion. With Catholic and Protestant bishops staging sit-down protests on streets, the government relented at Christmas 1992 and withdrew its plans for the legislation.

On March 20, 1998, the bishop convened a rally for Christian unity in Vienna, Austria. Accompanied by Catholics and Protestants, he spoke of the problems of minorities in Pakistan and condemned the blasphemy laws. He said of them that "we object to these laws because they are the main hindrance to Christian-Muslim relations. We shall fight till the dawn comes, (and) the forms (of this fight) may be diverse."

Though long, in an address dated April 30, 1998, John Joseph gave a succinct account of fundamentalism. Called "The Challenges of Religious Fundamentalism and Violence to Social Harmony," this is a segment:

"The first victims of the fundamentalist parties are the religious minorities. They direct their full wrath on these minorities and depict them as dangerous to society and country. For example, Christians and Ahmadis in Pakistan. In Iran, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Bahais were brutally persecuted and excluded from all government jobs. In Egypt, the Coptics are the victims. The second victims are women. They believe women are inferior to men, root of evil, weak and stupid, and without any understanding of worldly affairs. The third victims are those people who have secular, liberal, and enlightened outlook, especially the intellectuals and the human rights' activists."

"They are against the West and watch carefully their progress and activities. Whenever possible they will do acts of terrorism to get attention from the world media For them every one in the Western countries is an enemy of Islam so they support all sorts of violent or non-violent activities to fight against their enemies who are non-Muslims and westernized Muslims, as well."

"To popularize their policies they use the method of Tabligh, that is preaching. Their second method is violence. It is their belief that those who oppose them are the enemies of God. First they terrorize them to silence them; in the second stage they eliminate them which also serve as warnings to others."

"Those individuals who adopt secular ideas are regarded by them as Murtad/apostate and thus punishable by death. To legitimize it, the Fatwa (i.e. religious judgment) is issued in this regard which makes it obligatory on every Muslim to kill the said person. In Iran, during the Shah regime, a liberal advocate Khusrau was killed when the religious leaders sanctioned his murder. Similarly, Imam Khomeini issued the Fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie."

"In Pakistan very often fatwas are issued against Christians. This happened in the case of Salamat Masih, a teenager, Manzoor Masih and Rehmat Masih, farmers in Gujranwala, Gul Masih, a small business owner in Sargodha, and Nemat Ahmer, a school teacher in Faisalabad. Nemat Ahmer was killed and so was Manzoor Masih. Salamat Masih, Gul Masih and Rehmat Masih were given death sentence by the Sessions Courts but later freed by the High Court of Lahore. Very often Islamic laws, particularly Blasphemy Laws are used against others in particular against Christians to settle personal scores and prejudices. This creates a sense of fear among the Christians."

"Under the fundamentalist influence, publication of religious books increase and secular literature rapidly decreases. It also greatly affects the music, painting, sculpture, and dancing, and, also as a whole, the society loses its glamour, and violence and dullness reign supreme. This is what has happened for example in Pakistan."

"For South African Archbishop Tutu, 'the real issue at hand is taking Islamic fundamentalism as a challenge and the most effective way to counter it is by deepening people's faith.' (art. Islam is Africa, in World Mission, January, 1993, PP 28-29.)"

The Case of Ayub Masih

Less than a week after he made his address on the victimization of minorities, Bishop John Joseph would be dead. There were intimations in the words he reputedly spoke over the body of Manzur Masih that he considered martyrdom. In the address he made six days before he died, he had mentioned: "I shall count myself extremely fortunate, if in this mission of breaking the barriers, Our Lord accepts the sacrifice of my blood for the benefit of His people. As St. Paul wrote, "It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of His body, the Church" (Col. 1: 24)."

Aged 66, Bishop Joseph killed himself. He had traveled to a court in Sahiwal in Punjab province on May 6, 1998. The bishop had asked Father Yaqoob Farooq to accompany him. At around 9:30 pm, after asking Fr. Farooq to stay back, the bishop took out a pistol and shot himself in the neck. He died on the same spot where a member of his diocese had been shot at, on November 6, 1977. This individual was Ayub Masih. On April 27, 1998, two days before Bishop John Joseph made his address against victimization of minorities, Ayub Masih had been sentenced to death.

On October 14, 1996 Ayub Masih had been arrested, accused of breaching Section 295-C, (making "derogatory comments about Prophet Mohammed"). Unusually, the indictment claimed that Ayub had suggested someone read the "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie. The authorities had taken an alleged suggestion to read a book to be the same as insulting a prophet, a bizarre precedent in law.

Ayub's personal account of his case includes the following:

"In truth, I never said anything against Islam or its Prophet. I worked as a brick layer in Karachi and I was attending a Bible College because I wanted to become a minister. In August 1996, I returned to my home village of Arifabad to visit my family. My family was facing trouble with a Muslim landlord who wanted to take all of the land away from the Christians in our village. My father and brothers resisted the landlord’s demand to give up the land rights to our property. At my family’s house, my brother and I were beaten by a mob of several dozen men. The mob then dragged my brother and me to the local police station."

"I was formally arrested, on 14th October 1996, following a complaint filed by Muhammed Akam, who alleged that he heard me saying, ‘If you want to know the truth about Islam, then read Salman Rushdie.’ The case was registered with the police without proper investigation and based merely on the statement by the complainant. Meanwhile, my whole family, along with the other 14 Christian families, fled our village under threats to their lives. Pakistani police did nothing to protect them or to stop the terror. I was imprisoned for the next 5 years and 10 months, most of that time, in Multan jail. After one year in prison, I was tried for blasphemy."

The original trial was held in Arifwala, but there was a fear that extremists would disrupt proceedings. Ayub was moved to Sahiwal, and there he was shot. The gunman was not arrested. Ayub stated, "Police refused to arrest the man."

 The death of Bishop John Joseph seemed designed to highlight the injustice of the case of Ayub Masih, a case that was a pars pro toto for all the other injustices endured by Christian and other minorities in Pakistan. Inside Pakistan, Christians went on protests and the world's media may have taken more of an interest in the plight of Pakistan's minorities. On May 28, 1998, three weeks after Bishop Jon Joseph shot himself, Pakistan announced to the world that it had conducted its first successful tests of nuclear weapons. The international media was diverted away from the plight of oppressed minorities in Pakistan.

Ayub Masih endured abuse in prison. He was stabbed in prison in early 1999. Though he attack was witnessed by jail staff, the four Muslims who carried out the assault were never punished. The prison staff even refused to allow him a doctor. Ayub had an appeal in July 2001, but the courthouse was filled with Islamists who were shouting death threats. The appeal fell through. On October 8, 2001, a petition on Ayub's behalf was made to the United Nations, to its Commission on Human Rights' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention A second appeal was made to the Supreme Court i Pakistan. On August 16, 2002, the Supreme Court threw out the case. While fundamentalists offered a 100,000 rupee bounty on his head, Ayub Masih slipped out of the country and found sanctuary in the United States of America.

Why The Law Never Changes

Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) was prime minister at the time of Bishop John Joseph's death. Sharif's government defended the blasphemy laws. A spokesman from the foreign ministry declared that "complete freedom of speech" existed in Pakistan, but argued that "denigration of any religion is not permissible." The Religious and Minorities Minister in Nawaz's cabinet was Raja Zafarul Haq, who had previously defended the blasphemy laws. and had been active in persuading General Zia ul-Haq in his campaigns against the Ahmadis. Immediately after Bishop Joseph's death, Zafarul Haq claimed that minorities in Pakistan had full security "according to Islamic teachings. He asserted that the blasphemy laws had never been implemented in the country "without substantial evidence."

On Friday May 8, 1998, thousands of Christians in Faisalabad publicly mourned the bishop. When some allegedly began to throw stones at shops, the crowds were tear-gassed by police. Joseph's body lay in a coffin in Faisalabad Cathedral before burial. Nawaz Sharif commiserated with the mourners, saying the bishop's death was tragic. He urged Pakistani nationals to be tolerant of each others' religions and beliefs, but made no plans to change the law.

Soon Nawaz Sharif would be deposed in a coup led by General Pervez Musharraf. In April 2000, before he had restored a semblance of democracy to the nation, Musharraf promised to act against the human rights abuses proliferating in the country. He told a human rights conference in Islamabad that he would act to protect women and minorities. He vowed to put an end to "honor killings" and claimed that he would attempt to end the abuse connected with the blasphemy laws.

In May 2000 Musharraf admitted that he had given up his plans to amend the manner in which the blasphemy laws were to be applied. His plan was to replace the immediate incarceration of someone accused of blasphemy with the intervention of a senior public official, who would investigate cases before arrests could be made. Musharraf backed down in the face of opposition and threats of protest from "a number of Islamic organizations".

Musharraf had the confidence of the army, but even though he managed in 2006 to have the Hudood laws repealed (these laws ensured that a raped woman who went to law was jailed for adultery unless she could produce four male Muslim witnesses) he did not attempt to remove the blasphemy legislation. The Minister for Religion in the last government was Ameer Liaquat Hussein,who supports strong punishments for "blasphemy". One Senator in In 2007 spoke of reforming the law, but nothing happened.

The blasphemy laws have been condemned by governments, human rights organizations, and political and religious figures since they became implemented. Yet no constructive action has been taken. Recently, editorials in the comparatively liberal English language press in Pakistan have called for the blasphemy laws to be abolished. Such calls have happened frequently before but have never brought change.

In August 2009, Pakistan's current State Minister for Interior, Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi, spoke of the violence in Gojra, promising an inquiry. He announced that "the government will take appropriate measures to prevent future flare-ups of communal carnage," and mentioned plans by Prime Minister Gilani to introduce more reserved seats in the National Assembly for representatives of minority groups. He mentioned that the government may review the blasphemy laws to prevent their abuse. Minorities need the laws to be rewritten or abolished.

Shahbaz Bhatti is the current Minorities Minister. He has suggested that the blasphemy laws need to be reviewed. When he was in the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance he campaigned for the laws to be abolished, not reviewed.

For too long, Islamists who desire to see democracy overthrown have interfered with the democratic process. In the last government, about one sixth of the seats in the National Assembly were by members of the MMA, an alliance of six hardline Islamist parties. In May 2007 the MMA managed to introduce a draft bill against apostasy. This was never ratified, but it ordered that anyone who left Islam was liable to the death penalty.

While governments have come and gone, Pakistan's paramilitary intelligence services – ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence – have used Islamism to expand their powers, training up and funding terrorist groups to fight India in Kashmir and in an aborted attempt to introduce a Sikh state (Khalistan) in India. Some of the most fierce terror groups were set up during the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq. The ISI were instrumental in setting up the Afghanistan Taliban. The network of jihadists established by ISI, and even the powerful ISI itself, would never allow any government to remove Islamist laws without a fight.

The original laws on religion in the 1860 Penal Code were not designed to favor one religion above another. I spoke to a Pakistani commentator, who told me: "Amendments of laws relating to religious offences in the Pakistan Penal Code brought about under President Zia differ significantly from earlier laws in at least four ways. They do not specifically mention malicious intent to wound religious sensitivities as a condition of criminal offence and they provide significantly increased penalties. Moreover they make specific reference to Islam while the earlier laws were intended to protect the religious sentiments of 'any class of persons'. Besides, there is a distinct shift in emphasis: the newly introduced sections of the PPC do not make it a criminal offence to injure the religious feelings of Muslims, but rather define the offense in terms of insult or affront to Islam itself. The offenses consist in defiling or insulting the prophet of Islam, his companions and family members and desecrating the Koran."

In a Muslim country, any attempt to remove an Islamic law can be seen as an attack upon Islam, even if the law is being abused and is causing harm to Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Some Cases

One bizarre case of blasphemy involved Muhammad Yousaf Ali, who had once been a favorite of General Zia ul-Haq. Formerly an adviser to the Saudi government, a senior figure in the army, Yousaf Ali became a religious figure. Soon he became carried away with his religious ideas. He was alleged to have declared himself a prophet, though he denied it. A cult grew around Yousaf Ali and some of his followers did think of him as a prophet. He soon gained the name "Yousaf Kazab" (Yousaf Liar). On August 5, 2000, he was sentenced to death for contravening Section 295-C of the penal code (derogatory language about Mohammed).

On June 11, 2002, Yousaf Ali was shot dead in Kot Lakhpat Central Jail in Lahore, Punjab province. He was being moved from one cell to another when another prisoner, Tariq Mota, drew a gun and shot Yousaf Ali four times in the chest. When the jail superintendent arrived, Mota said to him: "It was your duty, but I have done it." The killer said he had been in possession of the pistol for four months.

Tariq Mota, the Sipah-i-Sahaba terrorist who killed Yousaf Ali, also allegedly said after the murder: "I now feel spiritually satisfied. It is the responsibility of every Muslim to kill these infidels."

Amnesty International complained and asked for the blasphemy laws to be amended or abolished. The governor of Punjab province blamed the jail staff for the death.

Another notable case concerned human rights activist Younus Sheikh. Though accused of blasphemy, Younus Sheikh had said at a convention on October 1, 2000 that the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India should become the international border. This incensed a Pakistani officer. Sheikh lost his college teaching job, and then was accused under Section 295-C of the PPC, blaspheming against Mohammed. He was found guilty. On August 18, 2001, Younus Sheikh was sentenced to death. His appeal was successful and he was secretly released from jail on November 21, 2003. He remained incognito in Pakistan before fleeing to Europe.

People from all backgrounds and creeds have been accused of blasphemy. But when people genuinely believe they are prophets, there must be doubts about their sanity. On August 7, 2003, a court in Bahawalnagar, Punjab province, sentenced Bashir Ahmed to death for blasphemy against Mohammed, and also for claiming to be a prophet. Ahmed believed he was sent by God to reform society. Ahmed had a group of followers, and medical reports declared him to be mentally sound. His family had argued that he was psychiatrically unbalanced.

In Sindh province one faith healer was taken into custody on Christmas Day, 2008. Allegedly Abdul Jabbar he had been found burning pages from the Koran. A crowd of thousands had gathered and decided to wreak vengeance upon Jabbar and his assistant, a man called Naimatullah. The two men were tortured and their den set alight. The crowd was going to burn the pair alive when police arrived. The faith healer and his accomplice were charged under Section 295-B.

In July 2003 a sub-editor with mental illness was sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy in North-West Frontier Province. The sub-editor allowed a letter in English to be published, not understanding its contents. The office of the "Frontier Post" was torched, and even though the sub-editor was declared by a doctor to be mentally ill, the doctor's assessment was over-ruled by the judge.

One disturbing case of mental illness has recently been discussed. Back in 1996, a woman called Zebunnisa was accused under Section 295-B of desecrating the Koran. She has been in prison ever since that date, and has never been brought before a court. Imprisonment without trial for 13 years is an abuse of her rights, but in January 25, 2006 she was taken to a mental hospital where she was declared to be "mentally retarded." Instead of being released on the basis of a request made in September, the woman must wait. Lahore High Court ruled on October 1, 2009 that Zebunissa's counsel must submit another application for her release.

It is generally accepted that personal arguments or religious differences are the source of blasphemy accusations. In June 2006 an imam from a mosque was killed, and another was severely injured in a row over "blasphemy" that involved two competing sects of Sunni Islam. The incident took place in Hasilpur, Bahawalpur district in Punjab. The imam, Qamar Javed, preached at an Ahl-e-Hadith mosque. When he burned some trash, the imam was accused by members of another sect that he was burning Koran pages. A mob situation developed, and the imam was killed and his assistant beaten. Posthumous blasphemy cases were registered against the two victims of the mob, while the killers received no charges.

On June 27, 2008 Lahore High Court quashed a death sentence which had been given in 2003 to Tahir Asim, an imam. The cleric claimed that his accusers had religious differences with him. The court agreed, and Asim was released on the same day.

The Sipah-i-Sahaba and Lashkar-i-Jhvangi have been involved with provoking blasphemy issues, and they have also been implicated in cases of sectarian violence (including bombings) against Shia Muslims. It is therefore unsurprising that in May 2005, when fourteen Shias were officially accused of blasphemy, the Sipah-i-Sahaba were involved.

The Shias were accused under Section 298-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (“use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages”). The Shia group included five children. On a Shia holy day, the children allegedly made an effigy of a companion of the Prophet, placed it on a donkey, uttered insulting comments, and took it to a market. They repeated the remarks and ran off when reprimanded. Originally, nine children were been listed in the FIR charge.

A jirga (tribal council) intervened and suggested the children should have their faces blackened (a shameful experience) and then made to ride on donkeys. This did not happen, and the case was brought to the police instead. The Shias lived in a village (in Haveli Koranga, Khanewal district) where the Sipah-i-Sahaba had been founded in 1986, and were effectively surrounded by members of the Deobandi fundamentalist group. (The Taliban of Afghanistan follows this ideology, as do the Tablighi Jamaat, a group which has several ISI members).

In April 2008 in Karachi, Sindh province, a Hindu factory worker was tortured and murdered by his coworkers, who accused him of blasphemy. Twenty-seven-year-old Jagdish Kumar had allegedly doubted the sanctity of Prophet Mohammed. When police arrived, the workers were trying to burn Mr. Kumar's body.

There are many more stories of how the issue of blasphemy and the unfair implementation of the blasphemy laws have turned Pakistan into a nation where its minorities live a precarious existence, where at any time they could become a victim. The blasphemy laws also are abused against individual Muslims.

When there is a constant fear, some people occasionally turn against each their erstwhile friends. Rather than becoming victims, some people join with the oppressors. At the end of March 2009, several Christian families were forced to flee their homes in the village of Sahiwal, Punjab province. The refugees were accused of throwing ink on the Koran. Their accusers were not only Muslims, but other Christians.

A copy of the Koran was allegedly found on the floor in a girls' school in the village after an overnight break-in. The pages of the holy book were smeared in ink and gum. On a blackboard was a statement which appeared to implicate a particular Christian male. A mob tried to set fire to his house and the houses of his associates. More arson attempts followed. The factions appear to have divided along political lines, but it seems that some Christians preferred to side with those who wanted mob justice, to save themselves from being the victims of such "justice."

There is no room to insert a timeline of blasphemy events, as I had originally intended. I must offer that as a supplement at a later date. A brief timeline can be found here, and a listing of Ahmadi cases where the death sentence was imposed can be found here.

The President of Pakistan, Ali Asif Zardari, recently made promises in the Vatican and in London to ensure that minorities are not subjected to further assaults like that in Gojra on August 1, 1999. On September 18, 2009, Zardari spoke to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

The notice on the Archbishop's website reads:

"The President expressed awareness of the perception about Blasphemy law being exploited. The Government was conscious of the need to urgently address the issue in consultation with other political parties, civil society and religious communities in Pakistan with a view to preventing the misuse of the Blasphemy law in future. He confirmed that the Government was endeavoring to seek a broad political consensus on the issue through consultation."

"The President highlighted that the Government has allocated a quota for the minorities in the Government service, Senate, National and Provincial Assembly and appointed a Christian as Minister for Minorities to ensure appropriate representative of minorities.”

“Bishop Michael Nazir Ali commended these measures and also the unprecedented recent appointment of a Minority Member as High Court Judge."

Since 1986 there have been numerous cases of communities being attacked, and no government has ever been able to legislate against fanaticism. There are many things that could be done to encourage peace and harmony between all groups. Separating Mosque and state would be one. Abolishing discriminatory laws would be another. Revising the constitution to protect all religions could be an option. These are only pipe dreams.

In practice, look out for politicians mouthing platitudes, feigning concern and receiving more cash handouts from foreign governments. While this happens, expect the same violence, discrimination, injustice and bigotry to continue unabated.

This article appeared in FamilySecurityMatters.org. Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. He is currently compiling a book on the demise of democracy and the growth of extremism in Britain.

Comments (22)

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written by a guest , October 08, 2009

non muslims put 5 millions jews in gas chamber not muslims

-------------------------------

read my blog, read how islam will win the
clash of civilization.

http://www.xanga.com/hfghj23458654fgha

...
written by vbv , October 08, 2009

That the status of non-muslims in Pakistan is miserable,fraught with danger to their life and possessions is not new to us in India. But the author has written a very exhaustive article exposing the duplicity and cruelty of the barbaric cult of islam. It is certainly an eye-opener to the people in the West who are either ignorant of the criminal and fraudulent cult of islam or the apologists who refuse to acknowledge the inherent danger of looking the other way and proclaiming that 'islam is a peaceful religion'. Far from being a 'religion' ,it is a mafia code that promotes anarchy ,rule by the clerics' diktats in the name of the most backward , irrational and most inhumane mafia code called 'Sharia'. In an islamic society the clerics rule the roost,call the shots with their 'fatwas' to murder,loot ,rape or any other criminal act under the unholy shit of Quran,Hadiths,Sunnah and Sharia. Iran ,Pakistan,Iraq,Bangladesh,Somalia,Sudan,Saudi Arabia,etc. are living examples of this anarchy and barbarianism.

The ordinary muslim is ignorant ,brainwashed and made into a zombie incapable of thinking logically or rationally. His mind is conditioned by the barbaric babbles of their clerics and politicians who have a vested interest to be in collusion with the mad,powerhungry clerics to subjugate people and cling on to absolute and unquestioned power.
Onlly way of redemption from this predicament is to embrace democracy and secular values and throw the power-hungry monsters,namely the muslim clerics and the dictators. The people have themselves to be blamed,otherwise. Islamic countries will not allow a Gandhi or Nehru to come up as they will be murdered in the very nascent stage by the self-same coherts of clerics and power-hungry anarchists in the name of 'blasphemy' or 'heresy'. Therefore there is no hope unless people themselves rise to the occassion and revolt against the fraudulent and criminal idealogy of the mad cult of islam and ruthlessly eliminate the monsters bred by this rotten ,insular and criminal cult.

Muslim atrocities
written by Babak , October 08, 2009

muslims killed 300 million people and still counting. In 90 % of the conflicts muslims are involved.
Muslims have made maximum slaves of people and still in many african places they keep slaves. In middle east non-officially millions of slaves are there.
muslims are the only whose prophet raped and started a religion based on sword.

To Anonymous
written by ex-Muslim , October 08, 2009

That's not quite true.

Muslims were Hitler leading supporters. They also formed two SS units in the Balkan to help Hitler's project of extermination of Jews.

Christians should work with hindus
written by Fakir Chand , October 08, 2009

When hindus were killed no body was taking notice and when they were reduced and now christians are second largest minority and so obvious target of muslims, all are in focus. Please christians cooperate with hindus and instead of forced converting them work with them to convert muslims. In India, the money used for conversion of hindus is many many times more than all muslims in the world. Christians are working with muslims to harass and convert hindus as hindus are too tolerant and consider there are many path to God.
The websites like compass watch etc are filled with fanaticism of christians. Its true that muslims harass them, but the christians do bad mouth hindus, buddhists etc more.
Even in those christian website you will find the terms 'extremists' coined to all non-christian, non-muslim faiths. Even in bangladesh when they try to convert few handful of buddhists, and when they oppose peacefully, the christian websites will print news that 'radical' /' extremist' buddhist or hindu have beaten them etc etc.
Also in Israel christians are supporting muslims against jews. Infact palestinian muslims are fed and bred by christian NGOs, so that they will kill more jews.
Please side with jews, hindus and buddhists.

Persecution of Christians in Pakistan
written by balam , October 08, 2009

The persecution of Christians will continue in Pakistan as long as it appears on the map of the world.First of all,the Islamic Repulic should be removed which has been attached to the name of Pakistan or it should be rightly called:Barbaric Repuplic of Pakistan.There is nothing humane practiced in the land of PURE EVIL.It is all based on backward 7th century Arabian culture enforced by Mohammad by his un-ethical book called Quran arranged in weird way.The largest Suras in the beginning and the ealiest Suras at the end.The Quran is like a body with PENIS on TOP as Fatiha and then the stomach and brain between the legs.It is a book of confusion with no wisdom but only SEX,SENSUALITY and SAVAGERY.You can see all these traits in Mohammadans.Blasphemy laws are the only leg Islam can stand on.If you remove that then Islam would collapse.Therefore,Blasphemy laws will never be repealed in Pakistan to keep Islam alive.Democracy can never take roots in a Muslim country because Islam and democracy are completely incompatible.Mohammad was like a cowboy,who still drives the Muslims with whip and gun.He was never a good shepard that his flock of sheep should follow him.He was more like a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Jihadists hate for Christians
written by Walter Sieruk , October 08, 2009

The reason why the jihadists hate Christians and would like to kill them is answered in the Bible . For it is written in Proverbs 29:10 "Bloodthirty men hate a man of integrity and seekto kill the uprigjht." [NIV] Furthermore, the jihadists hate Christianty and it's doctrines. For Second Petwer 2:12 reads "they speak evil of things they do nor understand and will utterly perish in their corruption." [NKJV]

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written by y.m , October 08, 2009

Every ordinary person in the Europe know that islam is a criminal idealogy and ruthless killer.Everywhere islam went it brings hunger,violence,hate,backwardness.How can world live in peace while islam exist?I believe if God have mercy upon this world and he sent mohd back into this world from the hell fire and mohd tell the muslims that he had lied to them about Gods revelation only then humanity can hope that their will be peace in this world.Otherwise,Islam will not let the world live in peace.Islam is uniquely evil.The solution for west is a return to Christ Jesus,s unique teaching of morality.Western socity have gone off the deep-end in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness.European leaders are either looking in the wrong direction or some of them are muslim appeasers.Western public have to wake up because your freedom of speech is at risk.

muzzie\'s are evil
written by Kohi , October 08, 2009

Muzzie's are evil they hate the world.
When a group of people who worship death and inbreed as they do Should anyone be surpized?

ISLAMIC PAKISATAN, do not belong in civilized worl
written by Globe trotter , October 08, 2009

It is incredible that this British author is writting this article when he opened his eyes and sees the persecution of christians only in PAKISATAN.!!!!! He is as usual the most prejudiced against Hindus and INDIA. I want to tell the truth and condemn this authors deeply biased and misrepresentation of facts. As ADRIAN morgan says - JINNA was not a secularist but a hard core ISLAMIC fundamentalist /JIHADIST. In early years of his life ( as is the case with several youngsters ) , JINNA might have some signs of secularist - as he wore western suits, drank, ate pork and made friendship with secularists. But Jinna was one of the hardcore separatist , through and through talked always based on his conviction of ISLAMIC separateness and cant live with HINDUS . JINNA routinely derided GANDHI, congress party, Hindus in his speaches . Not only JINNA was the pillar of the Moslem league party and passed resolutions in their conventions for a separate country for moslems solely based on their religion "ISLAM". Rafat ali brothers ,IQBAL and JINNA are the culprits for the division of INDIA and spearheading the evil cause of ISLAM. ON every level the demand by Moslem league, rafat ali,IQBAL,JINNA for a separate Moslem country base don religion ISLAM is immoral,illeagl, unethical and dounright bigotry, most narrow minded and fascist in nature. It was ISLAM and Moslems who came to INDIA as marauding murderers,from out side , invaded, looted, destroyed, killed, raped, enslaved and forced conversions on HINDUS , colonized, and ruled INDIA for 800 years making Hindus virtual slaves under ISLAM !!!! an estimated 80 million Hindus were put to death, massacred during the 800 yr rule of ISLAM in INDIA. This was followed by another 200 yr British rule on INDIA. No other country , people on this earth has suffered ,experienced hell and brutality,bigotry,destruction,rape,killing - as HINDUS and INDIA suffered under ISLAM and christianity , in the annals of human history. This is truth. Now Mr. ADRIAN moragan is rewritting history to suit his taste. Do ADRIAN Morgan not know the history of how INDIAN was partitioned ? It is a classic case of British intrigue and ISLAMIC treachery,monstorism ,demonism of Moslems. It was British who connived and accepted to the demands of Moslem league and JINNA . JINNA brought civil war in Bengal on august 6th 1946 by declaring direct action day ( code word meaning Moslems can attack and kill Hindus - in CALCUTTA - 6000 Hindus were butchered on that day by Moslem - the world do not know - that Moslems kill millions of animals for eed and bakrid and also traditionally inall places in INDIA Moslems run the slaughter houses and hence very capable of slaughtering humans (and are in posession of slaughtering paraphernalia ) too where as Hindus do not kill animals or eat meat - even though now many Hindus do eat meat).More will follow in my next message - continued.

in last 1400 yrs yr muzzies killed over 100 millio
written by in last 1400 yrs yr muzzies ki , October 09, 2009

in last 1400 yrs yr muzzies killed over 100 million hindus we want revenge for this.

u destroyed over 50000 temples in india,we want revenge for this and want to destroy all masjid in india.

let us do it now.

i agree xtians shud eliminate islam first
written by i agree xtians shud eliminate , October 09, 2009

i agree xtians shud eliminate islam first.bcoz muzzies will nuke xtian ppl very soon.

i agree xtians shud eliminate islam first
written by i agree xtians shud eliminate , October 09, 2009

judeo-christianity-islam is a curse on humanity.

the sooner its eliminated the better.

NO ONE TALKS OF HINDUS KILLED IN PAKILAND
written by NO ONE TALSK OF HINDUS KILLED , October 09, 2009

NO ONE TALSK OF HINDUS KILLED IN PAKILAND

To Fakir Chand
written by vbv , October 09, 2009

Your appeal is in vain. Christians in India hold muslims to be closer to them since it is a monotheistic cult and claims its origins from Abraham through his illegitimate son Ishmael. Today christianity is pretending to be a benign cult ,but for the most part of its history it was no less violent and intolerant than the islamists. Even today the evangelists ,especially in the USA and in India spew venom and hatred against 'pagans' and 'polytheists' and also heretics. You give these money-spinning scoundrels political power you will not know which is worse - islam or christianity. These corpse-worshippers have already created havoc in the North Eastern part of India sowing seeds of hatred and instigating those converted people to secede from India ,resort to violence , and achive their objective by any means ,even taking support ,arms from China,setting up training camps in Bangladesh,taking help from the LeT of Pakistan ,etc. With so much rancour against hindus based on the filth of the Abrahamic cults ,you can hardly expect the christians to sincerely co-operate with the hindus unless the hindus agree to fall for their rotten conversion frauds.

Hope christians will understand
written by Fakir Chand , October 09, 2009

Christians should understand eastern religions are personal faiths and no hindus etc forces political rules, thats why even though many hindus, buddhists, sikhs etc are there in west, no threat is there from them. Also in India, Christians are in all the best posts and live a good life. Few missionaries or ministaries of bible create havoc by first going to a remote village, give some money to few familes , make them convert to christianity then suggest that 'idol worship' is sin and so go and break idols from the temple, they go and break idols of hindus in temples, thus rest of the hindus beat them. immediately some media will make these christians as 'matyrs' and videos will be made that 'christians have been persecuted by 'extremist' hindus' by christian websites and then western people will think badly about hindus and more fund will come to India to convert hindus. Thus a ugly cycle.
Muslims are cunningly using christians as they know for christians all others except christians are 'heathans' and will 'go to hell' is important concept, so they get a good help from them in attacking hindus, buddhists, jews etc.
Infact christians do more interfaith dailogues with muslims and consider them as half christian as islamic story has all bible prophets including Jesus.
Hitler also used the same thing, he needed slaughter of jews and hardly any christian politicians etc were opposing it. Infact we have many documents and reports that Pope was silent on that.
Christians should know that they should group with jews, hindus, buddhists as they all are tolerant and help them against Islam.
when a copt or a christian get killed in egypt or pakistan its made a big news, while hundreds of hindus, buddhists are killed its not a news. Why?
Do remember muslims have finished christianity from middle east almost and there next target is europe. With falling birth rates of christians and immigration of muslims and higher birth rate within 50-70 years it would become a muslim majority area and they will eliminate christianity from there permanently.
I couldnt understand wasting so much money to convert, hindus in India, buddhists in South Korea, thailand, Sri Lanka, while muslims are eliminating christians.
Is it because its risky to discuss christianity with muslims, while hindus, buddhists, jews will discuss politely and when christians attack hindu Gods they will ignore instead of killing them.
Please do introspection!!!! Already world lost Zorastrian persia, Byzantian Christianity because Roman christians considered them heretics and one crusade was againt these fellow christians.

Pakisatan is a brutal,evil,wicked ISLAMIC country
written by Globe trotter , October 09, 2009

To ADRIAN Morgan : You are wrong on 2 counts at least - 1) Jinna was not a secularist as you write your distorted and convoluted view. JINNAs demand, instigation,threats,terror to seceede from INDIA on the basis of religion - ISLAM is itself proof and negates your highly biased views. I could have predicted easily in 1947 that Britain and western countries are creating and nurturing a coming monster called ISLAMIC PAKISATAN ( which is based on religion ISLAM alone and no other ideal or justifiable,moral,ethical,legal ,rational reasoning.) Actually as I said that Hindus/INDIANS were the victims,sufferers,slaves under ISLAMIC rule for 800 years .The perpetrators of most gruesome and ghastly cruel atrocities were Moslems and ISLAMIC rulers in INDIA for 800 yrs and then British. Partition of INDIA and snatching away INDIAN/HINDU land by Moslems ,supported by christians (BRITAIN AND western powers ) was like a rapist,thief,murderer invading your house and killing you ,looting you and taking away all your property and belongings. This was what happened to HINDUS in INDIA and is still happening. Now in INDIA the power weilders are CHRISTIANS and Moslems and attacking INDIA daily in their own country and in their own home. 2) You write that PAKISTAN broke away free from Britain !!!!! What do you mean ? There was no PAKISATAN prior to 1947. PAKISATAN was created by JINNA, IQBAL ,and rafat ali monsters on purely evil,narrow grounds of bigotry,fascism,totalitarianism,intolerance,dogma, of ISLAM and ably supported by christian BRITAIN and other western countries at that time . Very obviously at that time the christian British and western countries thought that by partitioning INDIA , HINDUS will be weakend for ever and Moslems are their cousins . There was elaborate plan to partition INDIA devised by MOSLEM LEAGUE and supported bY British at that time. Gandhi was universalist and naieve and prepared to sacrifice HINDUS for his own name and fame and for his own personal satisfaction. That iis why - GAndhi always supported and appeased most horrible demands of MOSLEMS. Moslems under Moslem league ( a thoroughly religious party ) demanded a separate voters list for Moslems in INDIA and British gave them .Then Moslems demanded a referendum in which partition of INDIA on religious lines was framed by Moslems and in which only MOSLEMS was allowed to vote ,( Hindus were not allowed to vote to decide the future of their country !!!!!)- Moslems voted overwhelmingly to partition on religious nasis of ISLAM !!! Is it any wonder - you are giving keys of the safe to a theif and asking him to take care of the safe !!!!! Today will britain agree for a referundum decided solely by Moslems that whether Britain should be a moslem country and whether QQURRAn should be the basis of their ruling of the country. and in this vote No British christian is allowed to vote !!! what will be the result ? This happened to INDIANS /Hindus in INDIA in 1946-1947. It was all decided by Moslems and Britain . congress and Gandhi ,Nehru were mute spectaters. This was the precise reason why Nathuram Godse has to shoot Gandhi - as he felt that Gandhi as a leader failed INDIA/INDIANS and the most noble ideals of unity of humanity............. I hope Adrian Morgan reads my message here and responds promptly. I will respond if necessary to that.

What goes around comes around
written by Fakir Chand , October 09, 2009

There is a principal called 'karma', which is like for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Yes colonial british made Pakistan, infact hindus sacrificed there lifes in innumerable numbers to get freedom, when british found that there was no way they have to give freedom, they inflicted a permanent wound by partitioning on religion and after that supported pakistan on every count. When pakistanis were killing bengali hindus in millions and worst genocide was happening british and US supported pakistan, luckily India got a quick victory and even though US send a nuclear ship to devastate India luckily it didnt happened.
Still british and US support pakistan, and without there support it would have collapsed long ago. Infact in britain muslims from pakistan and bangladesh are the dominant minority. Almost 2.5 % of britain's population is now pakistan muslims and they are growing.Infact pakistani muslims have put all there effort on ruining britain. What a fate in next 50 years almost 20-30 % population in britain will be pakistani muslims. US is loosing money in pakistan too.
I couldnt understand what has hindus caused any harm to these nations and why they are against India?
In India as hindus are in majority so christians can get any top post, marry any hindus and even write books abusing hindus. Infact british director made a movie 'slumdog millionaire' and shown hindus as ruffians while muslims as good. Have you seen any hindu blacklash? No hindu will not do. They believe in 'karma' and wont react.
Now all know this pakistan is the global headquarter of Jihad, and when pakistan muslims were killing hindus and did ethnic cleansing of 400,000 hindus in kashmir all western media called muslim terrorists freedom fighters. Now when these freedom fighters are killing in western world, all are waking up.
Western world has neglected islam for too long and infact helped muslims in killing hindus, buddhists and jews. Christians should know that Islam is an extremely fanatic cult and they should not support them in any way. For Islam , all are infidels and how much appeasement you do and help them in any manner you can, when muslim will get chance he will kill christians without blinking his eyes and chant 'allahu akbar'. Please in India there are approximately 150 million muslims are there, target them for conversion and take help from hindus and do interfaith with hindus, buddhists, jews etc.

PAKISATAN is a monster called ISLAM
written by Clobe trotter , October 13, 2009

To ADRIAN Morgan : PAKISATAN was artificially created primarily by the support and tacit understanding from Britain . Without the help and cooperation and instigation from Britain - PAKISATAN would not have been possible. ALl Britishers , western christians who visit this must know the truth and understand it. Even now ,many in western countries think that ISLAM is their cousin or sister !!!!!!!!!! Nothing could be farther from truth. ISLAM is diametrically opposite of every good and noble human civilization. Primary responsibility of creating this monster called ISLAMIC PAKISTAN on religious basis rests with Britain and other western countries. Now , this monster called ISLAMIC PAKISATAN - a theocratic ,totalitarian, fascist, intolerant, dogmatic, misogynic , hate filled theology which opposes all universally accepted human civilizational values,principles,philosophy - namely peace,nonviolence,freedom,democracy,equality of all,equality of all religions , equality of women , tolerance etc - is coming to destroy the world, to destroy peace, to destroy western countries,to destroy nonmoslem countries, to eliminate all nonmoslems , to impose its brand of fascism religious apartheid, inequality, to impose slavery on nonmoslems . Enjoy the BRITISH people,politicians - it is your creation.

PAKISATAN is born out of hatred,most cruel,evil,po
written by Globe Trotter , October 15, 2009

It is surprising to see that many western countries, ,politicians,journalists, writers, thinkers,intellectuals dont get that PAKISATAN delivered by Britain from the land stolen from INDIA/Hindus in 1947 - is so evil, ISLAMIC apartheid, poisonous, hate filled ISLAMIC society and playing Taqiyya , cheating , deceiving, the international community. NObody must trust the ISLAMIC /JIHADIST rulers in ISLAMABAD . The politicians in ISLAMABAD are MULLAS with facade to give the outside world that they are also civilized and can fit in with the rest of the world. Now the ,political class is wearing nonislamic ,kufr dress - suits to deceive the world. All the rules and laws in PAKISATAN ISLAMIC - QQURRAN Inspired evil ,wicked theology, are against nonmoslems. Since it's illegal,immoral ,multi headed ugly birth of PAKISATAN, delivered by Britain, the ISLAMISTS systematically are trying to eliminate all nonmoslems from PAKISATAN and MAKE this ugly Poisonous PAKISATAN as the model of ISLAMIC state to all other Moslem countries- the exception may be saudi ARABIA the birth place of ISLAM/MO, which is also the most uncivilized, repressive,suppressive, totalitarian, fascist theocratic ISLAMIC state. Why the world, international community has to watch this most ugly ,poisonous creathre called ISLAM to cause devastation ,death,destruction to human civilization ? Western countries and international community must act immediately to dismantle this poisonous entity called ISLAMIC pakisatan.

my all friends think out of the box
written by dosnt matter , August 28, 2010

i am a pakistani, and muslim and i proud to be muslim, first of all in whole world u cant say right, wrong, good, bad on the basis of country religion race etc.its all indivisual choices,in whole worle example d when one kill someone it always have reasons for example he is psycho mentally ill ,some have done some thing very bad to him,he brought in family or society where people teach him killing is good ,or one kill other to save himself ,or he or she kill other as other kill their family ,or some one dont have the idea how bad thing is killing or one dont have moral teachings as he dont know what is robbery ,corruption,rape etc ----if we just eliminate unjustice everything will be ok and i know every one know that
the problm with all humans in world is all take think individually on the basis of scanty info or wrong info they received by media or any other source ,the info they we received is not wrong in form of date or number of persona killed or robbed or statistics about info ,its wrong in form of its reason and prospective to promulgate.
lets have quick review a huge no of muslim and Hindu died during the division of sub continent india ,alot of people died all over the world during revolution in different parts ,last 200 years .5billion people died all over the world by people who want their land in Africa Australia America and alot other these killings were not because of religion !!!!!!!!!!.
for all of us very easy to talk about all this, have we ever tried to solve some thing or stood against any mafia comunity in city or country ,because we think why we should die because of some one or for some one as long as i am fine my family fine its ok even in neighbor some one innocent killed we don't care, usually the biggest problm with us we always want to blame some one but not ourselves ,in every country law enforcing agencies become the biggest mafia not only in pakistan every where my friends
i know in pakistan things are becoming worse its nothing to do with islam .same like a lawyer can prove criminal as innocent person by the codes of law made by country it self same some one coding the islamic law in totally false manner people dont know about islam dont want to learn and just want to commit thats all v easy right sit in acon room amd commit i am living in pakistan i know whats happening,alot of muslims died because of suicide blasts ,robbery etc some alot of christians also died bad person will kill every one not only the Christians or Muslims , i have alot to talk if some one want to think out of the box but we dont want to listen truth we dont want to listen any thing against oursives we just always think we r right even we dont have knowledge .what ever written above its not only happening to non muslims but also to muslims ,why we dont think logically

pakistan every one is not bad we are just under the focus thats all,,, like 2 drops of colour will make 200gallons of water colorful same thing is happening ,,,,,,,,become famous as bad is worse than actually someone is bad ,,, person writing above dont know what is Islam and quraan but its not his fault its muslim who are giving wrong veiw but we should also investigate about truth why we dont want to talk about good muslims

Muslim Bigotry
written by M Conway , October 11, 2010

I think mohammed the islamic prophet was rapist,child molester and paedophile prophet who gave the jihadist doctrine of destruction to muslims and directed them to use all the means to convert all the infidels of the world America abd western countries people to islam and do not hesitate to kill them if they refuse to do so all muslims migrated to western countries and america should be deported back to Saudi Arabia and the islamic block countries to give a sigh of relief to the christians living in western countries and America all the muslims rape western woman and commit all sorts of crimes and their sin is significant from the massive terrorist camps they have nurtured as mosques where they propagate destruction and mass murder of the humanity and in 1400 years period since the inception of islam muslims have so far massacred 400 millions people in the face of earth more than hitler has done to jews I pray and fast before my living Jesus Christ the Saviour of entire World that these muslims should cease to exist and I can vision there is somebody more than the hitler who is going to advent in this world to snooze all these terrorist 700 millions of them instantly God has observed from heaven the sin that the muslim leaders are reflecting and He is about to snooze them all. Enough is enough they should all be barred from entering Western European Countries and American and their religion should be declared as the religion of terrorism please save the lives of the future 21ist century western children from the horrific picture of mohammed who raped a girl as old as seven years.