Persecution in Pakistan

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: scars of persecution.

According to this year’s Open Doors Watch List, Pakistan is the 7th worst country in the world for persecution of Christians. That’s ahead of countries like Iran, Afghanistan, and India.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A small Christian community in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province faced record attacks back in August. On the basis of scant evidence, angry mobs destroyed homes and churches—accusing Christian believers of blasphemy against Islam. Authorities did hunt down the attackers and offered financial aid to families who lost their homes.

BUTLER: But many of those affected fear more attacks as religious tensions continue to rise across the country. WORLD’s Onize Ohikere reports.

AUDIO: [Church singing]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: In late August, about 200 Christians sang together …as they stood next to chairs lined up in a narrow alley.

The makeshift worship took place next to the Salvation Army church in Pakistan’s city of Jaranwala. Black soot covered the ceiling and walls of the church. Crowds had pulled down the cross from the top of the building.

AUDIO: [Sound of mob]

The previous week, angry mobs had rampaged through Christian neighborhoods after allegations broadcast over mosque loudspeakers that Christians had ripped out pages from the Quran.

Release International, a Christian advocacy group, says the attackers burned down five churches, damaged 21 others, and burned down the homes of 40 Christians. But Human Rights Focus Pakistan reported a much higher estimate saying the mobs gutted 19 churches and destroyed 89 homes.

Police arrested more than 160 Muslims over the attacks. Authorities also gave nearly $7,000 to each family who lost their home, and deployed security across the affected areas.

One month later, the community is still struggling.

Gibram Gill led the crisis response in Jaranwala for Pak Mission Society aid group.

PAK MISSION: So now the wave of fear is mounting day by day and the people are getting insecure.

He says some workers lost their jobs because their employers feared mobs could target their businesses.

PAK MISSION: Another aspect which is the basic livelihood is that the majority of the women there, almost 85 percent of the women there are domestic workers, and they used to work in the houses of the Muslim community.

Many of them did not return to those jobs. He says many children have also stopped going to school. Earlier in September, Gill said some men beat up a 13-year-old boy on his way back from school. Authorities managed to stop the attack from escalating.

PAK_MISSION: He was about to be hospitalized because he was bleeding and he was beaten on the way to school.

In Pakistan, a person convicted of blasphemy can be punished with death. But accusations alone often incite mob violence.

Andrew Boyd is the spokesman for Release International advocacy group.

BOYD: So it doesn’t matter really whether an allegation of blasphemy is proved in the courts or not. Once that allegation has been made, you're a marked person and we've covered it,  Release International, case after case of people who've been accused of blasphemy, who've gone to the courts, they've been acquitted, but vigilantes have attempted to kill them afterward. So just to cry blasphemy in that nation is a death sentence, often, on the individuals who've been accused of it.

More blasphemy allegations and religious attacks have continued since the Jaranwala violence. Last month, a schoolteacher beat up a six-year-old student after accusing him of blasphemy for fiddling with a workbook that had Quranic verses.

Authorities also arrested a Christian couple on blasphemy charges after they reportedly found torn pages of the Quran on their rooftop. Christians have also reported Islamic slogans scrawled on the walls of church buildings.

BOYD: What's really quite interesting here is that part of the allegations of blasphemy being put forward by Muslims is that Christians are scrolling graffiti on their mosques or pinning posters to their mosques, which they say are blasphemous. Those haven't been proven, but what is absolutely for certain here is that Islamist graffiti is being scrawled on churches, the Christian churches have been burned down, Bibles have been burnt in the streets, and Christians have been attacked.

AUDIO: [Protest chant]

The Jaranwala attacks sparked protests elsewhere in Pakistan. In the city of Karachi, Christian protesters chanted “We remember the injustice.”

Boyd said such attacks point to growing religious nationalism in Pakistan. Persecution has also extended to the minority Ahmadi Muslim sect.

BOYD: So this is a sect of Islam, which is considered to be heretical by the dominant Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims in the area.

Boyd says it’s a larger problem that also goes beyond Pakistan.

SOUND: [Protesters chanting]

Dozens of Sikh protesters in Pakistan chanted “Sikhs demand peace” late last month.

That’s after Canada said it had credible evidence that India was involved in the assassination of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil back in June.

Christians in India have also decried targeted attacks under the Hindu nationalist government.

BOYD: Wherever you've got autocratic governments, they often look for an enemy without and an enemy within. The enemy within is a way of controlling their own people, and the enemy without is a way of rallying their own people.

As such cases persist, Boyd said Release International and its partners continue to call for an end to blasphemy laws. They are also pushing for dialogue with Muslim community members who are open to helping.

BOYD: There was one example where Muslims who had seen what had happened in this area of Jaranwala actually opened up their mosque for Christians to come and pray because their churches have been burnt down.

AUDIO: [Worship service]

The destruction means several Christians still don’t have places to worship. But Pak Mission says they still continue to find ways to gather and draw support from Christians elsewhere in Pakistan.

For WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere.

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