A gang of Muslims want to seize the property of a Christian church in Karachi, Pakistan and are threatening to file false charges of blasphemy against those in the church if they do not surrender the land.
The members of the Jerusalem Church have told the International Christian Concern they are receiving death threats from a Muslim gang known for seizing property from the poor and also for various murders.
One of the church’s pastors, Ilyas Masih, said that they have been threatened since May.
“These Muslims have been pressuring the church people not to play musical instruments and asked the church leaders to stop girls from singing with boys in the church,” Masih explained. “Several times they stopped and threatened the worshipers and pastors for going into church for prayers and harassed the women in the past.”
Muslims in Pakistan routinely use false accusations of blasphemy against Christians as a way to persecute them since it’s extremely difficult for Christians to defend themselves in court.
The members of the church have vowed to die before giving up the church to the Muslim mob.
A Muslim mob attacked Christians, including attempting to burn a church, after someone claimed a mentally ill man burned pages of the Koran.
Police had arrested Humayun Faisal, a mentally challenged Christian man, after some Muslim residents told police that Faisal had burned the Koran. He was charged under a Pakistiani law that prohibits the desecration of the Koran.
“Many people gathered on the spot and some of them even tried to burn him alive, however, we saved him and handed him to the police,” one witness told the Express Tribune. “Later a charged mob reached the house of the accused and recorded their protest.”
The mob, chanting “allahu akbar”, looted the homes of 15 Christian families, forcing the Christian to flee out of fear of their lives. The mob tried to burn St. Joseph’s Catholic basilica but police confronted the mob and dispersed them using tear gas.
“I immediately requested help from some Muslim leaders and local politicians,” Archbishop Sebastian Shaw told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. “Thanks to their intervention, the police succeeded in dispersing the crowd by midnight. It is the first time the government has succeeded in acting in time to save both the people and their homes.”
Muslim is Pakistan’s official state religion and 97 percent of the country identifies as Muslim.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has indicted 106 people in connection with the brutal murder of a Christian couple in November 2014.
The mob had falsely accused the couple of burning a Quran.
“The challan (charge-sheet) states that Maulvi Muhammad Hussain, Maulvi Arshad Baloch and Maulvi Noorul Hassan were involved in persistent provocative speeches against the couple which led to the assembly of 400 people as a mob who then burned Shama and Shahzad alive,” the Pakistan Daily Times reported .
“After the challan was presented at the hearing, the court also held Yousaf Gujjar, the owner of the brick kiln where the couple was beaten to death, responsible.”
Guijar had been angry that the couple had not repaid him money that he claimed the couple owned and set them up for blasphemy charges. He placed a few pages of a Quran in their trash singed as if the book had been burned.
An official with the International Christian Concern said that the incident shows the danger Christians in Pakistan face every day.
“The brutal killing of Shahzad and Shama once again highlights the extreme danger of religious fanaticism that Christians in Pakistan face on a regular basis. The accusation of blasphemy can be used for any dispute and can often prove deadly as it did today, inciting a mob to brutally murder this young couple.”
A 15-year-old Pakistani Christian youth who was burned over 55% percent of body in an attack by Muslims has died.
We reported on the attack on Nouman Masih, who had been beaten and then burned by Muslim youths after he told them he was a Christian. The Muslim youths had been on the way to Friday prayers when they found Nouman and attacked him.
Doctors treated Nouman with the best items they had available but the hospital did not have a burn ward to provide the specialized treatment needed for Nouman’s wounds. The boy died around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
A spokesman for the British Pakistani Christian Association said that Nouman made a point to say he forgave his attackers before he died.
“He just said that he forgave them. That’s more like a Christian forgiveness, but he didn’t want his attackers to prevail and enact their crimes on anybody else. He was just being very magnanimous in a Christian way saying, ‘I have forgiven them but I want them to go through the justice system,'” BPCA Chairman Wilson Chowdhry told the Christian Post.
“You can imagine what it was like for him to have kerosene poured on him and being set alight,” Chowdhry continued. “He was very vocal in the fact that he didn’t want that to happen to anyone else, especially at the moment when Christians are under some very extreme tension.”
The Muslim youth who killed Nouman have yet to be identified so local officials say they can do nothing until they find the attackers.
Over 100 Pakistani Christians were arrested after the lynching of two Islamists believed to be involved in two church bombings that killed 17 Christians. Now, some of the prisoners have been released and are showing evidence of brutal treatment from Pakistani police.
The International Christian Concern says that some of the 30 released from jail say they were beaten and given other tortures in an attempt to get them to confess to being a part of the killings.
“They were telling us that they were beaten to a pulp,” ICC President Jeff King told The Christian Post at Tuesday’s press conference. “A lot of times, what they are saying is that they get beaten to a pulp and get left on their doorstep in a bloody mess, and the whole point was to extract confessions.”
King said that the ICC condemns the killing of the two Muslim men and that just needs to be done, but that Pakistani officials are using the situation to target and harass Christians.
We would seek for justice for those Muslim families but arbitrary arrests and detention are not the way to get justice,” King told the Christian Post. “They only serve further flames of injustice and hatred. Frankly, it is a mark of a Banana republic and an incompetent police force.”
“They are just fishing and seeing if they can beat confessions out of random people from the neighborhood,” King added. “Foreign police forces know that this is actually terrible police work because people will falsely confess to end their beatings. But, you are not getting justice.”
The Pakistani air force conducted a series of airstrikes against terrorist positions in the mountain region near the Afghani border.
“The local population had fled their homes and villages when the operation was launched against the terrorists,” an official told Reuters.
The air force says that 34 terrorists were killed in the strikes.
The attack focused on the Pakistani version of the Taliban which while not officially connected to the Afghani Taliban, share a similar philosophy.
While they could not confirm death or injury, the military was able to confirm that the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, was in the area at the time of the strikes.
Local witnesses say the terrorists say there were fewer deaths.
“My elder brother said he had seen militants shifting bodies of the slain fighters to upper Tirah from Sandasa and nearby villages,” he said by telephone from the Landi Kotal subdivision of Khyber.
“Local militants of Lashkar-e-Islam told them 20 people were killed.”
At least 14 people were killed when terrorists attacked their churches.
Officlals in Lahore, Pakistan said that at least 70 were wounded in the twin attacks. One church was Catholic, the other was Protestant.
Geo TV reported that police stopped one of the bombers outside the church, forcing him to detonate outside killing one officer and wounding others. The second bomber was able to enter the church and detonate in the middle of services.
“Islamist militants in Pakistan have attacked Christians and other religious minorities often over the last decade or more. Many Christians, who make up less than two percent of Pakistan’s population of more than 180 million, accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow to act to improve security,” Retuers reported.
The Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they are planning to attack more churches.
The son of a Pakistani Christian woman who was accused of stealing of from her Muslim employer’s home was beaten and killed by local police in an attempt to make her confess to the crime.
The British Pakistani Christian Association says the police dumped the lifeless body of 20-year-old Zubair Rashid Masih into the street in front his mother’s home on March 8th.
The Muslim owner of the home where she had worked claimed she told gold ornaments and money from his home on February 24th, even though Aisha Bibi stopped working for him on February 20th.
Bibi was arrested and beaten by local officials when she did not admit to the crime. She suffered a broken arm as a result of the attack.
“When they arrived they had my eldest son with them and detained him as well. They were beating him and he was screaming in pain. I thought that I should confess to the theft charges to save my son,” Bibi said in an interview for The Christian Post translated and conducted by BPCA officer Shamim Masih. “However, at this point, they stopped my son’s beating for a while and told me to leave the prison and go home. Later they tortured my son to death.”
“I want justice, but I know the court will ignore our case. Our judicial system is corrupt despite attempts to prevent it. We forced police to lodge a [case] against the police officers involved in my son’s death,” Bibi explained. “It has now been registered after a protest but none of the police murderers have been arrested. The police are protecting themselves, placing their badge before their duties.”
“I am still facing threats from local Muslims who think I am a Christian thief,” Bibi continued. “I do not know how my remaining son and I can survive after this incident in this city that hates Christians.”
A Pakistani man who was brought to the U.S. from Great Britain on terrorism charges has been found guilty.
Abid Naseer was found guilty in a jury trial of providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiracy to use a destructive device. He faces life in prison at his sentencing as part of the condition for him to be extradited for trial is that the death penalty would not be considered.
The jury’s decision took a day after closing arguments on Monday.
“If the defendant hadn’t been stopped, hundreds of innocent men, women and children wouldn’t be alive today,” prosecutor Zainab Ahmed said during closing arguments. “He was trying to cover up his motive for revenge against the United States and its NATO allies. Revenge was the defendant’s motive.”
Naseer defended himself in court and said that the government did nothing to prove connection to al-Qaeda and all the email communications they pointed out where just him trying to find a wife.
A Christian Boys’ School in northern Pakistan was attacked by an armed mob of over 300 Muslims who were angry over the cartoons of Muhammad published in the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
“It is very sad that Islamic radicals attack Pakistani Christians because of Charlie Hebdo. Christians condemn the blasphemous cartoons. It is a shame that even after 67 years since the birth of Pakistan, Christians have not yet been considered Pakistani citizens, but are seen as ‘Western allies,'” Nasir Saeed, director of the NGO Center for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement, told Fides News Agency.
At least four Christians were wounded in the assault on the building.
Witnesses say that the Muslim mob lifted smaller members to the top of the fence surrounding the facility so they could go and open gates allowing the attackers inside.
The school has been closed for two days because of additional security measures being installed to the building and grounds.
The attack is the latest in assaults on Christians around the world for the drawings in the French publication, which is not Christian and has often published cartoons mocking Christ and God.
