wfn.org | Churches condemn bloody attack on church in Pakistan

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7094 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

18-March-2002
02107  
  
Churches condemn bloody attack on church in Pakistan 

Two Americans among five dead in Islamabad bombing 

by Anto Akkara
Ecumenical News International
  
NEW DELHI - Churches in Pakistan have condemned Sunday's deadly grenade attack on the International Protestant Church located in a diplomatic enclave of the capital, Islamabad.

Five people were killed, including two Americans, and 41 people injured - most of them foreign nationals attending a worship service - when two unidentified assailants hurled grenades on the congregation just before 11 a.m.  

The National Council of Churches in Pakistan (NCCP) called the attack a "heinous and barbarous act of terrorism."  

"The government of Pakistan should hold a judicial inquiry of Islamabad as well as of the Bahawalpur Church attack and arrest the culprits and bring them to justice," the NCCP said in a statement issued today, referring to a similar attack on a Sunday congregation on Oct. 28 in the town of Bahawalpur in the province of Punjab.   

The NCCP groups the Church of Pakistan, Presbyterian Church, Salvation Army and Association of Reformed Presbyterian Churches, as well as several church?related organizations.  

In the Bahawalpur attack, 15 members of the Church of Pakistan were massacred inside St Dominic's Church when unidentified gunmen sprayed bullets on the congregation.  

In yesterday's attack, Tomy Mathew, an official at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, and his wife were the among the estimated 20 worshippers who escaped uninjured.  

"At 10:50, I saw a man in a black [robe] throwing something leading to an explosion," Mathew recalled. "People started running here and there. Then came more explosions. We were safe by God's grace. Our row was not attacked. So, we were safe.  

"There was blood on our clothes and I saw people lying soaked in blood on the floor as we rushed out," Mathew told ENI in an interview from his office in Islamabad.  

Although a Catholic, Mathew said he attended the church gathering at the Protestant center because it was close to the Indian High Commission.  

The wounded have been listed by Pakistani authorities as including 12 Pakistanis, 10 Americans, five Iranians, two Sri Lankans, one Iraqi, one Ethiopian and a German. Citizens of Britain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and Afghanistan were also injured.  

While expressing sympathy for grieving families and for the wounded, the NCCP urged the government of Pakistan "to take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of all, particularly the Christian community, shocked by this horrible action of the terrorists."  

The National Human Rights Office (NHRO) of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Pakistan in a statement today also "strongly condemned" the Islamabad church attack.  

"The attack on worship places and the killings of innocent people is unprecedented in civilized societies and is a great peril to religious harmony and national integrity," the NHRO said.  

The Catholic office also appealed to the citizens of Pakistan "to withstand such hateful acts of terrorism which obscure the image of a civilized and united nation and bring a low mark to the country."  

Church of Pakistan Bishop Samuel Pervez, who is also NCCP president, said it was "too early to jump to conclusions" as to who carried out the attack and why.  

Speaking to ENI from Lahore, Bishop Pervez said the latest attack on the Christian target had "increased the feeling of insecurity among Christians. We are certainly under pressure."  

The NCCP president declined to endorse the widespread belief that the church at the diplomatic enclave was targeted more because of the presence of western nationals in the church than for its Christian identity.  

Waseem Anthony of the Catholic NHRO said the attack was "a direct message sent to the U.S. and General Musharraf" for their concerted action to reign in Islamic fundamentalist groups.  

The fact that the target was a church "very close to the U.S. embassy" pointed to this, Anthony told ENI.  

In response to the pressure from United States and other western nations following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, has cracked down on Islamic militants in Pakistan, banning several Islamic militant groups and arresting more than 2,000 members of outlawed organizations late last year.  

More than 95 per cent of Pakistan's 140 million citizens are Muslim. 
------------------------------------------
Send your response to this article to pcusa.news@pcusa.org

------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an 'unsubscribe' request to

pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org