wfn.org | WCC - Pakistan killings

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World Council of Churches
Update Up-02-30
For Immediate Use
2 October 2002

Pakistan killings: WCC calls for perpetrators
to be brought to justice

cf. WCC Press Release, UP-01-37, of 29 October 2001

On 1 October, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr 
Konrad Raiser wrote to Pakistan's president General Pervaiz Musharaf, to 
the National Council of Churches, and to WCC member churches in Pakistan 
expressing the Council's "shock and profound distress" over the 25 
September attack on a Christian non-governmental organization in Karachi, 
Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaf. Seven members of the organization's staff were killed 
in the attack.

In his letter to General Musharaf, Raiser notes that this is the fourth in 
a series of attacks targeting churches and Christian institutions. He 
recalls that after the attack on St Dominic's Roman Catholic Church in 
October 2001, the WCC asked that "a judicial enquiry" be made, and 
expresses dismay that "neither the culprits of the attack on St. Dominic's 
church nor those involved in subsequent attacks at the hospital and school 
in Taxela and Murree have been arrested and brought to trial before a court 
of law." He asks the president to make sure that Pakistan's law enforcement 
agencies do all in their power to bring the perpetrators to court so that 
justice can be done.

Raiser also renews the WCC's call on the government "to provide safety and 
security to the Christian minority in Pakistan".

In letters  to the National Council of Churches and the two WCC member 
churches in Pakistan, Raiser expresses his condolences to the families of 
the victims, deplores the violent killings, and notes that 
Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaf "works for the poor and socially marginalized in 
Pakistan society, irrespective of their religious beliefs".

Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaf is a partner in the WCC's Urban Rural Mission network.

For further information, please contact the Media Relations Office,
tel: +41 (0)22 791 64 21

**********

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 342, 
in more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian 
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works 
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, 
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally 
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by 
general secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
Media Relations Office
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