wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Pakistani churches denounce Muslim attacks on Christians

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Note #9023 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05615
Nov. 15, 2005

Pakistani churches denounce attacks
on Christians, appeal to Musharraf

Provincial orphanage, 3 schools burned down 
by Muslim extremists stirred by 'baseless rumor'

by Anto Akkara 
Ecumenical News International 

NEW DELHI - Church leaders in Pakistan have denounced an arson attack on
churches and Christian settlements in the rural town of Sangla Hill in Punjab
province.  
  
	"The ferocity of the attacks has left us stunned," lamented the
leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Pakistan, the
Presbyterian Church of Pakistan, the Salvation Army and the National Council
of Churches in Pakistan in a Nov. 14 letter to President Pervez Musharraf.  
  
	Elaborating on the attack, the letter said a Muslim mob torched
Catholic, Presbyterian and Salvation Army places of worship after desecrating
Bibles and holy materials in the buildings in Sangla Hill.

	Three Christian schools, St Mary's Convent and an orphanage for poor
Christians also were burned by extremist Muslims who had arrived in buses on
Nov. 12.  
  
	"What provoked such heinous sacrileges? It was a baseless rumor that
a certain Yusaf Masih, a local Christian, had set the holy Quran on fire,"
the Pakistani church leaders said, calling for a judicial inquiry and
punishment for the attackers.  

	Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Catholic church's Justice and
Peace Commission, said: "On the face of it, the attack seems to be planned
and organized, as the attackers were brought to the site in buses."  
  
	Jacob pointed out that nearly 450 Christian families in Sangla Hill
had fled their homes the night before because of threats from local Muslims. 

  
	"This is a well-orchestrated attack. We want the government to take
strict action to stop the recurring of such attacks on Christians and
others," Lahore Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha, president of the Catholic
Bishops' Conference of Pakistan, told Ecumenical News International.  
  
	"The Christian community is always vulnerable to the accusation of
burning the holy Quran, and when this type of situation arises, their lives
and property are always at stake," said Victor Azariah, general secretary of
the national church council.  
   
	"The blasphemy laws are the main source and tools for creating
social, sectarian and inter-religious disharmony," the Justice and Peace
Commission said.

	A study conducted by the commission earlier this year noted that, of
650 blasphemy cases reported in Pakistani media since 1988, 90 were against
Christians. About 97 percent of Pakistan's 162 million people are Muslims.

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