Jihadist Aggression against Christians in Pakistan

In Pakistan the situation for Christians is no better. Fr. Emmanuel Asi, chairman of the Theological Institute for Laity in Lahore and secretary of the Catholic Bible

Commission of Pakistan, said in August 2007 that Pakistani Christians are frequently denied equality of rights with Muslims and subjected to various forms of discrimination. Jihadist aggression, he said, can “at any time” bring “every imaginable kind of problem” upon Pakistan’s Christians.[17]

As in Egypt, Christians in Pakistan have been subjected to mob violence and threats. In August 2007, Christians (as well as Hindus) in Peshawar in northern Pakistan received letters from a jihadist group ordering them to convert to Islam in a matter of days or “your colony will be ruined.” The deadline passed, but according to Compass Direct, the Christians continued “to live in fear, canceling church activities and skipping services.”[18] They had good reason to be worried, since jihadists had made good their promises to attack Pakistani churches in the past. In an attack in a Peshawar church on October 28, 2001, for instance, eighteen Christians were murdered during the Sunday morning worship service.[19] In another church attack on March 17, 2002, five Christians were killed and forty wounded. The entire Pakistani Christian community lived under the shadow of an al-Qaeda threat to kill “two Christians in retaliation for every Muslim killed in the U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan.”[20]

In addition to group attacks, there is also individual harassment. Pakistani Christian schoolteacher Cadherine Shaheen was “pressured to convert to Islam.” When she resisted, she was finally told that if she did not capitulate she would face serious consequences. Soon she was accused of blasphemy. All the area mosques posted copies a poster bearing her name and picture. “This was a death sentence for me, ” says Shaheen. “It’s considered an honour for one of the Muslim men to kill a blasphemer. Just before me, the Muslims murdered a school principal accused of blasphemy. I was next.”

Shaheen went underground, where upon Pakistani police arrested her father and brothers. Her father, age 85, soon died. Cadherine made her way to the United States. “It’s horrible for Christians in Pakistan, ” she now says. “The Muslims take our land, rob our homes, try to force us to accept Islam. Young girls are kidnapped and raped. Then they’re told that if they want a husband who will accept them after that defilement, they must become Muslim.”[21]