The suicide bombing in the city of Lahore on Easter underscores how Pakistan’s Christian minority has become an easy target for the country’s Islamic militants, although Muslims also were among the victims.
There are barely 2.5 million Christians in the mostly Muslim country of 180 million, and they say they worry about sending their children out and rarely feel safe even in church.
“It is very fearful living in your own country … when you are attacked by fanatics in your own home,” said the Rev. Riaz Arif of Lahore, adding that radical Muslim groups seek revenge for perceived aggression against them by predominantly Christian nations in the West.
A look at the Christian community in Pakistan.
HISTORY
For centuries, Christians have been a part of the Asian subcontinent in what is now known as Pakistan. There are famous Pakistani Christians, such as A.R. Cornelius, the first non-Muslim chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, but also politicians, educators, health care professionals and fighter pilots. But Christians often rank among the country’s poorest people, often working at menial jobs and living in poor, slum-like areas. Some of the Christian population has its roots in the Hindu religion. When Pakistan was carved from a larger India in 1947 and given independence as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims, many Dalats or lower caste Hindus living in what is today Pakistan, converted to Christianity. While looked upon with suspicion, it worsened for Christians, like many minorities, after dictator Zia-ul Haq, with Western support, nurtured Islamic militancy to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The intolerant views of these militants began to dominate, and minorities became easy targets. In the 1980s and 1990s, Christians sometimes were set upon by mobs of militant Muslims, but it wasn’t until after the 2001 U.S.-led assault on Afghanistan that attacks against Pakistan’s Christians increased both in numbers and ferocity.
NATURE OF THE VIOLENCE
In predominantly Christian neighborhoods, radical Muslims have carried out attacks based on trumped-up charges of blasphemy, which is punishable by death. Christians are routinely accused by radical Muslims of trying to undermine Pakistan as an Islamic state. There have been reports of forced conversions of Christian girls. In January, a girl was killed and two were injured when they refused the advances of three Muslim men, who ran them over upon learning they were Christian. An Islamabad-based think tank, The Jinnah Institute, called the violence “some of the worst mob attacks against minority communities in Pakistan.” Christian neighborhoods in Punjab and Islamabad “have seen mass attacks fueled by hate speech. These attacks have led to widespread destruction of homes and properties,” he said.
[Keep reading. . .]
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In