‘If we showed our faces in public, we could easily be targeted, lynched even. We can’t stay in one location. We have to keep on the move for our own security. The person who succeeds in killing us knows they would be hailed as a hero.”
Looking at the two Christian women across the table from us, we found it hard to imagine the circumstances that have led to them being in mortal danger for simply going about their work.
Mariam Lal, 54, who did most of the talking, and Newosh Arooj, aged 21, explained that they were on duty as nurses on a psychiatric ward at Civil Hospital, a government establishment in Faisalabad, when they were accused of blasphemy.
It happened when a patient handed them part of a sticker which she had torn off a medicine cabinet. The sticker included a verse from the Qur’an. The next morning, a mob reportedly involving the Tehreek-e-Labbaik far-right extremist movement suddenly descended and the two nurses were lucky to escape with their lives.
Charged under Section 295B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carries life imprisonment for desecration of the Qur’an, both nurses have had their lives on hold for two years while the case rumbles on.
Our clandestine meeting with Mariam and Newosh was one of the most moving encounters during our 10-day visit to Pakistan. We were there with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the Catholic charity which is providing legal and paralegal aid for the nurses as part of its support for persecuted and other suffering Christians in the country.
The visit coincided with renewed political turmoil in the country.
That very night, after bidding farewell to the two nurses, we found ourselves stuck in massive traffic jams and learned that the roads were being blocked in protest at the attempted arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.Pakistan seems increasingly unstable. It is still reeling from last autumn’s devastating floods, which are thought to have left more than one-third of Pakistan inundated, and caused damage estimated at more than £24 billion. And, only a month before our trip, a visit by the International Monetary Fund failed to reach agreement with Pakistan over a bail-out which the country desperately needs as its economic crisis goes from bad to worse.
This political and economic instability leaves the country increasingly at the mercy of extremist groups who – seemingly at a moment’s notice – can whip up the mob, as witnessed in the case of nurses Mariam and Newosh accused of blasphemy.
Research shows that a disproportionately high number of blasphemy cases in Pakistan involve Christians. Of the 1,550 people accused of blasphemy after 1986, when the laws first began to be introduced, Christians numbered 238 (15.3 per cent), even though they make up less than two per cent of the population. By contrast, Muslims, who are 96 per cent of the populace, made up only 46.5 per cent of cases, a total of 720.
The country’s political and economic fragility mean that the more moderate faction within the political elite have to work harder to challenge a popular mindset which, at least in some parts of the country, has been “Talibanised”, as one former Pakistan archbishop once put it.
Critical to the problem is that, in a country with such a strong Muslim majority, it is unthinkable for many in society to imagine Christians doing anything but the lowliest jobs. We were told that it is still the case that in Urdu-language newspapers there are adverts promoting jobs for street cleaners where the wording specifically encourages Christians to apply. Many Christians are trapped in feudal-style working practices, toiling in brick kilns, getting deeper and deeper into debt. They feel they have no option but to pressure their children to join the workforce to increase family income.
One morning, driving through the smart, broad, tree-lined streets of Islamabad, we took a turning and pulled up outside what our host called One Hundred Quarter. This turned out to be a Christian slum, with houses packed like sardines on both sides of a steep bank. We were duly handed face masks and, as we teetered across the narrow bridge and looked at the murky water below, we were informed that an open sewer passed beneath us. The government, we were told, ideally want to move the community out to redevelop the area – a prime site not far from the city centre – but what was holding them back was that the families work in Islamabad’s worst-paid industries, working down sewers, with others employed as cleaners, maids and factory workers. As we were welcomed into their small church, and heard their stories, we got a glimpse of how for most families, the most they can hope for is to get to the end of the working day.
Across the dioceses we visited bishops who are devising new strategies to enable their communities – especially the young – to focus on education and training in order to get into university and land better jobs. Aid to the Church in Need is supporting scholarship programmes for access to school and higher education, helping poor families, especially those with children who have the potential to succeed.
One such student ACN is helping is Sania Samuel, aged 23, from Holy Family parish, Settler Town, Islamabad. As well as reading for a degree in English at Air University in Islamabad, she is under-going an internship at her college’s student-affairs department. She wants to complete a Masters in linguistics and become a lecturer. Her ultimate aim is to take a state exam that qualifies her for a grade 17 or above job, which guarantees her a good income.
“There are 86 of us on our English BA course and I am the only Christian. I want to make my family proud of me,” she says.
But for many young people it is an uphill struggle in the face of stigmatisation. One young man in Lahore, who asked not to be identified, explained that at his college he had been beaten up when he refused constant requests to convert to Islam. “I told them I believe in Jesus but they wouldn’t accept that and eventually came after me.”
For many Christian girls it is harder still, especially those living in poorer, rural areas where illiteracy is high. In a society often accused of being strongly chauvinistic, they face the double stigma of belonging to a disenfranchised gender as well as a minority religious faith.
One priest, who has worked for decades in defence of civil liberties, told us that the biggest problem is the constant cases of girls and women from Christian and other religious minority backgrounds suffering abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage, with sexual violence the norm. “These cases get reported to us almost every week,” said the priest. He said he has received physical threats in his efforts to stand up for them, winning them back from their abductors and working with organisations representing them in court.
Against this backdrop, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the prospects for Christians in Pakistan. But what moved us time and time again as we travelled around parishes was the sheer joy of the faithful in their commitment to Christ and their community. During a Way of the Cross service in a packed St Joseph’s Cathedral in Rawalpindi, you could hear a pin drop. It was like that wherever we went. In Lahore, Archbishop Sebastian Shaw told us that 85 per cent of the faithful are Sunday Massgoers. “People see in the Church and in the Eucharist a great sign of hope in the midst of all their difficulties.” Battered and bruised by many setbacks, discrimination and episodes of persecution, the people’s faith is the surest guarantee of hope in a time of renewed uncertainty.
John Pontifex is Head of Press & Public Affairs for Aid to the Church in Need (UK).
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