Catholic bishops in Pakistan call for justice after angry Muslim mob carries out ʻworst attack on Christians in nationʼs historyʼ.
Christians in Pakistan are reeling from mob violence described by the country’s Catholic bishops as the worst attack against them in the nation’s history. Urgent action is needed to demonstrate that members of this vulnerable and persecuted community are guaranteed their rights in a country to which they have contributed so much.
“The situation has been very terrifying. The Christians are very scared. Please pray for our people, pray that their lives may be protected.”
Father Abid’s voice trembled as he described the crisis unfolding about him.
Despite the poor phone reception, he was able to convey to me the palpable fear that was engulfing his community that terrible day – 16 August 2023.
That I was able to receive such detailed information about what happened was a tribute to the many friends I had made close to the area affected, which I had visited only a few months ago as part of my work with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians.
But it would take some days for the full facts to emerge.
A mob of hundreds of people, armed with iron rods, batons, bricks, stones and petrol bottles, converged on Jaranwala, near Faisalabad, in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province.
Within just one day, the mob carried out attacks over an 18-mile radius, targeting 27 churches and chapels, a school and a graveyard, torching buildings and desecrating statues, tabernacles and crucifixes.
Footage quickly spread on social media showing churches being emptied of their contents, thrown into the street outside and set ablaze.
In addition, nearly 100 homes belonging to Christians were set on fire and others were ransacked and looted.
In a majority country where Islamic extremism is widespread, Pakistan’s 4 million Christians make up less than two per cent of the population. As such, they are no strangers to episodes of severe persecution, such as in Shanti Nagar in 1997, Sangla Hill in 2005, Gojra (Korian) in 2009 and Joseph Colony, Lahore in 2013.
But to Church leaders and persecution observers, what made Jaranwala worse was the sheer intensity of the attacks, the amount of damage caused, the geographic spread of the area targeted and overwhelming evidence suggesting the attack was premeditated, efficiently executed and had a clear objective in mind: namely, to trigger the mass exodus of Christians.
Sources I spoke to on the day described a sudden mobilisation of violent groups, arriving on everything from motorbikes to lorries.
Cranes were reportedly used to break through church walls and eyewitnesses reported that Christian homes were singled out for attack.
Within three days of the atrocity, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan released a joint statement condemning the attack as “the worst incident against Christians in the history of Pakistan”.
Given the scale of the attacks, it is astonishing that there were no reports of injuries or fatalities. At 9am on that fateful morning, a message blared out from a mosque in Jaranwala urging Muslims to take action against their Christian neighbours.
This precipitated a mass evacuation of Christians which began soon after many were woken by mobs descending as early as 5am.
The sheer scale of the attack begs questions that it came entirely in reaction to an incident of blasphemy that only came to light the morning the attack got underway.
The violence was ostensibly sparked by the discovery of pages of the Qur’an on which were written anti-Islamic messages.
The discovery also included – helpfully – the photo ID of one of the alleged culprits, brothers Raja Amir, in his early 20s, and Rocky Masih, both Christians.
The allegations’ credulity was stretched further when it emerged that the two men, one of them a sanitary worker, are almost certainly illiterate.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the allegation of blasphemy provided the fig leaf of respectability to an act of naked aggression; moreover, it proved invaluable in garnering support for the violence from a highly religious community likely to spare nothing to defend the honour of Islam.
In search of a wider context for the attack, it is impossible to ignore the warning I received from Pakistani Church leaders earlier that month about local tensions stemming from recent Qur’an burnings in the West.
Of particular note here is the 28 June incident outside Sweden’s Stockholm Mosque where an individual, apparently a Christian refugee from Iraq, ripped Quranic texts and set fire to them.
Whatever the precise cause of the Jaranwala atrocity, the Pakistan authorities have been quick to take steps to restore law and order and reach out in solidarity to the victims.
Within 24 hours of the attack, reports emerged that the police had arrested nearly 150 people in the Punjab province and that more than 6,000 police and paramilitary troops had been deployed.
A few days later, Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, visited Jaranwala and distributed compensation packages to victims.
Less than a month later, the PM doubled down on his commitment to ensuring that justice is done when he met a delegation of Christian leaders, including Catholic Archbishop Joseph Arshad and Bishop Indrias Rehmat, and assured them that the state would defend the rights of minorities and bring the culprits to justice.
But will it be enough to provide healing and restore confidence? ACN is working with the Catholic bishops to help provide moral and practical support for persecuted Christians not just in Jaranwala but across the country, repair of churches, new homes for Christians, surveillance cameras and security walls for places of worship.
Meantime, there is the daunting task of rebuilding relations between the Christians of Pakistan, the state that governs them and the majority community with whom they live.
From all sections of the Christian community comes a deafening cry to politicians to turns words of solidarity into policies resolute in their intention to stop such atrocities from happening again.
In response to the innumerable political statements of compassion and concern following the Jaranwala incident, Archbishop Benny Travas of Karachi said: “Once again, we have the same old condemnations and visits by the politicians and other government officials expressing their solidarity with the Christian community and promises that ‘justice will be done’, but in reality nothing materialises, and all is forgotten.”
He added: “We, as a Christian community, have time and again displayed our loyalty to Pakistan, yet incidents like… Jaranwala show that we are in reality second-class citizens that can be terrorised and frightened at will.”
Critical to regaining trust is not only bringing the Jaranwala attack culprits to justice, but also action to stamp out the influence of extremism, militantism and corruption which are threatening to make Pakistan ungovernable and whose victims are the minorities, including Christians.
The first step must be to recognise the gravity of what happened on 16 August, which may in time be recognised as a crime against humanity.
The second step must involve improving Pakistan’s security services, which came in for much criticism for alleged inaction on that day.
Additional steps include action to prevent the abuse of Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws, which sparked the Jaranwala catastrophe and which overshadow the lives of countless innocent people.
Pakistan is a beneficiary of significant UK overseas aid and at a time when the former’s finances are under extreme pressure, the British authorities have ample opportunity to insist upon action to safeguard the country’s persecuted faith minorities.
Christians in Jaranwala can be forgiven for losing faith in their country, a nation which they have done much to build up in terms of education, health care and industry.
But, as those of us who have visited Pakistan can testify, they are a resilient people with a remarkable capacity to witness to Christ in good times and bad. Now is the time for government to take action to rebuild their faith in a country that on 16 August badly let them down.
John Pontifex is head of press and public affairs at Aid to the Church in Need (UK)
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