The Attack on All Saints Church is an attack on Pakistan

Christian and Muslim communities have been living in Pakistan since independence. The Christian community is around 2% of the total population of Pakistan and, like other members of minority faiths, they also experience prejudice at various levels in their everyday lives. This faith-based prejudice is both casual and institutionalised. The majority of Christians in Pakistan are extremely poor and do menial jobs across the country.  The contribution of the members of the Christian community towards the protection and development of Pakistan is totally missed in the school text books.

Although there have been various incidents of Christian-Muslim conflict in the recent past, the incident on Sunday 22nd September turned out to be the deadliest attack to ever be committed against the Christian community in Pakistan. Two suicide attackers blew themselves up near the All Saints Church in Peshawar at a time when hundreds of Christians were returning home after the Sunday Church service. So far, 81 people have reported to be killed and over 100 terribly injured in the incident. According to the Interior Ministry of Pakistan, there were 7 children and 34 women amongst the victims who lost their lives.

A splinter group of Pakistani Taliban known as TTP-Jandullah has taken responsibility for the attack, saying that such attacks will continue against the non-Muslims until the US ends drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan – a demand that makes little sense.

The persecution of minorities in Pakistan is not new; but the recent incident in Peshawar has an interesting element to look at. The present Pakistani government has recently decided to initiate a peace process with the Taliban and is actively discussing the modalities of peace talks. There is a perception in Pakistan that there are certain elements in the country who do not want the peace process to go ahead and they are trying to sabotage the negotiation strategy of peace with the Taliban.

However, given the state of minorities in Pakistan since its independence, there requires a comprehensive strategy to ensure the protection of the minority communities. The response from the civil society and wider public is similar to that which they exhibited in the past. The majority of the people are showing solidarity with the victims’ families, but it certainly requires more than a timely support. We should not allow this vicious cycle, in which we condemn the ruthless mass murder of our minority communities and then no concrete actions are taken against the perpetrators, to continue. It is time to learn from the past. What did we learn from Shanti Nagar, Sangla Hill, Gojra and Badami Bagh incidents? Did we develop a counter-terrorism strategy? Did we increase the security of religious places? Did we train our police to deal with the terrorists? Did we start monitoring the hate-based narratives against minorities? Did we think of legislating against hate crime against religious minorities? Did the government start supporting the interfaith organizations operating within Pakistan to promote a dialogue between members of the faith communities to foster better relationships among them?

The answer to all the above questions is one word – NO

The government has announced ‘Three-Day’ mourning in the country after the barbaric attacks against the Christian communities in Peshawar but would this mourning ensure the protection of minorities from future attacks?

This government of Pakistan must think beyond sheer condemnation and timely solidarity with the victims and their families. Pakistan certainly needs serious and consistent efforts to tackle the challenges of terrorism and extremism. It is the time to prove that the ‘Attack on the All Saints Church is an Attack on Pakistan.’

Rehman Anwer

New Attacks – Old Reasons (A perspective on the recent attack on Joseph Colony, Lahore)

Just this Saturday we saw another mob attack on one of the densely populated Christian areas, Joseph colony in Badaami Bagh, Lahore that burnt more than 150 houses and affected more than 250 poor families.

This is hardly a new or unfamiliar turn of events; the root cause of this savagery was not very different from the previous other attacks against the Christian communities in Pakistan. A Muslim man accused a Christian neighbour of committing blasphemy (which is a serious crime in Pakistan - under section 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code, it can be punished with the death penalty). The man was duly arrested, but this was not enough for the mob, whose blazing fury was stoked until his entire colony had to pay the price for it. Almost the entire colony – houses, possessions, and furnishings alike - of Christian residents was burnt to the ground.

The victims reveal that the police themselves warned them to leave their houses one night before the attack, and that they showed their inability to deal with the angry perpetrators. Again, the behaviour of the local administrative authority and police has not been very different from past events.

It was not very long ago - the 1st of August, 2009, to be precise - that a violent mob had torched nearly 50 houses in a Christian Colony in Gojra (a small village located 30 miles from the city of Faisalabad). Eight Christians were been killed as a result of those attacks. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan stated that the attack was “not a spontaneous reaction to the allegation of blasphemy but w[as] planned in advance” – in short, it reflected a deep-seated antipathy towards this vulnerable minority group. Announcements made from mosques throughout Gojra urged the Muslims to gather and ‘make mincemeat of Christians The following day, Aug 1, around 1,000 people gathered in the town and marched towards Christian Colony. A police contingent present in the neighbourhood did not try to stop the mob.

Similarly, on November 12, 2005, some 500 Christians had to leave Sangla Hill, a small town in Nankana Sahib district of Pakistan. They had noticed the increasing vitriol against Christians being spouted from mosque loudspeakers, after a Christian man named Yousaf Masih had been accused of burning copies of the Holy Quran, and had fled before the riots to save their lives. The angry mob burnt down three churches, a convent, a missionary school, a girls’ hostel and a pastor’s house.

Looking at the latest anti-Christian attack on the Joseph Colony, a number of important questions come to mind:

• Based on a clear and proven record of religiously motivated attacks in the past, what has been done to control the mob violence against minorities?
• Did religious/community leaders develop and implement any mechanism for conflict resolution or dialogue?
• Has there been any improvement in the laws which allow certain malicious individuals to target Christians and other minorities, putting the most vulnerable individuals in society in danger?

Today, this barbaric attack is widely condemned by the government, civil society organisations and the general public. However, the fact of the matter is that unless the administrative authorities, religious and political leadership play their part to address the root cause of such incidents, they will keep on happening in one form or another, making these condemnations seem somewhat hollow. For members of minority faith groups in Pakistan - who are already living under enormous fear from the extremist groups operating in the country – the situation just keeps getting worse.

One thing can be said for sure at this stage is that radicalisation in Pakistan is rising to an alarming level. It will take serious collective efforts by every segment from every segment of Pakistani society to deal with the grave challenges of extremism and community violence.

Rehman Anwer