As this publication has stated before, there are few worst places to be a Christian than in Pakistan. Christianity in Pakistan is repeatedly suppressed by the Islamic government and culture in Pakistan violence, by social disapproval and by the legal systems. When it comes to freedom of religion, Pakistan, like so many other nations run by Islam, fails to guarantee its Christians security, safety or the right to worship. It’s also notable that Pakistani Muslims are denying Christians the sort of freedoms that the Pakistani Muslim diaspora vehemently demands for itself when this group is a minority in Christian or secular lands.
To illustrate this everyday anti-Christian behaviour in Pakistan I’d like to turn to a Press Release that I recently received from the British Pakistani Christian Association. According to the document, a group of Christians in the Toba Tek Singh area of Pakistan are being denied permission to use their church, a church that was built by local Christians, for worship services as local Muslims objected.
The church in question, the Full Gospel Assembly, was completed in 2012 despite vehement objections from local Muslim leaders. The Christians managed to worship at the church until Christmas Day 2016 when they were served with a closure notice by the local authorities. Local Muslims had objected to the sound of Christian music and prayers emanating from the church.
The British Pakistani Christian Association said:
For four years the energetic and exuberant Christian community prayed and worshipped with great zeal as they strove to draw closer in relationship with their God. However, their passionate worship did not go unnoticed and soon influential Islamists in the community threatened the terrified members of the church and other Christians in surrounding areas, with threats of violence if the church building continued to be utilised for worship services. On several occasions church services were interrupted by local Muslim men who would chant ‘Allah hu Akbar’ and threaten parishioners until local police were called to resolve the dispute. Parishioners would have stones hurled at them after services and would be spat at.
After a series disturbances and threats of extreme violence including assertions that any Christian stepping foot into the church building would be lynched, failed to terminate the use of the building by the church body, the Islamists plotted the demise of the church more assuredly. Several senior Muslim leaders approached police officers at the local Rajana Police Station and urged them to preserve Islamic pride by closing down the church building.
In usual fashion the local police constabulary took matters into their own hands without any legal mandate and demanded the attendance of the Full Gospel Assembly (FGA) church leadership at a ‘social harmony meeting’ at Ranjana Police station on Christmas Day 2016.
What an appalling situation these poor Pakistani Christians are in. Also, what a stark illustration of how things are for non-Muslims when Islam gets the upper hand in a nation. The situation for religious minorities in Pakistan should serve as a warning for the citizens of other nations especially those countries where the Muslim minority is promoting the now completely discredited ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ line.
These Pakistani Christians are now reduced to the abject position of having to petition the deputy chief of police for the area for permission to use the building that they constructed and paid for themselves. That they are having to do this in spite of previously faced threats of violence and what appear to be lies from the Muslims about the Christians being drunk in church and claims from Muslim agitators in the area that the presence of a church is a ‘threat to the security’ of local Muslim women and children· What! That’s a damn laughable and thoroughly dishonest statement. Anybody who knows anything about Pakistan understands that it is Islam that is the primary threat to the security of Pakistan’s women and children.
The Christians are trying to fight this discrimination against them with dignity and with peace. They are attempting to use the civil courts and the legal process to try to get their church legalised. The Christians by trying to deal with this problem in this manner are behaving in a way that is considerably less violent and disruptive than how local Muslims have treated the Christians.
This case is just one example of how nations like Pakistan that are built on Islam treat religious minorities. These Christians are not killing people, they are not making outrageous demands on the wider society and they are not attempting to overturn the Islamic character of the shithole that is Pakistan. All they want to do is to worship their god in peace but that is something that is being increasingly denied to them by Pakistani Muslims.
I am not a Christian myself but the way that they are treated by Pakistani Muslims is an abomination and I pray for their safety and security and that they may one day be allowed to worship in peace. There is a petition to support these beleaguered Pakistani Christians and you can find this petition via the link below.
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-preventing-church-services-in-pakistan
We should never forget why these Christians are persecuted. They are persecuted because of Islam and for no other reason. This fact alone should make us suspicious of any Muslim who comes before a non-Muslim audience and makes statements to the effect that it is possible for Muslims and members of other faiths to peacefully get along. We can see from the situation in Pakistan that such statements of peaceful intent from Muslim representatives are little more than a tissue of easily disprovable lies.
