After “Charlie,” Latest Incident of Pakistani Christians Targeted by Muslim Anger

After “Charlie,” Latest Incident of Pakistani Christians Targeted by Muslim Anger

By Jeremy Reynalds, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service (jeremyreynalds@gmail.com)  

 

PAKISTAN  (ANS. FEB. 26)  The publication of Charlie Hebdo’s  “memorial edition,” with its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad crying, sparked - in one or two countries - a violent backlash against Westerners in general and Christians in particular. 

 

According to a story by Asif Aqeel for World Watch Monitor, it was notable in Niger, where 70 churches were destroyed, Algeria where police and protestors clashed, and in Pakistan. 

 

There, in Karachi, a march in the streets hit the international headlines. 

 

However, one incident which only emerged sometime after it happened took place in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan. 

 

On Jan. 26  in the city of Bannu, the Pennell High School and College for 1,800 students was working as normal, despite a protest march against Charlie Hebdo being called for by other school and college students. 

 

Pennell Principal Fredrick Farhan Das told World Watch Monitor that hundreds of protestors, mostly students between the ages of 15 and 18, broke away from their march to storm into the school after climbing up and forcing the main gate open. 

 

He said, “The protestors first pelted the gate with stones and then climbed over the 14 foot high wall… Some of them were armed with knives and pistols; the young children were terrified that it was an attack like the one in the Army school in Peshawar where at least 132 students were massacred.” 

 

Teacher Pervaiz Qazi added, “It was break time, around 11am. All the students were out of class, when those protesters entered  … They created panic, started smashing windows, showing their weapons openly and raising anti-Christian slogans.” 

 

Since the Peshawar attack, security around Pakistani schools has dramatically increased and schools have been ordered to take stringent security measures.

 

Sources close to the Punjab Education Department told World Watch Monitor that military schools and Christian mission schools across the country are designated as A+ category - at the highest security risk of being targeted.

 

Das explained, “There are two posts on the second floor where two policemen are permanently deployed by the district administration…When the protestors pelted the gate with stones I told the guards to keep the gate closed. If the two policemen had fired in the air, then the protestors would not have braved the boundary wall….They wanted the school closed...they damaged our property and smashed our windows. This caused a stampede. We had four students injured.”

 

USCIRF: Pakistan “poisoning textbooks with religious hatred” 

 

For many years, Pakistani Christians have been subjected to violent attacks to avenge “anti-Islam acts” taking place abroad, especially in Europe and the US. 

 

World Watch Monitor said the attacks stem from the perceptions that the West is Christian and the local Christian community is akin to them, that non-Muslims are “enemies of Islam,” and that jihad is a violent struggle against the “enemies of Islam,” mandated for every individual.

 

Such attacks began in early 1970s at least, meaning the citizenship and patriotism of Pakistani Christians have long been under question. 

 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report  “Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan - A Study of Public Schools and Madrassas” notes, “Thee Pakistani national identity and Islamic religious identity are correlated. This is a similar emphasis on ‘Islamic Pakistan’ to that found in most textbooks.”

 

Though Pakistan was founded when its religion had “nothing to do with the business of the State,”  the USCIRF report says that, through poisoning textbooks with religious hatred “Pakistani political leadership has undermined the tolerance once enjoyed amongst the various sects and religious minorities in Pakistan.”

 

World Watch Monitor said the USCIRF research notes, “In all the textbooks analyzed, the student is presented a world where concepts such as nation, constitution, legality, standing armies, or multi-lateral organizations- except where they are prescribed by Islamic doctrine or shariah law-do not exist.”

 

 It went on to show that all public school teachers and students interviewed believed jihad meant violent struggle, compulsory for Muslims to engage in against the enemies of Islam, and about 80 percent of them viewed non-Muslims as “enemies of Islam.” 

 

“The majority of public school teachers cited blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed as a significant cause of anger towards religious minorities.” 

 

The USCIRF report also says that  “foreign cultural invasion” through mass media is perceived a threat to Islam and the very existence to Pakistan.

 

 Similarly, World Watch Monitor reported, the Christians living among them are perceived as perverted in their beliefs and immoral in their practices. 

 

Students and teachers said anger against religious minorities arises from “a feeling that they do not respect Islam and Muslims.”

 

 

 

Read more