|
|
|
|
|
« Return
|
|
Christians in Pakistan say they are suffering for the policies of the US
2002-223-7
10/1/2002
|
[Episcopal News Service]
Following the latest lethal attack on a Christian target in their country, some churches in Pakistan have declared that they are being made to suffer because of the policies of the United States.
In a statement, the National Council of Churches in Pakistan (NCCP) blamed the 'unfair false assumptions adopted by [the] United States of America' for the recent attacks on Christian targets in Muslim-majority Pakistan. The statement followed the killing on September 25 by unidentified gunmen of seven workers at the Idare-eb Amin-o-Insaf (Institute for Justice and Peace), an ecumenical social service center, in Karachi. The victims were tied to chairs and shot in the head. Attacks in Pakistan have claimed 30 Christian lives since October last year when the US and its allies launched military strikes in Afghanistan.
'Christians [in Pakistan] are confronting horrible massacres,' said the NCCP, which groups mainline Protestant churches. It said that the 'exemplary brotherhood' which had prevailed for decades between the minority Christian and majority Muslim population had been a victim of US foreign policy. 'Christians are seen by them [Islamic groups] as agents of Western nations and so they are targeting us,' Victor Azariah, the NCCP general secretary, told ENI.
Muslims make up 97 per cent of Pakistan's population of 138 million, while the remaining 3 per cent is made up of Christian, Hindu, Parsee and Buddhist minorities.
'There is no doubt that we have become the hapless victims of the Western policies in Afghanistan and Palestine,' said Father Yousaf Mani, director of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Roman Catholic Church in Pakistan. Mani said that of the seven staff killed at the Karachi ecumenical center, three were Catholic and the others belonged to other Christian denominations. All the major churches have been working with the center, which provides literacy, public health, human rights advocacy and legal aid programs for poor people of all faiths.
The killings in Karachi have also been condemned by churches around the world.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said, 'This is a dreadful act of violence against a Christian organization which has been offering welfare and social support to people of all faiths for 30 years.'
|
|
|
|
|
|
