Pakistan: Muslim Mob of 10,000 People Burns Down Hundreds of Christian Homes, Churches, over ‘Blasphemy’
A mob reportedly made of up as many as 10,000 men began burning down, looting, and otherwise violently assaulting Christian communities in Jaranwala, Pakistan, on Wednesday in response to reports that a Christian man had allegedly desecrated a Quran.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn, citing local Christians in the northern Pakistani region of Punjab, documented the burning down or otherwise complete destruction of at least five churches. The British Asian Christian Association, an international aid group that serves persecuted Christians in Pakistan, reported that the mob destroyed over 500 homes and left “tens of thousands” of Christians homeless.
Muslim mob violence in Pakistan, an officially Islamic state, is common. Islamist mobs often riot when rumors spread of a Christian allegedly desecrating a Quran, insulting the Islamic figure Muhammad, or otherwise offending the religion. Islamists have also rioted over international news, such as riots in support of the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015 or riots against France following the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, which the French government condemned.
Christians are often the targets of such violence and local police rarely intervene effectively, particularly when the mob attacks are triggered by allegations of blasphemy. “Blasphemy” is a crime in the Pakistani penal code, punishable by death when directed at Muhammad personally. Pakistan has never in its history executed a person for blasphemy, but mobs have “extra-judicially” killed or severely injured untold numbers over the alleged crime.
Many of those killed for “blasphemy” are not charged with the crime and little evidence exists that the blasphemy occurred. Christians in Pakistan are disproportionately poor and some accused of “crimes” such as writing on a Quran are illiterate, making the accusations impossible.
The incidents triggered on Wednesday reportedly began when Muslims in Jaranwala began accusing Saleem Masih, a Christian man believed to work as a cleaner, of desecrating a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. According to the British Asian Christian Association, the violence began when Islamic officials used mosques to make community announcements demanding that mobs organize and begin destroying Christian communities in response.
“The affected regions, including Cinema Basti, Christian Town, and Esa Nagar, have witnessed the destruction of over 500 houses,” the organization detailed. “According to reports provided by on-ground volunteers, Pastors Muratib and Moon, a tumultuous mob of approximately 10,000 individuals has wreaked havoc within the Christian towns.”
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that pastors had confirmed the burning down and looting of at least five churches in the community throughout Wednesday.
“Images on social media showed smoke rising from the church buildings and people setting fire to furniture that had been dragged from them. A Christian cemetery was also vandalised, as well as the local government office,” Dawn documented.
Videos from the greater Faisalabad area showed large crowds of men starting fires around churches, looting the homes of Christians, and chanting anti-Christian slogans. In one such video, one police officer appears in front of a crowd of what appears to be hundreds of people, calmly attempting to address the men and being ignored as they continue ransacking what appears to be a residential community.
Bishop Azad Marshall, the president bishop of the Church of Pakistan, posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday stating that churches were burning as he was writing and demanding police take action.
“Words fail me as I write this. We, Bishops, Priests and lay people are deeply pained and distressed at the Jaranwala incident in the Faisalabad District in Pakistan. A church building is being burnt as I type this message,” he wrote. “Bibles have been desecrated and Christians have been tortured and harrased [sic] having been falsely accused of violating the Holy Quran.”
“We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland that has just celebrated independence and freedom,” he demanded.
The mob attacks appear to be ongoing at press time, though local police claim they are organizing a response. Pakistan’s Geo TV cited the information minister for Punjab, Amir Mir, claiming “dozens” of people had been arrested for their participation in the mob attacks and that police believed the eruption of violence was not spontaneous.
“There was a plan to disturb the peace by inciting public sentiments. After the desecration of the Holy Quran, the angry protesters reacted strongly,” Mir claimed, apparently accepting the alleged blasphemy as a fact.
Geo TV added that Mir claimed police were working swiftly to investigate “the tragic incident of the desecration of the holy book” – the Quran, presumably, though Mir did not clarify if he was also investigating Bishop Marshall’s report of desecrations of Bibles.
Mir also astoundingly claimed “no one was injured nor was there any loss of life” in the riots, contradicting the on-the-ground reports from the British Asian Christian Association, which alleged thousands of injuries.
Juliet Chowdhry, Trustee for the British Asian Christian Association, issued a statement accusing the police of doing little to nothing to protect Christian lives.
“Regrettably, there appears to be a distinct absence of law enforcement or military personnel intervening to prevent and defuse this violence,” she said. “Equally concerning is the lack of emergency services or non-governmental organizations offering aid or assistance in these dire circumstances.”
Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said on Wednesday afternoon that the “situation was under control,” according to Dawn.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
Negotiations Cannot Bring Peace Between the USA and Islam
Caroline Glick, a master of Middle East cultural and political affairs, has developed a brief but forceful overview of the dynamics of the complex negotiations that are going on and have been going on for years between and among the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Israel, Russia, and other impacted nation-states.
In the background of these meetings that project endless scenarios for the benefit of the concerned parties stands the United Nations which was originally conceived as a world body that would bring conflicts under a united peacekeeping effort that would be respected by the member nation-states. However, the UN has been standing on the sidelines as bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral meetings and negotiations have been taking place among affected parties in the Middle East and elsewhere. So, for example, the UN condemned the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but has stood on the sidelines helplessly huffing and puffing its displeasure while that war proceeds. This helplessness is largely because Russia is on the Security Council and is thus able to veto any actions taken against itself. Yet, at the same time, the UN keeps up its dogged connection with world government advocates and a few short years ago unanimously agreed upon Agenda 2030, which establishes the goals for a world government, although the words “world government” do not appear in the Agenda document.
It is incredible to see how many liars and phonies occupy center stage in our world. We can see this clearly as we put the microscope of analysis over the procedures and policies of the Middle Eastern power brokers. Iran and Saudi Arabia ostensibly represent two “branches” of Islam -- the former representing the Shi’ite branch and the latter the leading country of the Sunni branch. These two factions have been warring with each other for nearly 1400 years, but they both have in common contempt for the non-Islamic world. This is true even though their great oil wealth would not be possible without the input and engineering know-how of the non-Islamic world -- the oil companies -- who knew how to find and develop the great energy wealth of the Islamic world. These two competing Arab cultures lived in backwards isolation for centuries while the West grew in knowledge, wealth, health, and power. We now depend on their oil, but they depend on the cash flow and prestige that their oil brings into their societies.
Glick in a recent article has embraced the idea of negotiations as the path to resolving the issues that beset the world and the Middle East. The idea of negotiations leading to an official agreement or treaty has a long and dignified history -- it is fundamentally based on a model of rational discourse and the balancing of national interests with common interests. Willingness to compromise is an essential feature of said negotiations. The military strength of the negotiating partners is of course also weighted into the negotiation equation, and more powerful entities such as the USA, the PRC, or Russia may thrust themselves into negotiations among less militarily able countries. This intrusion of great powers into negotiations among weaker parties is of course portrayed as accelerating the peace process and assuring more successful completion of negotiations. But, at another level, it is an aspect of realpolitik where larger powers assert control and make sure that less powerful entities continue to kiss their proverbial a****.
Because of the takeover of Iran by the bloodthirsty ayatollahs in 1979, and their subsequent taking of American hostages, the USA became very much anti-Iran. Iran’s Muslim, ayatollah-governed country believed in the Shi’ite branch of Islam while the Saudis and most of the Muslim world are Sunnis. Their dispute -- from almost the founding of Islam to this day -- is about the basis for the line of succession to leadership in the Islamic world after the death of Muhammed. After 1979, we tended to support the Saudis and the Sunni faction in the Islamic world, which is much larger than the Shi’ite faction. Thus, until President Barack Obama decided to change our orientation and “make peace” with the Iranian Shi’ites, we faced some serious aggressions from Iran, and despite the Obama and Biden overtures, we still do.
In 1983, American marines were attacked by Iranian-backed terrorists in Beirut, Lebanon and 240 of our heroic armed forces were killed. Then in 1996 Americans were killed in an attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Although Iran was officially blamed by a U.S. District Court for the Khobar attack, this writer believes there was probably some Saudi complicity. After the attack, the Saudis refused to extradite those arrested for the attack.
During the years 1980 to 1988, war was waged between Iran and Iraq, and the USA was on the side of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s military dictator. However, it was more of a strategic alliance to protect the West’s Iraqi oil interests and not a de facto embrace of the cruel and despotic Hussein. As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. Also, in the 1980s we saw the hijacking of ships and planes by Islamic terrorists on a regular basis until finally President Ronald Reagan bombed the terrorist training camps in Libya and brought an end to that phase of Islamic terrorism.
Then, on September 11, 2001 we experienced the worst attack on America in our history with the hijacking of three domestic jet flights with one plane crashing itself into the Pentagon, two others purposely crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, and a fourth plane was forced to crash in Pennsylvania killing all the passengers on the plane. Of the 19 hijackers, 16 were from Saudi Arabia.
Fast forward to March of this year. The Saudis and the Iranians decided to bury the hatchet and made a deal brokered by China. This deal may reduce tensions in Yemen between Shi’ites and Sunnis. The two factions put on a good face of burying the hatchet. Yet, we see that when it comes to hating the non-Islamic world, they have both been on the same page for a long time.
Thus, we see that there is the intractable unity of the Islamic world in its hatred of the non-Islamic world. This hatred has over time superseded the longstanding and deep differences between Islamic factions. Then there are the differences within the Islamic world where the factions try to get the most money and concessions from more powerful nations in the West, and recently from China to advance their respective power mad and greedy agendas. The West seems to treat this level -- which we can call “rational self-interest” -- as though it were the only level. However, the deeper level is the level of fanaticism. Live and let live is just not part of Islam. Love thy neighbor is an essential principal of Christianity upon which the West was founded; yet dark murderous themes eventually emerged and we had two world wars. Islam was more violent than Christianity from its beginnings and remains violent in its essence. Negotiations are inherently unworkable and superficial.
E. Jeffrey Ludwig was formerly a teaching fellow in American history and literature at Harvard University, and served on the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review. He has also taught at Penn State, Boston State College, and Juniata College and was listed four times in Who’s Who Among America’s High School Teachers. He has been a regular contributor to American Thinker for 13 years.
Image: Eugene Delacroix
No comments:
Post a Comment