‘Why repeat Manipur violence here?’: In Pakistan, protests over attack on Christians in Jaranwala

Hundreds of demonstrators joined a protest in Karachi on August 19, three days after an attack on the Christian community in Pakistan’s Jaranwala town.

On August 16, a mob ransacked Christian homes and burned down churches on allegations of “blasphemy” in the town in Faisalabad district of Pakistan’s Punjab province, which has the highest concentration of Christians.

At the protest on August 21, those in attendance gathered at the Teen Talwar monument, which has three marble swords emblazoned with the words “Unity, Faith, Discipline” – attributed to Pakistan’s founder MA Jinnah.

Activist and dancer Sheema Kermani led the protest, with participants evoking a long list of Pakistani Christians and communities targeted by extremist elements in the name of religion over the years.

“Manzoor Masih – will be remembered. The Christians of Shanti Nagar – will be remembered. Rimsha Masih – will be remembered.”

On Sunday, the Christian community in Jaranwala held services at the destroyed churches. In Washington DC, some Pakistani Christians and Muslims gathered at a prayer vigil in solidarity.

‘Blasphemy’ allegations

“Blasphemy” accusations have grown exponentially since 1987, when military dictator General Zia-ul Haq amended a colonial-era law dealing with the offence of “injuring religious sentiments”. Besides adding harsh punishments, the critical words “malicious intent” were dropped from the law.

Until then, Pakistan had seen just seven accusations of “blasphemy” and two extrajudicial killings. Now, anyone can file a case against “blasphemy” transgressions, real or imagined. Independent investigations find that these accusations often disguise personal vendettas.

Section 295-C provides for capital punishment for insulting Prophet Muhammad. After the option of life imprisonment became defunct in 1991, it stipulates a mandatory death penalty.

The first “blasphemy” murder took place shortly afterwards. A Christian poet and schoolteacher, Naimat Ahmar, was killed in Faisalabad after posters of his alleged transgression cropped up around town. Since then, at least 85 people have been killed after such allegations.

In 2019, at least 40 were serving life or were on death row for “blasphemy”. From 1987 to 2022, more than 2,000 “blasphemy” cases had been filed. This year saw 57 cases of alleged blasphemy and four extrajudicial killings between January and May.

Of those imprisoned under these laws, 52% are from religious minorities while 48% are Muslims from various sects. Pakistan’s religious minorities form about 5% of the country’s population of 220 million. The 2.6 million-strong Christian community (1.27% of Pakistan’s population) is the second-largest religious minority after Hindus.

Misusing religion

The Jaranwala violence on August 16 is a chilling reminder of how religion continues to be misused in Pakistan. The pattern is familiar. There is a quarrel or disagreement between two parties. Hours or days later, there are accusations of “blasphemy” amplified through mosque loudspeakers, followed by the violence.

Similar accusations against two brothers from the Christian community in Jaranwala, broadcast through mosque loudspeakers, incited the violence that day. Mobs armed with stones, sticks and daggers, including youngsters wielding sticks, attacked and set ablaze churches, homes, and the office of the assistant commissioner of Jaranwala, a Christian, who was not on the premises at the time. They also desecrated Bibles and vandalised a cemetery.

As many as 36 “registered and nonregistered” churches and about 800 homes were vandalised and razed to the ground, displacing approximately 3,000 families including 200 children, said the Cecil & Iris Chaudhry Foundation, set up by the family of late war hero, Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry of the Pakistan Air Force. The Foundation has appealed for donations of cash, cooked food, dry rations, and medicines.

Honour the white stripe

Pakistan’s first Minority Rights March took place on August 11 in 2009, and has been annually observed since then as National Minorities Day.

This year, the date marked the 76th anniversary of Jinnah’s 1947 speech to the Constituent Assembly, in which he promised the freedom of religion to Pakistani citizens. The white stripe in Pakistan’s flag symbolises the country’s minorities.

On August 11 this year, demonstrations across Pakistan brought diverse minority groups together with mainstream Muslim allies in a public space – Sikhs, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds: Tamil, Maratha, Gujarati, Marwari, Kathiawari, Sindhi and Thari.

The march presented an 11-point charter of demands, calling to amend the “blasphemy laws”, stop forced conversions, protect the worship places of minorities, ensure equitable representation in institutions, update the curriculum and curb violent religious groups.

For long, activists have been calling for the state to hold the culprits accountable. Many demonstrated again in Karachi on Saturday to renew these calls after the Jaranwala attacks.

Law must be tweaked

To start with, “the words ‘malicious and deliberate intent” need to be inserted into the law, as ordered by the Federal Shariat Court in 1990 citing the International Commission of Jurists,” Lahore-based researcher Arafat Mazhar told Sapan News.

Mazhar’s Engage Pakistan, based on years of solid research, includes a series of animated films to create awareness about these issues. He also started a petition this year outlining steps to “Stop the Abuse and Weaponization of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws”.

Many of the Minority Rights March organisers are also part of the annual Aurat or Women’s March launched in 2016 outside the colonial-era Frere Hall, Karachi. Other linked movements that started from Frere Hall include one in support of the transgender community last year and a Climate March in June.

“Each march inspires more activism and reminds us of the spirit of resistance that continues to exist here,” said feminist sociologist Nida Kirmani, who works on gender and urban marginality in Southasia, and had joined the Minority Rights March in Karachi.

The protests are also a reminder to the authorities of their responsibility to protect the rights of all citizens, Kirmani told Sapan News.

Such activism is necessary and must continue regardless of political turmoil or changes in government, said poet and scientist Gauhar Raza of Anhad India.

“In the darkest period, we need such voices to keep the torch alight,” he told Sapan News. “We need to give credit to those who consistently stand for what’s right, whether in Pakistan, India, or elsewhere.”

Christians under attack in Pakistan

Jaranwala was not the first attack on Christian colonies, most of which are situated in prime land eyed by the land mafia.

In 2009, eight Christians were killed and 50 houses torched in a largely Christian neighbourhood in Gojra in a planned attack that the local administration was aware of, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

In March 2013, mobs attacked Joseph Colony area of Punjab’s capital Lahore, burning 200 houses. The day before the attack, the police had asked the Christians to vacate their houses, notes the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

There have been several such incidents but the culprits are rarely brought to book. However, over the past few years, the government has begun to respond more effectively.

This time, the police arrested over 100 suspects and registered cases against leaders of extremist groups Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and Jamaat-Ahle-Sunnat.

Turning point

The turning point in how Pakistan deals with attacks on minorities may have been after a 2021 incident when a Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot was lynched over “blasphemy” accusations.

“This brought international focus to the issue, and the government of the day felt compelled to respond,” said Zohra Yusuf, former chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

With a growing economic crisis and as a signatory to various human rights conventions, Pakistan must align its laws with international treaties in order to retain its GSP+ status with the European Union, Yusuf told Sapan News from Karachi.

Yusuf was referring to the bloc’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus, which incentivises trade with developing countries based on their adherence to international conventions adhering to labour and human rights. The status, reviewed annually, is up for renewal this year.

There is also the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement of 2014, which took suo motu notice of churches torched in Peshawar, and called for the protection of minorities and freedom of religion. However, many of these recommendations have yet to be implemented, said Yusuf.

Vigilante violence

While Pakistan has never executed anyone for “blasphemy”, vigilante violence has claimed the lives of nearly 90 people accused of blasphemy.

The victims include Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer who took up cudgels on behalf of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for “blasphemy” in 2010.

Taseer’s bodyguard assassinated him in January 2011 and was later executed for murder. Bibi spent nearly a decade on death row. After she was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2018, she was forced into hiding and is now in Canada.

The weaponisation of “blasphemy” laws has increased, with government and state agencies striking deals with extremist groups, say analysts. In a scathing judgement, Chief Justice-designate Qazi Faez Isa of the Pakistan Supreme Court noted the role of army personnel and private entities in enabling the rise and mainstreaming of extremist groups. He is among the few officials to have visited Jaranwala.

Pakistan’s religious minorities face a backlash when something injures the “religious sentiments” of Muslims. Cross-border love, too, has repercussions. When Seema Haider, a Pakistani Muslim woman went to India to marry a Hindu man she met online, Pakistan’s Hindu community faced threats and attacks, including grenades thrown at Hindu temples as reports of her changing of religion surfaced.

“No Church or a Christian will remain safe in Pakistan,” extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi said after an Iraqi refugee desecrated the holy Quran in Sweden.

“There’s an atrocity in Sweden, and our cross is desecrated here,” Pastor Ghazala, an organiser of the Minority Rights March, told the BBC. “Why are you turning Pakistan into another India? Why do you want Manipur violence to be repeated here?”

Mumbai-based Veteran journalist Jyoti Punwani appreciated the condemnation of violence against Christians in Pakistans, especially from the heads of significant institutions, including political, religious, and the army. She also lauded the inquiry that has been initiated and promises to restore the churches. “These promises are credible, because in the past, vandalised temples have been rebuilt,” she told Sapan News.

Pakistan’s responses are “all the more remarkable” because of their contrast to how India’s ruling establishment has responded to communal violence by the majority over the last nine years, says Punwani. “And we are officially secular,” she said. “These responses make us ashamed.”

One of the reasons that Pakistan is making an effort to deal more appropriately with such cases is that it “wants to show itself in a better light than India,” said Yusuf. That is not a bad competition to be in.

Dandiya, dance and theatre

At the Minority Rights March held last week, a troupe from Thar, in colourful traditional costumes signifying the cultural diversity of Pakistan, did the dandiya. Participants danced to the beat of Dama Dam Mast Qalandar by folk artiste Shamo Bai.

A tableau by young girls depicted the conversion aimed at Hindu girls in Sindh. Some reports estimate that Hindu girls, some barely 13 or 14, being forcibly converted to be around 1,000 annually. There was some relief when the Sindh Assembly passed an Anti-Conversion law in November 2016, but the Standing Committee of Religious Affairs overturned it in 2021.

Sanitary workers in Pakistan, mostly Hindu and Christian, risk their lives daily, working in unsafe conditions. They are forced to enter sewage holes “with zero equipment”, said Chaudhry Waris, who represents the sanitary workers of Union District East Karachi.

The resulting, preventable tragedies are all too common. On May 7, a Dalit Christian, Babar Masih, 31, drowned in a sewer in Karachi’s upscale Clifton area, near the three swords monument. His body was retrieved after 13 days. In June, two brothers died similarly in another part of Karachi.

“At least six sanitation workers, all Christian, have died within the last year after inhaling poisonous sewer gases in otherwise preventable workplace accidents across Pakistan,” reported Al Jazeera.

The Minority Rights March has also demanded a revision of curriculum that currently promotes “unhinged bigotry”, as Vinesh Arya, a religion education activists calls. It “pits one community against another”.

The demonstrators also called for the revival of the Thar Express railway line between Karachi, Sindh, and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Pakistan suspended the service in 2019. Pakistani Hindus now find it even more difficult to visit religious shrines or families across the border. Travel to India now entails a lengthy, expensive journey up-country to cross at the Wagah-Attari border.

With Pakistan still “very, very far”, as Nida Kirmani puts it, from realising the dream of a safe haven for its religious minorities, the activism of groups like Minority Rights March remains ever more relevant.

Abdullah Zahid is an aspiring journalist studying mass communication at the University of Karachi. His handle on X is @AbdullahZahid. Beena Sarwar, Sapan News editor, is a longtime journalist who has done extensive reporting on the blasphemy laws.

This is a Sapan News syndicated feature.