Pakistan Christians ‘helpless’ after slaying June 10, 2004 By Anto Akkara Ecumenical News International THRISSUR,
India — Pakistani church leaders report feeling “helpless” following
the death of a Christian jailed under Pakistan’s blasphemy law after he
was hit by a policeman guarding him in a hospital. “We
are very sad about what has happened,” said the Rev. Arthur James,
moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan. “I can only say we are
feeling helpless. Churches can do nothing but raise slogans about
this.” Speaking
from his office in Gujranwala, James was commenting on the death of
Samuel Masih, 32, a Roman Catholic, who died on May 28, five days after
he was hit with a blunt object by a police guard who said he killed
Masih to fulfill the duties of his faith. Masih
had been hospitalized with tuberculosis in an isolation ward following
his incarceration a year ago after being arrested for committing
“blasphemy” when, while trying to make an area tidy, he allegedly placed
some rubbish near the wall of a mosque. “This
shows the danger of the shadow under which we live,” said Archbishop
Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, president of the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of Pakistan, who presided over Masih’s funeral on May 29 in
Lahore Cathedral. Immediately
after the funeral, Saldanha sent a letter to Pakistan President General
Pervez Musharraf lamenting that “it is with sadness and sorrow that the
Catholic Christians of Lahore laid to rest today another victim of
fanatical hatred.” Pointing
out that Christians are “very much disturbed and demoralized by this
violent death,” the head of the Pakistani Catholic Church reminded
Musharraf that “this tragic incident brings out the urgent necessity of
reviewing the Blasphemy Law.” According
to World Methodist Council statistics, the Methodist Church in Pakistan
has a membership of 13,000 and serves a larger constituency of 38,000. Article
295 C of the Pakistan penal code renders the definition of blasphemy as
a crime and it carries a punishment of death or life imprisonment.
Several Christians have been sentenced to death by trial courts and said
to have been framed with flimsy blasphemy charges, but these verdicts
have later been turned down in higher courts.
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