Excerpt from The Targeting of “ Minority Others” in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

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I have been contacted on several occasions by Pakistani Christian asylum seekers desperate for help with preparing their appeal. I have also been contacted by the chaplain at Yarl’s Wood detention centre out concern over the lack of support they are receiving. Twin sisters at Yarl’s Wood, who cannot be named, told me that one of them had been kidnapped after refusing to convert to Islam. In another case, one woman’s entire family in Pakistan is suffering because her nephew has refused to convert to Islam. Instead of her nephew, she has had to pay the price of his refusal, having been tortured and sexually assaulted by the Pakistani police during investigations. She is still wanted by the Pakistani police and it is not clear what the outcome of this situation will be.



Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Excerpt from The Targeting of “ Minority Others” in Pakistan

Price of book including P&P for UK, Europe, Pakistan and US.

P&P UK £18.30 GBP  P&P Europe £22.10 GBP  P&P Pakistan £25.65 GBP  P&P US and Canada £25.65 GBP

 

There was a mass deportation charter flight to Pakistan from UK on 6^th  February 2012, it’s unclear if this was the first. Another took place on 19^th March 2012 [PVT120] at least one of the airport-transfer buses for this flight was branded “Just Go! Holidays by Coach” and the plane allegedly departed from London Stansted Airport. Then, another took place on 11thApril 2012, and another on 1^st May 2012

In the main centres in which many ‘failed’ asylum seekers (inclusive of many people from Pakistan)xi are held before deportation, the following types of targeting measures have been undertaken (the descriptions below do not cover the brutalisation – some would say torture - of targeted ‘Others’ that occurs whilst restrained and in transit to the airport or detention centres, and also whilst detained in detention centres) :xii

25^th from Pakistan] detained at Yarl’s Wood immigration [detention centre] in Bedfordshire … which began on 5^th February and involved some 84 women at the start, was sparked by detainees protesting against their prolonged detention and inhumane treatment at the hands of the Serco security guards and the immigration authorities. The hunger strikers’ demands included an end to the “physical and mental torture at the centre” and “all false allegations and misrepresentations by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) regarding detainees”; an end to the detention of children and their mothers, rape survivors and other torture victims and to the separation of children from their mothers.

Two and a half weeks on, at least 20 women are still on hunger strike, while others have stopped but are refusing to eat the “repugnant” food provided by the prison management. On the 8^th February, Serco security guards tried to break up the protest by force. Some 70 women were locked in a corridor for up to 8 hours without access to food, water, toilet or medical care. Many collapsed and about 20, who tried to climb out of the windows, were beaten up and taken into isolation cells. Four of the women, singled out as ‘ringleaders’, were taken to Bedford police station and subsequently transferred to HMP Holloway in London, without being charged with any offence or brought before a judge. Testimonies by Yarl’s Wood detainees, many of whom have fled torture, rape and destitution, have revealed that racial, psychological and physical abuse had been inflicted on the hunger strikers by Serco staff. xiii

Thank you for reading this and please know that your sharing, liking and commenting on this post goes a long way in helping to give voice to the persecuted.

All proceeds from the sale of the book support the work of the BPCA.  Much of the early sales will be used to support victims of the Peshawar bomb attacks - December 2013.

Sexual abuse of Christian boys and girls in Essa Nagri

Map of Karachi showing Essa Nagri

While researching the background of attacks, extortion and intimidation in the Christian slum of Essa Nagri that led to the current events and violence the BPCA found an article from January describing the situation that the Christians of Essa Nagri and other Christian areas of Karachi face.  Because of their minority status, they are especially vulnerable to abuse of various kinds.  Activists of rival political parties extort money from them, they are caught in the middle of vicious political battles for land, kidnap and forcible conversion of both young and adults is common, and even Members of State Assemblies face death threats and have nowhere to turn.  But a further element is extortion by sexual abuse of children.  As dusk falls, all children are whisked away out of sight, with good reason.  For at least a year, children are being abducted and then abused at a nearby building known as the Meekasa Apartments.

A resident of Essa Nagri, Peter Bhatti, reports that the children are filmed being abused, and then the families extorted for money.  If they don't pay, the videos will be circulated.  One woman, Shakila Anjum, had her two teenage sons abducted and abused in such a manner.  She got calls warning her not to tell the police.  The families have no choice but to raise the money, which is difficult for the already impoverished residents.  Thus the Christian community is deliberately kept in enforced poverty by abuse, extortion and murder by the extremists / criminals (is there much of a difference in Pakistan - as the saying goes, the bigger the beard, the bigger the crook).  And the police and society do nothing or aid it.  Silence is complicity!

Source

UK Madrassah Blues?

Radio 4 aired a report last night about Maddrassah's in the UK. These are additional Muslim schools were Muslim children are taught the Koran, and are made to memorize it. The report aired concerns that these institutions are entirely unregulated and unsupervised. The rules and child protection regimes that apply to schools etc, do not apply to them. No CRB checks are required on the staff (normally volunteers), nor inspections of the institutions. Corporal punishment is allowed. About 1/4 million children go to these Madrassahs, of which there are an estimated 3500 in the UK. Freedom of information requests have revealed that there have been at least 400 allegations of physical abuse since 2009, of which only 10 have gone to court, and there have been only 2 successful prosecutions. In the same period, there have been 30 cases raised of sexual abuse, of which there have been 3 prosecutions, only one of which was successful. In one case a head of one of these schools had previously been convicted of child sex abuse and imprisoned in the past, yet he was in charge of the institution, had never had a CRB check. Of particular note to Pakistani Christians is the way the actions of the community match the experience of Christians. In one case, several children reported a respected imam when he sexually abused them. Police were called and the imam eventually convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison. However, the victims were continually teased, ridiculed, shamed, and they and their families underwent threats and intimidation. This was a repeated theme - that parents were pressurised to keep quiet and not go to the police, over cases of physical and sexual abuse. They had to not bring shame on Islam, and that if they went to the authorities or spoke out they would be 'doing as the enemies of Islam do'. This is evidence of the Sharia-mindset that results in attacks and death threats against converts to Christianity, and even the families of such converts from the Islamic community, of which Pakistani's are a significant subset.

In addition it strongly suggests that this Sharia-type mindset means that the significant portions of the Islamic community are complicit in covering up serious criminal matters, including physical and sexual abuse of children, and this needs to be addressed. It amply demonstrates the dangers of tolerance towards Sharia law, and the need to rigorously enforce the principle of one law for all - UK law.

You can listen to the program or read a written version There is a further related article here.

Karachi adoption story - good news for one, but many more girls abandoned

Today there was an article in the Mail on Sunday about a Pakistani woman who adopted a baby girl from Karachi, Pakistan.

The girl is pictured above, in intensive care fighting for her life after probably not being fed for the first few days of her life. The story of her adoption will be shown on BBC2 Tuesday 6th September at 9pm.

The baby was handed in to the Edhi Foundation, who provide a great deal of welfare in the near absence of welfare provisions in Pakistan, running care homes and orphanages, among other things.

One disturbing feature of the story is that baby girls are routinely abandoned on the streets of Pakistan, largely due to extreme poverty, although of course other factors must explain why it is predominantly girls who are abandoned. As we have recently reported, there are also hundreds of thousands of street children on the streets of Pakistan, the vast majority of whom are sexually abused, all too often by the police.

We raise this issue, in case anyone can do any more to help these girls