Opposing Polio - Taliban campaign against health teams

A teenage Pakistani victim of polio (Photo ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS / AP)

Once a worldwide scourge, Polio is now basically confined to 3 countries, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  The World Health Organisation has made a goal of totally eradicating this disease.  Pakistan is one of the key battlegrounds, and the WHO is finding it a struggle.  Malnutrition may be one reason, but for sure, it is the intersection of the war on polio with another war that makes it an especial struggle.   The Taliban has long opposed vaccination programs.  It is unclear whether, like some Islamicists, including a UK doctor, they believe it is inherently sinful (there are Islamic scholars who take the opposite view), but they most certainly claim that it is part of an infidel western plot, and so target vaccination workers, whether Western (or other foreigners) or Pakistani.   They have long claimed that vaccination programmes are a cover for spying, even before the CIA used a fake vaccination program to help confirm Osama bin Laden's location in Pakistan, prior to their assassination of him.  In the tribal areas they control, the Taliban have banned the polio vaccination program, endangering the lives and health of some quarter of a million children.  But they, along with powerful cleric allies, are also gaining success in halting or delaying the program - and so endangering the lives of yet more children - in other areas, by the simple expedient of shooting and / or kidnapping the doctors and health care workers.  In July, a UN doctor was injured in an attack in Karachi.  

In October, gunmen on motorcycles shot up a vaccination team giving drops to under 5's in Quetta, and one victim was killed.

Then there was a series of co-ordinated attacks over a 20 minute period in Karachi, a favourite Taliban hunting ground, just yesterday.  Four women workers were shot dead, and the polio vaccination program has been suspended in the city.  Elsewhere, in Peshawar another female vaccination worker was fatally shot - she died of her injuries later that day.  

Experts say Pakistan is an especially key battleground against the disease because of the danger of reinfection of other nations.  Recent cases in China came from Pakistan, and the number of children paralysed in Pakistan has been rising, with 200 recorded last year.  

The Taliban once again show themselves to be students of evil and death.

Essa Nagri - Walls and Wars

Christians in the Pentecostal church at Essa Nagri

Desecrated bibles

Damaged building and furniture

Many of our articles have featured Essa Nagri, the Christian slum area in Karachi.  This is a community under siege.  Last month on 18th October a group of Taliban terrorists attacked and desecrated a Pentecostal church, firing gun shots in the air to keep Christians from coming to put a stop to their activity.  Church windows were smashed, the donations box was looted and about £269 stolen, and bibles and hymn books were desecrated - taken out, torn and trampled and danced upon.  (So many attacks go on Essa Nagri that in researching this story we found we appear to have missed a story in June about another two attacks on churches in Essa Nagri, when a Seventh Day Adventist church and St Luke's church were attacked.  A Christian called Aftab Bhatti was shot in the leg trying to defend the Adventist church.)

The attack happened on a night where there was a power black out, a common problem in Pakistan.  The attack on the 18th attack came 10 days after an attack by a Muslim mob on the nearby Catholic St Francis church during a protest about similar blackouts.  In a rare move, the police actually charged the mob under blasphemy laws, but we don't know if any individuals were actually arrested.  We aren't holding our breaths on that one!

The Taliban are routinely attacking churches and Ahmadi places of worship in Karachi.   They have been entering Essa Nagri with heavy machine guns and shooting Christians, stealing from shops, and demanding money from shopkeepers.  In addition, gangs are kidnapping Christian girls and boys to sexually abuse and use in the sex-slave trade.  A local tribal council has enforced sharia fines on the Christian community for daring to defend themselves.  The police have done nothing.

The most recent attacks came after the local Christians in the slum spent millions of rupees (1 million rupees is about £649) building a wall all around their area for protection.  However, this time the police did do something - on 17th October they marched en masse armed with tear-gas to tear down the wall that protected the Christians from the Taliban shooters and extortionists, ostensibly because the wall blocked the access to a mosque, thus allowing the militants in to loot the Pentecostal church the very next day and continue oppressing the Christian community.

Sources 1 and 2

Blasphemy, bible, children and sharia: Karachi, Bangladesh and Egypt

As we have seen, Muslim extremists have no compunction in attacking children and the vulnerable. They did it with Rimsha, and now the Taliban have shot a courageous 14 year old Muslim girl as she waited for her school bus, because she has exposed their atrocities and stood up for education for girls and the rights of women which they despise.  The pitiful excuse from Pakistani Taliban?  'Whoever leads a campaign against Sharia and Islam is ordered to be killed by Sharia'.
Oh yes, lets shoot unarmed schoolgirls and claim she was leading a campaign against 'Sharia'.  Was she?  If Sharia involves the oppression of women and the massacres of innocents, then yes she did.
Apparently it is 'obligatory' to kill such courageous people.  They justify it by citing the example of one of the companions of the prophet of Islam who killed his blind wife for using words against the prophet, a prophet who praised that self same act.  It also justifies the killing of the young by referring to an alleged godly and righteous teacher of Moses mentioned in the Koran who killed a child, and justified by saying that the child would bring a 'bad name' upon his godly parents.
This is the kind of pathetic and satanic excuse that these Taliban barbarians use for trying to murder an innocent and unarmed schoolgirl in cold blood.  If you want to read what they said (and their claim that they did not attack her because of her educational work, and that it is all lies of the media - see here.

5th Christian shot dead in Essa Nagri

Body of Zulifiqar Masih

At 10:30pm on 22nd September, there was yet another fatal attack on the Christians of Essa Nagri in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.  This time the victim was Zulifiqar Masih, a young man of 30.  The attacks are being perpetrated by Muslim extremists (Taliban) who target the Christian slum, using various weapons including machine guns.  There were also fatalities and woundings due to police firing on peacefully protesting Christians
Victims
29th August                  Fasil Masih
12th September             Yousaf Masih
15th September             Rafi Masih,and Nasir Masih, and several Christians injured
22nd September            Zulifiqar Masih.

RIP.
Local activists are again calling for prayer for the Christians of Essa Nagri

Islamic extremists target champion of Karachi Christians

BPCA have received the following report from Liaquat, who heads up MASS, an organisation that supports and stands up for Christians in Karachi, particular in some of the poorer areas.  Once more Islamic extremists - in this case, the Taliban - show their cowardice and moral bankruptcy by targeting those who peacefully and courageously stand up for those vulnerable people the cowards target.


Dear brothers and sisters of the world,
I have severe life threat from the fundamentlist.The terrorist gave life threat on 12th august 2012 in the P.I.B police station  at 10:30pm.They told me we will kill you and your family.Because you are working for the voiceless christians in Pakistan.the P.I.B police station arrest me and Mr.Raja yousaf Bhatti (senior vise president of MASS),Mr.Nasir Jhon (cultural secretary of MASS),Mr.Talat Mehmood (member of advisory council).They are also get the same life threat in P.I.B police station Karachi Pakistan.
Due to this life threat we cant sleep properly,we cant eat properly,and we cant move properly,we are very depressed and shocked.Our famlies are very depressed and upset,and also our well wishers are very depressed and upset.All peoples of ESSA NAGRI (bigest christian colony of karachi) are depressed because lot of time we forward the applications to police and other authroties.But police and authroties are fail to provide us security.In this bad and tipical situation ,our power is our God.I request to my all christian brothers and sisters,kindly pray for us and our families God will save us.
Yours brother in JESUS CHRIST
Liaquat Munawar Masih

MASS

Religious cyber and civil war, and Christian desperation

One controversy that is starting to raise hackles within the Christian community is calls by some for a separate Christian state or province in the Punjab region, to try and get relief from their constant oppression and persecution.  This political hot potato has proponents of the idea condemning Christians in mainstream parties who oppose it as stooges of an establishment agenda - here, for instance.  Proponents say that a Christian province (not one in which Muslims are banned, but one where they live amongst Christians in peace) has merit - in this article, for instance, where it is also noted some Christian leaders are calling for the UN to grant refugee status to all Christians of Pakistan (about 20 million).  Whatever we may think about the merits or practicality of such calls, one thing is for sure, these are the manifestations of tangible Christian desperation - 2nd class citizens, discriminated against, murdered, raped, kidnapped, the properties and lands destroyed or stolen, prey to mobs of Muslim fanatics, vulnerable to false accusations and torture in any dispute, just because they are Christian.  This situation, and maybe the calls for a separate province may be behind a recent announcement by the Federal Government.  Paul Bhatti, brother of martyred minister Shahbaz Bhatti, has been pressing for greater minority representation in Pakistani political life, and the federal   government has just approved these plans, apparently with rises in reversed seats at provincial and federal levels, in line with local minority population levels.  Details are still to be worked out, however (and we all know who is in the details!...)

The background is the increasing dominance and influence of Islamicist groups, some of them banned as terrorist organisations.  Non-Islamic minorities are not the only ones affected, with Shia's facing what they call a state-backed genocide in Balochistan, according to a BBC report.    (The death rate in sectarian violence is soaring, with Shia's and Hazara communities being primary targets - over 400 have been killed in the last 4 years.)  Whatever the truth about state complicity (the Shias say the government knows full well all the bases of the terrorists who openly boast about their attacks), it is crystal clear - and has been for a long time - that terrorist and extremist groups have a massively disproportionate and degrading, not to mention destabilizing effect on Pakistani society.  Evidence is rife.  For instance, a Muslim mob recently invaded a police station and beat to death a mentally ill man accused of blasphemy.  (This seems to be thesame case we recently reported about a man burnt alive - apparently he was beaten to death and then his corpse was set on fire. The name of the man, an alleged Sufi 'vagabond', is unknown and his family hasn't come forward, possibly out of fear of the consequences for family members of those accused of blasphemy - a fact which is telling in itself).  The repeated instant closing down of attempts to reform the perverse and much abused blasphemy laws is further evidence of extremist domination, as recounted in a recent article entitled 'Exit God, enter madness', showing that many of Pakistan's Muslims share these concerns.  The article ended with the prayer of a distraught Muslim 'May Allah save Islam from Pakistan.'  Although, many of us would swap a couple of the words over....

In addition, one sign of possible (very tenuous) hope for the future of Pakistan is a recent 'Pew survey' which showed that the Taliban are least popular where they are most active.  They are most hated in the Khyber province, where much of their activity actually happens.  Their popularity is higher where their population is not as affected.  If that holds true, the downside is that for the Taliban to become unpopular more widely, the other areas would have to 'enjoy' their rule.  Interestingly, the survey also showed that those who were more 'ritualistic' in their faith - those who prayed 5 times a day - where more likely to have negative views of the Taliban.  Make of that what you will......

(There have also been some recent efforts among moderate Muslims to raise the issue of minority discrimination, with calls for the 'moderate majority to take charge'.  At about the same time 'progressive lawyers and social activists launched the 'Forum for Secular Pakistan'.  We shall see whether it can have any impact.  You can read their founding declaration here)

In short, there is basically a (fairly) low-level religious civil war going on in Pakistan.  No wonder vulnerable Christians want out, some kind of safe haven.

Another evidence of Islamicist influence is the increasingly oppressive and dictatorial decisions of the 'Inter Ministerial Committee', an elusive and seemingly unaccountable body that regulates Pakistan's cyberspace, that seems to be waging a war on some minority group websites.  This article is sketchy about details, and BPCA has asked for more information, but it seems that there is a regressive trend in the body's decisions.  First it targeted content deemed blasphemous content, then national security related information, then religious minority, and now it seems to be targeting web content 'pertaining to minorities in Pakistan'.  If we hear more, we will keep you posted.  And if you have examples or more detailed information, please contact us by leaving a comment with your email address below (don't worry, we won't publish your email addresses).

For further information about the background to the demand made for a separate province, see here.  The context is that the groups are raising the issue, if their primary demands for better treatment of Christians (and other minorities) are not met.  Some of the primary demands are officially policy, others are proving controversial even within the Christian community.   

Kidnap and forced conversion reaches 1 a day!

From Watson Gill, in Holland, we have news of another kidnap at gunpoint from the street in broad daylight of a Christian girl. The report names the victim as Mehak Masih, 14 years old, and the chief perpetrator is Tayeb Butt, who lead four friends in the attack.

The report mentions that not a single one of the increasing number of murders of Christians have been resolved, and that abducting and selling Christian girls is like a legal business for the perpetrators. Over the last month the rate of kidnap and forced conversions of Christian girls has reached one a day! It happens especially in Punjab due to the influence of the Taliban and other wicked groups, and the government - as ever - does precisely nothing!