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| India-Pakistan | |
| Dhimmi Christians rise up in protest about Bhatti assassination | |
| 2011-03-07 | |
| Hundreds of Christians have taken to the streets of Pakistan in protest at the assassination of the minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, who was gunned down outside his home on Wednesday. As the government declared three days of mourning, demonstrations were held across Punjab, where the Christian community is concentrated, with protesters burning tyres and demanding justice. Such a show of anger is rare among Pakistan's Christian minority, who enjoy little political power and are more often in the news as victims of violence from Muslim extremists. One of the largest crowds gathered in Gojra, in Punjab, where nine Christians were killed – seven of them burned alive – in 2009. "The killers may have escaped the scene of the crime but the real culprit is known to all: an extremist mindset that has, with the sponsorship of some institutions of the state, spread far and wide," wrote Dawn newspaper. References to "institutions" are usually a euphemism for the military's powerful intelligence agencies that nurtured select jihadist groups in the 80s and 90s and, according to western officials, still do today. When the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, led a two-minute silence in parliament, three members of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party
Pakistani society is nominally caste-free, but anti-Christian prejudices run deep, with Christians largely confined to low-paying jobs. Some Muslims refuse to eat food cooked by Christians, considering it unclean. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |