by IRFAN AHMED
On Mar. 9, 2013, Muslim mobs torched the Christian neighbourhood known as Joseph Colony in Lahore. PHOTO/Irfan Ahmed/IPS
LAHORE, Apr 28 2013 (IPS) – Younas Gill, a self-employed tax accountant, sits on the pavement in Joseph Colony, Lahore, staring at the place where, until about a month ago, his home had stood.
It was burnt to ashes on Mar. 9, when a mob of Muslims tore through this Christian neighbourhood in the Badami Bagh district of Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, torching homes and displacing over 150 families.
Gill and his family now rely on government support and charitable contributions while they struggle to piece their lives back together. On Apr. 22, the Lahore diocese of the Church of Pakistan distributed a fridge, ceiling fans, pedestal fan, a two-burner stove, bicycle and iron to each of the affected families.
“The provincial government helped with the reconstruction of our house and NGOs and relief organisations are constantly supporting the locals since the tragedy occurred,” Gill told IPS.
But the passage of time, and the return of a sense of normalcy, has not replaced the fear that swept through this settlement just over a month ago. Gill says residents “fear reprisal from accused arsonists who have won bail from the courts.”
They are now back on the streets, “some of them with vengeance”, Gill said.
Men like Gill, and his fellow community members, represent the precariousness of life for Pakistan’s 2.8 million Christian residents, a tiny minority in a country of 170 million people, who have borne the brunt of so-called blasphemy laws that prescribe the death penalty for defamation of the Prophet Muhammad and life imprisonment for those who desecrate the Holy Quran.
New clauses introduced between 1980 and 1986 during the reign of former president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq opened the door to broad interpretation of the law: between 1986 and 2013 1,100 cases of blasphemy have been brought to the courts, a significant number of which are against Christians, says Peter Jacob, secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCPJ), formed by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan.
Jacob and other experts say these allegations are often trumped up and fabricated, and used by clerics and other religious leaders to incite mobs to attack Christian communities.
Inter Press Service for more