ICC Note:

A Christian member of Pakistan’s Punjab government has called out for international support for Christians in Pakistan. The politician claimed that the government of Pakistan does not care for Christians and that it, at times, actively engages in keeping the religious minority community down. These statements were made in the wake of the Easter bombing in Lahore that reportedly targeted Christians. Christians in Pakistan have often been targeted by terrorist and extremist groups because of a lack of security provided by the government and because of the disdain they receive as religious minorities. 

4/8/2016 Pakistan (Church Times) – Vulnerable Christians in Pakistan need the support of the international community in a country where they are “constantly under threat”, and the government is content to see them remain downtrodden.

This was the message of Shunila Ruth, a Christian politician in the provincial assembly of Punjab, the province where more than 70 people were killed in a terrorist attack on an amusement park on Easter Day.

“We need the international support and help to stand with us on these issues because, as a Christian community alone, it will not be possible to overcome this,” she said last week. “Internally, they do not listen to us. The government does not care. Its policy is to keep them divided, not giving them education of opportunities; so they are a suppressed community, and cannot rise above resolving their issues of bread and butter.”

In the wake of the suicide bombing at Gulshan-e-Iqbal amusement park, Mrs Ruth received the chairman of her party, Imran Khan, of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), at Jinnah hospital, where victims were being treated. She estimates that more than 35 Christians were killed, most of whom were children on the swings near the gates where the bomb was detonated.

Politicians, particularly Opposition leaders, had warned that the park was vulnerable, without police or security cameras, she says. The army knew that there were terrorists in the area, but the local government was “in denial”, insisting that there were no no-go areas in Lahore, and resisting the implementation of the National Action Plan to tackle terrorism. After the Easter bombing, hundreds of suspected militants were arrested, she says. “Had this operation been done earlier, these children, this attack on the park, could have been avoided.”

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