ICC Note:

A video of a Pakistani Christian boy being publicly beaten for drinking water from a fountain located inside a mosque has once again brought the persecution of Christians in Pakistan into international headlines. These images of Christians suffering in Pakistan naturally lead many to ask why Christians in the South Asian nation suffer so much. Despite the complexity of the answer to that question, the fact remains that Christians in Pakistan face discrimination almost on a daily basis. At times, this escalates to outright persecution. Will the Pakistan ever become a place where Christians receive equal treatment? 

12/02/2016 Pakistan (The Express Tribune) – News and images of Pakistani Christians being beaten up or being wrongly prosecuted are not surprising for the Pakistani public, especially since Pakistan ranks number six on the Open Doors World Watch List for Christian prosecution. Verily, one cannot turn a blind eye to such violence when it takes place so often.

With the growing intolerance rate in Pakistan, many members belonging to minority groups continue to pay the price for acts they don’t even know constitute as crimes. And, realistically, they aren’t.

A couple of days ago, a Christian boy was shown to be brutally beaten up in a video for allegedly drinking water from a fountain located inside a mosque. Are these the consequences of him accessing a public facility which provides the most basic utility for survival? Is being physically assaulted in public by self-proclaimed Muslim men who took it upon themselves to punish an innocent person for stepping into a Muslim place of worship and sharing their water justified?

The video shows the boy yelling and screaming from pain after being whipped with wooden sticks and being beaten with shoes.

Evidently, in the Christian context, the root causes of the anxieties of the community owe it to the actions of common Pakistanis. However, there are many other non-violent forms of discrimination Christians have to tolerate on a daily basis, such as poor or no access to education, lack of employment opportunities, and hurdles in social mobility. Many employers prefer Christians for sanitation jobs, and advertise for those jobs as open only to non-Muslims (read: Christians wanted). For instance, the derogatory term “churha” (sweepers) is commonly used to describe Christians.

In fact, it’s important to take into account the impacts of both class and religion in order to understand the discrimination the Christian community faces. Caste-based discrimination has existed in this part of the world for years, so to say that religious intolerance is the only factor contributing to their discrimination is very limiting.

These negative perceptions have created a dangerous situation for the peace and security of Pakistan’s Christian community. The suffering they face and how they are viewed by the mainstream Muslim population can be measured by the horrendous conditions with which they must compete on a daily basis. Forced marriage and conversion to Islam are some of the worst kinds of challenges they encounter.

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