Matthew HamiltonAugust 17, 2012
The persecution of Christians and Hindus in Pakistan has been an item of international concern since before the country’s founding in 1947. However, the level of persecution, barbarism, and violence that Pakistan’s religious minorities must endure has been increasing in recent years and is reaching levels that are so abhorrent that they are drawing far more media attention and scrutiny than has previously been experienced. The reason for this rise is what has been coined the “Talibanization” of Pakistan. Areas of the country that were once considered to be relatively safe for religious minorities are now inundated with radical Islamists who have been perpetrating the most sadistic and inhumane horrors against particularly Christians and Hindus. The increasing number of incidents including murders, kidnappings, rapes, beatings, and all manner of lesser violence, vandalism, and discrimination. Websites like Persecution.org now report with near-daily frequency on new atrocities being committed against Christians in Pakistan. News outlets are now reporting of a “Hindu exodus” from Pakistan to India. In just the last few days, hundreds of Pakistani Hindus from Sindh Province in the south of the country have fled for the security of India. The Outlook India interviewed several of the Hindu refugees, who said they were fleeing because of the violence and that no place in Pakistan was safe for Hindus anymore. One refugee claimed that "there is no law and order in Sindh province and the government is watching the activities of fundamentalists as a mute spectator." Another refugee from Sindh Province was quoted by the Washington Post lamenting: “They [Islamists] barge into our homes in broad daylight, snatch jewelry from the women, money from our shops, and kidnap Hindu girls and convert them to Islam.” Pakistan is especially dangerous for non-Muslim women who constantly live under the cloud of fear that at any time they could be abducted by Muslims and forcibly married and/or converted with absolutely no hope of rescue. For those who may not know, the terms “forced marriage” or “forced conversion” are a pleasant way of saying a non-Muslim woman was kidnapped and brutally gang raped and beaten, sometimes over the course of months or even years, until she signed a marriage certificate or a certificate to show that she has converted to Islam. At which point, she is doomed to live with her rapist abductors forever. According to the Pakistan Christian Post, last year more than 1,800 Christian and Hindu girls we abducted, gang raped, beaten, and forced to sign such papers. One particularly horrifying case from last year involved a Christian girl who was re-abducted by two Muslim men in Punjab Province. She was taken away by the thugs and brutally gang raped and beaten until she agreed to sign papers saying that she was married to her rapist. She endured 8 months of inhumane sadistic rape, emotional abuse, and all manner of torments before she managed to escape. She was only 12 years old. Her family had contacted police about her abduction, but as is typical for Pakistan’s Muslim dominated law enforcement, absolutely no action was taken to find her. After the young girl called her parents to tell them she had escaped and was picked up by them, they took her to the police to file a report against the abductors and rapists. The police refused to take their case and instead said that since she had signed legal documents saying that she was married to a Muslim, she should be returned to her husband. The family now must live in hiding from both the Islamists who regularly gang raped their daughter, and the police who want to return her to her rapists. Sadly, tragedies as harrowing as this are far more prevalent than the number of news stories that make it to the general public would suggest. The barbaric persecution of Pakistan’s non-Muslims is so bad that it threatens a severe diplomatic confrontation between India and Pakistan. According to the Christian Post, India’s Parliament this week appealed to summon the Pakistani envoy to discuss the state of religious minorities in Pakistan and answer to the government’s failure to protect non-Muslims, failure to investigate and prosecute Islamist murders, rapists, looters etc. and even for being complicit in the persecution. So far the Pakistani government has only responded with mock outrage as Interior Minister Rehman Malik alleged indignantly that this is all part of a “conspiracy to defame Pakistan.” Related Articles: